Joseph Coletti

Senior Fellow, Fiscal Studies

Posts by Joseph Coletti (page 7)

  • Borrowing without taxpayer permission could raise costs 20 percent

    Although Wake County projects enrollment to grow just 0.7% over the next six years, commissioners still plan to borrow money for school construction this year. They plan to do it without a vote of taxpayers, which would mean a 20% larger tax increase to cover higher interest…
    Joseph Coletti, February 13, 2020

  • What gives? Is this the Medicaid we want to expand?

    In response to stories of layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Brian Balfour at the Civitas Institute found that the agency has spent 12% more through December compared to the prior fiscal year. Looking closer, Medicaid spending is $261 million ahead of last year ($90…
    Joseph Coletti, February 11, 2020
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  • North Carolina as a model for OPEB retiree health benefits

    Retiree health benefits today represent a $31 billion unfunded liability for state government on top of the $10 billion unfunded liability for state employee pensions. Daniel DiSalvo of the Manhattan Institute writes in a paper released today that North Carolina could offer a model for other states…
    Joseph Coletti, February 6, 2020

  • Money and action in civil society

    A recent essay provided as examples of reclaiming civil society: “an independent voter organizing project…[that] ultimately elected a progressive woman as a county commissioner in a conservative rural county.” So much for civil society as neighbors helping neighbors and the lesson of the Good Samaritan who used his own money…
    Joseph Coletti, January 30, 2020

  • Mecklenburg ASC’s future with no sales tax bailout

    Mecklenburg voters soundly rejected a proposed quarter-cent sales tax hike in November. The $50 million tax hike to bail out the Arts & Science Council would have delivered $22.5 million per year to the Arts and Science Council, $17 million to parks and greenways; $8 million to education; and $2.5…
    Joseph Coletti, January 17, 2020

  • Revaluing home ownership

    Has government policy, in promoting home ownership, actually made it more difficult to own a home? It’s almost a ridiculous question: who ever heard of a government policy having unintended effects that are opposite of intended outcome? It’s like suggesting that there was gambling at Rick’s Cafe.
    Joseph Coletti, January 16, 2020

  • Needed: personal community and role models

    David French, who joined Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes to create the recently launched Dispatch is ” convinced that the more we politicize the crisis [in community] rather than personalize it and spiritualize it, the more we’ll miss the mark.” “A functioning community doesn’t just provide love and resources,” French…
    Joseph Coletti, January 14, 2020

  • Clawback contracts are costly

    Governments like to use clawbacks, in which they provide a benefit but demand it back if some objective is not reached. North Carolina uses clawbacks for some tax incentives, but could not recover millions of dollars that had been paid to Dell Technologies when that company closed a plant…
    Joseph Coletti, January 6, 2020