Joseph Coletti

Senior Fellow

Posts by Joseph Coletti (page 9)

  • States should be able to tax services, not just stuff

    Arizona voters could choose to become only the second state to exclude services from sales taxes. One of the basic principles of taxation is to have a low rate and a broad base. [P]olicy experts warn that such a ban limits a state’s revenue-raising options and could actually be…
    Joseph Coletti, October 17, 2018

  • Better data and better ideas to improve economic mobility

    “Skill disparities, family dynamics, early childhood development and incarceration effects” are important factors in long-term income inequality left out of recent work that has garnered national headlines, write Nobel economist James Heckman and Archbridge Institute CEO Gonzalo Schwarz. They warn that incomplete assessments could lead to wrong prescriptions of…
    Joseph Coletti, October 10, 2018
    Featured image thumbnail

  • Cary taxpayers on hook for boutique hotel debt

    The Town of Cary provided loans worth $2.6 million to help open a boutique hotel, the Mayton Inn, in its downtown area. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development loaned the town $1.4 million of that total. Now the hotel’s owner, Memento Mori has filed for bankruptcy and the…
    Joseph Coletti, September 27, 2018
    Featured image thumbnail

  • Obesity itself is not a health problem

    “Everything you know about obesity is wrong.” Whether you believe fat people are failures, skinny people are health, diets work, or exercise will make you thin, it is not necessarily true. Since 1959, research has shown that 95 to 98 percent of attempts to lose weight fail and that…
    Joseph Coletti, September 20, 2018

  • Who is supposed to collect the ACP payment?

    The $57.8 million payment agreed between Gov. Cooper and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline partners remains in limbo and a new investigative committee will “probe Cooper’s involvement with the Atlantic Coast Pipeline,” Dan Way writes for Carolina Journal. From committee debate, it appears nobody knows, or will say, whether the…
    Joseph Coletti, September 6, 2018

  • Entitlements always expand

    Get paid now to take parental leave in exchange for deferring Social Security payments later. It sounds like a simple and “budget neutral” to help women earn more in their careers while getting their children off to a good start. Kristin Shapiro, Andrew Biggs, and others have argued on…
    Joseph Coletti, September 5, 2018

  • North Carolina tax revenues less volatile than most

    North Carolina’s tax revenue is about average, after adjusting for tax policy changes, according to a Pew Charitable Trusts comparison of major sources of state revenue. For North Carolina, this means the personal income tax, motor fuels tax, and the sales tax, but not the corporate income tax.
    Joseph Coletti, September 4, 2018

  • Disney gives back government subsidies

    Anaheim’s libertarian-leaning Mayor Tom Tait and unions supporting a $15 minimum wage seem to have unintentionally found a way to reduce targeted tax incentives. Disney asked the city council to end a “45-year moratorium on a gate tax and a $267 million economic assistance package for a new luxury…
    Joseph Coletti, August 31, 2018