Joseph Coletti

Have you been busy taking advantage of the CyberMonday deals available online today through Wayfair, Overstock, or other online retailers not based in North Carolina? The North Carolina Department of Revenue (NCDOR) tried to make shopping more cumbersome for you and those companies. Instead of waiting for direction…

University of Delaware Professor Farley Grubb has developed an impressive body of work examining colonial-era money. He and his former student Cory Cutsail have a new working paper in which they reconstruct North Carolina’s history from 1712 to 1774 issuing its own money, and what exactly that money was.

Nonprofit organizations, like retailers, earn a significant portion of their revenue for a year between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. This was the case even before Giving Tuesday. What better time to consider why people give in the first place? Giving USA estimates that tax reform’s change in the…

If you’re on this blog, you are probably familiar with Say’s Law that “supply creates its own demand.” In its original formulation, it meant that people could only buy stuff with the income they earned from making stuff. It ignores the ability of people to change the timing of their…

A simple change to ballot language and another small change in ball could have huge impacts on local borrowing. Dan Way reported for Carolina Journal that “Debt fared better than taxes in local referendums.” Only one bond referendum failed. Wake County alone received permission from voters to issue $1.017 billion…

New ID cards from the State Health Plan for Teachers and State Employees made at least one teacher angry. What exactly do the cards and accompanying letter say? State government insures itself and contracts with Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina to administer the program. Legislators have never…

What works better than work requirements to get poor people to work? During a roundtable discussion on work requirements in anti-poverty programs, Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute 1) general economic growth, 2) removing barriers to participation in economic growth such as occupational licenses and post-prison criminal sanctions on…

As younger generations join family giving decisions, there is a greater emphasis on giving locally and on giving time. While people in business, governments, nonprofits and foundations continue to seek investments that scale, there is also a reemerging acceptance that some of the most significant investments we make (in…