John Locke Updates: 2017

The Senate budget spends $22.9 billion, up 2.5 percent over the 2016-17 budget and 3.75 percent over actual spending.  Like Gov. Roy Cooper’s budget, it raises pay for teachers and…

Since North Carolina implemented sweeping tax reform in 2013, there has been interest in expanding North Carolina’s sales tax to include services. The idea is to transform the sales…

A proposed federal border-adjustment tax would cost North Carolina consumers an additional $800 million in higher property-casualty insurance premiums over the next decade. That’s the bottom-line conclusion from…

This week, the Senate budget was released.  There are plenty of other provisions inserted into the budget bill that affects cities and counties, but those are mostly related to public…

The North Carolina Senate has just released its $22.9 billion budget plan for fiscal years 2017-2019. The Senate proposed spending $5.2 billion of that total on all Health and Human Services…

A criticism of Republicans at the national level has often been that they want the same thing as Democrats, just less of it. Who expected Senate President Pro Tem Phil…

Published on May 4, 2017 Katherine Restrepo, John Locke Foundation director of health care policy, discusses the U.S. House’s vote on a bill to repeal elements of…

In 2007, the North Carolina General Assembly approved a local option sales tax for counties.  Essentially, it allowed counties to impose an additional quarter-cent sales tax if it was approved…

State senators are still working on their budget bill this week, and it may take until the week of May 15 for them to make it public and vote on…

If you are a North Carolina taxpayer and you think something looks familiar about President Trump’s tax reform plan, you are right.  In the three big areas of tax policy…