Archives: John Hood

For all the talk of a fiscal crisis this year and the need to tighten the belt of state government, Gov. Jim Hunt's proposed adjustments to the FY 2000-01 budget would hike General Fund operating spending by nearly 7 percent, vastly increase state debt, and deplete state savings accounts for many years to come. The budget also contains many new items of questionable merit. North Carolinians should not be surprised to see sizable tax increases in the future as a result.

As state lawmakers grapple with a projected budget gap of at least half a billion dollars, some observers have blamed recent tax cuts for the problem. But modest tax reductions in the mid-1990s followed big tax increases earlier in the decade. The net change in taxes in the 1990s was a tax increase of nearly half a billion dollars. Other proposed causes for the gap, including poor legal representation and excessive spending growth during the decade, are more persuasive.

Author Charles J. Sykes identifies a growing crisis in North Carolina higher education and suggests reforms to reward teaching, improve curriculum, and to spend scarce resources better. (40 pages-not available online.)

Co-authors John Hood and Don Carrington follow up their much-celebrated 1995 report on North Carolina state spending, proposing 179 recommendations for budget savings and tax cuts totalling $725 million. (28 pages-not available online.)

Co-authors Michael Lowrey and Jonathan C. Jordan examine North Carolina transportation policy and recommend ways of improving it without resorting to more taxation, regulation, and government control. (38 pages-not available online.)

By the Numbers: Comparing the Cost of Local Governments in North Carolina represents an attempt by the John Locke Foundation to help North Carolina citizens get a handle on the total cost of their local governments.

North Carolina's new Child Health Insurance Program known as Health Choice has grown rapidly in its first two years, attracting national praise and prompting calls for additional funding to enroll more children. But the program, while helping to reduce the uninsured rate, has also contributed to a 30 percent drop in private coverage and self-sufficiency among families of modest means. Significant changes are needed to ensure a better use of taxpayer dollars.

Among the major causes of this year's $800 million state budget deficit is a $108 million increase in projected Medicaid spending. After a brief period of slow growth in the late-1990s, North Carolina's Medicaid program is now a significant threat to the state's long-term fiscal health. It is also the most expensive Medicaid program in the South. The state should enact reforms in eligibility and benefits which could save taxpayers at least $251 million a year.

State policymakers are considering a $43 million request for additional funding for poor school districts and awaiting the resolution of the Leandro school finance case. They should keep in mind that funding disparities among North Carolina school districts are minor due to their primary reliance on state rather than local taxes. Indeed, in inflation-adjusted spending per pupil, the state's 25 poorest districts are better funded today than the 25 richest districts were 11 years ago.

Like taxes, state and local regulations have an enormous impact on the average citizen as well as on businesses, especially small business — the key to job creation in a vibrant economy. In many ways, regulations are a more onerous and hidden way than taxes for the state to take resources out of the private sector to accomplish what is at least a purportedly public objective.