Coletti

RALEIGH – A government-sponsored group lobbying for corporate tax incentives in Cumberland County refuses to release details about a study used to support its claims. That’s the assessment of a…

Gov. Mike Easley and the General Assembly continue the spend-and-tax cycle, increasing the General Fund $1.8 billion, 9.5 percent, over last year. General Fund spending on operations reaches $20.7 billion in FY 2007-08, a 43 percent increase in just five years, similar to the five-year period through FY1997-98.

RALEIGH – Increased accountability and a larger private sector role could help improve North Carolina’s troubled mental health system. That’s a major recommendation offered in a new John Locke Foundation…

North Carolina’s 2001 mental health reform was ambitious and well intentioned but flawed. Many proven ideas did not make the final version of reform and lawmakers immediately raided the mental health trust fund to cover a General Fund fiscal crisis in 2001.

RALEIGH – Legislators can adopt a final budget that’s more fiscally responsible than existing House and Senate plans, according to a new John Locke Foundation Spotlight report. Click…

The Senate fiscal year 2007-08 budget would have spent $1.3 billion (7.1 percent) more on operations than the previous year, plus another $1.2 billion in new debt. The Senate would have allowed the 8.0 percent personal income tax bracket and the extra quarter-cent sales tax to expire as current law requires.

House members approved a $20.3 billion budget for fiscal year (FY) 2007-08, up 7.6 percent from FY 2006-07; 1.5 times the 5.1 percent combined rate of inflation and population growth. Proposed spending is $1.4 billion ($158 per person or $632 for a family of four) higher than in FY 2006-07. Nearly all of the increase is in K-12 education, even though dropout rates have been increasing.

RALEIGH – North Carolina lawmakers could cut taxes, slice $1 billion from the governor’s budget plan, and still spend more money on top priorities. That’s according to the John Locke…

Freedom Budget 2007 continues the tradition of John Locke Foundation alternative budgets that revise the governor’s Continuation and Expansion budgets.

Property tax rates, unemployment, and poverty rates are the best guides to a county’s lottery sales per adult. Neither personal nor household income was associated with a county’s level of lottery sales per adult.