Coletti

Health insurance should act like insurance, not a payment plan for regular medical needs. It should also be available for individuals to purchase in a deregulated market. A high-risk pool for health insurance, as in other insurance markets, would keep premiums affordable for the small percentage of those with significant care needs without raising costs for the entire market. The state of North Carolina should finance any high-risk pool entirely through the General Fund and existing taxes, rather than assessments on insurers or other hidden taxes. Money for a high-risk pool can come from Medicaid savings.

The General Assembly is often said to have "tax and spend" policies, but its pattern is one of "spend and tax" policies. During economic booms, tax revenues increase and legislators fund new programs that cannot be sustained during an economic bust. When the bust comes, legislators raise taxes to pay for those new government programs.

RALEIGH – North Carolina legislators employ a “spend and tax” budget policy that paves the way for regular tax hikes, according to a new John Locke Foundation Policy Report.

As the debate about immigration continues, all involved need to be aware of the limitations of existing statistics. Hispanics are about 6 percent of the state’s population and growing. Illegal immigrants make up an estimated 45 percent of the state’s Hispanic population, but 76 percent of recent entrants. The economic and government service usage effects of Hispanics on the state are also significant, but the impact of illegal immigrants is less clear.

RALEIGH – Dubious numbers hamper the debate over illegal immigration in North Carolina, according to a new Spotlight report from the John Locke Foundation. “As the debate about immigration…

Economic growth has given the General Assembly $2.4 billion more to spend. Higher sales and income taxes have contributed to this surplus. The Senate adds $1.4 billion in new spending, and relies on nonrecurring revenues for $400 million in new recurring obligations. Drawing on the John Locke Foundation’s Freedom Budget 2005, this paper offers an alternative budget that would end the sales tax and income tax increases from 2001, eliminate Medicaid’s burden on counties, and keep spending growth to 4.3 percent – all within the limit of population growth and inflation.

RALEIGH – N.C. legislators should close the books on two “temporary” taxes, now that those taxes have helped generate a $2.4 billion state budget surplus. That’s a key finding in…

RALEIGH – North Carolina rewards its state employees for longevity, not productivity, a new John Locke Foundation Spotlight report finds. That’s not a payment system that attracts or keeps…

State government needs pay its employees differently if it wants to keep the best of them. The average state employee earns as much as the average employee nationally, but across-the-board pay raises fail to reward employees for performance. Employees who choose to work for the state are more risk averse and may stay despite a lack of productivity. But these employees merely substitute unseen political risk for visible market risk. The General Assembly should consider more pay for performance and portable benefits for state employees.

Budget proposals from Gov. Mike Easley and the Senate put state spending back on the path of rapid growth last seen in the late 1990s. After inflation, the state will spend 10 percent more per resident on operations in the FY2006-07 than it did just three years ago. Real spending per resident is up 23 percent in the last decade. If the General Assembly had restricted spending growth to inflation and population growth over the decade, the General Fund operations budget would be $3.4 billion less than proposed.