Coletti

Gov. Mike Easley’s proposed $18.9 billion budget does not provide enough relief to taxpayers who made it possible. The governor could have returned the $1.1 billion in overcollections to taxpayers without jeopardizing future fiscal health. This would include ending the half-cent sales tax and 8.25 percent income tax rate set to expire in 2007, and providing a temporary quarter-cent sales tax refund. Removing the county burden for Medicaid would also ease the fiscal pressure local governments face to raise taxes to pay for schools and roads.

Gov. Mike Easley’s proposed state budget takes advantage of a $2 billion surplus to increase spending by $1.6 billion, according to a preliminary analysis by the John Locke Foundation.

RALEIGH – An expansion of the state-federal Medicaid program is a prescription for more health care problems, a new John Locke Foundation Spotlight argues. Instead, consumers should manage their own…

Health care is again a top priority for most Americans. Health savings accounts offer promise and are growing in popularity among companies and individuals. Three states will soon begin consumer-directed Medicaid pilot programs. These are more realistic approaches than proposals by the NC Institute of Medicine and others to expand Medicaid or to force employers to provide health insurance. Individuals, not companies or the state, are best equipped to manage their own health care. Health care reform should start from this premise.

RALEIGH – It’s time for New Hanover County to close the only municipal solid waste incinerator left in the state. That’s the key finding in a new John Locke Foundation…

New Hanover County’s waste-to-energy incinerator (WASTEC) was built in 1984 to extend the life of the county landfill and also to make money from selling the energy it generated. The incinerator was never able to make money, relying instead on subsidies from the landfill and a higher tipping fee. New technologies and competition have made this costly option obsolete.

RALEIGH – North Carolina leaders should avoid turning a one-year state revenue surplus into a long-term budget nightmare. That’s the new warning from a John Locke Foundation fiscal policy analyst.

State tax revenues grow in strong economies. Politicians use the new revenue to create or expand government programs. In recessions, revenues fall and tax rates rise to pay for the higher level of spending. Spending and taxes in the last ten years illustrate this pattern. As North Carolina enters another period of expanding revenues, Gov. Mike Easley and the General Assembly must avoid the temptation to increase spending so they do not have to increase taxes in the next recession.

RALEIGH – Gov. Mike Easley and leaders of the North Carolina General Assembly are resisting calls for halting a hike in the gas tax that took effect earlier this week,…

State leaders claim that capping the gas tax at 27.1 cents per gallon would cost the state up to $135 million a year in road construction. They are wrong. The state will be just $5.3 million behind projections planned for in this year’s budget if it freezes the gas tax. Furthermore, nearly $400 million in gas tax revenues goes toward spending that has nothing to do with road construction. The General Fund, public transportation, railroads, and airlines all receive gas-tax revenues. There is no need to take money from road construction so long as gas-tax revenues are diverted to unrelated programs.