Research Brief

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…

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…

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…

You may have heard that the answer to life, the universe, and everything is 42, but nobody knows the question. In state government, people either have questions or they…

It would be hard to find a more blatant example of cronyism than the North Carolina law that forbids brewers who produce more than 25,000 barrels per year from selling…

This week, those on the Left have offered various critiques of my awesome new Spotlight report, North Carolina: A Destination for Teachers.  They took issue with two aspects of…

What do subsidies for “green” energy, mandated health insurance benefits, and quotas on imported sugar have in common? Clearly, all three policies generate a wealth transfer from the consumers in…

Pigs have many virtues, but smelling good isn’t one of them. If fact, they—or, more accurately, their waste products—smell bad. As a result, pigs have played—and in North Carolina, they…