June 2, 2016 by Rhino Times

Vol. IV No. 22

Greensboro, North Carolina

www.rhinotimes.com

RHINO PRIMARY PICKS John Hammer

Public Safety, Roads, Missing From Bonds plus Under The Hammer, Uncle Orson Reviews Everything AND MORE

Thursday, June 2, 2016

RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

HINO

SHORTS

by John Hammer Editor

I’m beginning to think I’m one of the few people in the country that has read the Charlotte ordinance that led to House Bill 2. Both Bill O’Reilly and former North Carolina Gov. Jim Martin recently got it wrong. The Charlotte ordinance did not say that transgender people could use the bathroom and shower facilities consistent with their gender identity. What the Charlotte ordinance did was mandate that government and privately owned bathrooms and shower facilities open to the public be gender neutral. The ordinance would have made it illegal to put “Women” or “Men” on the door indicating even the preferred sex. This is far more radical

than simply allowing a few transgender people into the bathrooms that did not correspond to their biological sex. The ever popular Music for a Sunday Evening in the Park kicks off its 2016 season at 6 p.m. on Sunday, June 5 at the historic Blandwood Mansion at 447 W. Washington St., featuring the Greensboro Big Band playing swing and big band jazz. Admission is free. Bringing children and dogs is encouraged.

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Our “A Hair to the Left “ columnist Doug Copeland is honoring Memorial Day by making his annual trip to

Photo by John Hammer

On March 3, we ran a photo of the mother great blue heron on this nest at Lake Townsend. At the time you couldn’t see the chicks. Last week you couldn’t miss the chicks and my guess is the mother was out shopping for food because these guys look like they can eat.

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send me spinning. Without proper instructions I can spend 10 minutes studying the paper towel selection in the grocery store. I have no such problem selecting We had a great Schmoozefest at wine because I have a system. The Kickback Jack’s on Battleground last Muse thinks it is unique, but it seems Thursday. The food was great and obvious to me. plentiful. We had a special guest Once I find wines in my price range, appearance by the Son of a Russian * I take a close look at the label. I’m not Immigrant, and on someone came inwith a approved lowest prices period* select products looking for the date or where the wine Ferrari. We’re hoping for a See Rollsstore or afor details. credit. * was made or the name of the vineyard, Bentley at the next one. (For photos of I’m looking at the design. The name is the Schmoozefest, see page 44.) part of the design, but the design of the label itself is my overriding concern. If How quickly we forget. County the design meets my criteria then I buy $ Editor Scott Yost and I spent some the wine. time this week searching everywhere In the design of the label I’m looking $ $ PLUS for a copy of the Rhino Times from for two things: well designed labels plUs plUs ** **** S H O W C A S E June and July 2013. We could find just and really god-awful labels. The wellIncludes installation, pad, moving furniture, take-up and disposal! See store for details.about every other issue going back to designed ones are pretty obvious. I 1992, but those were missing. It’s not figure that if the winemakers took the a big office, and once we determined time to design a pleasing label they they were not hidden on my desk, we probably took the time to make as Call today and we’re on our way! had nowhere else to look. good a wine as they could at that price $ Mobile Showroom $ It was only then that we rememberd point. Mobile Showroom $ $ that we were out of business from May If it is a god-awful label I figure that on select products with approved Call Today & credit. See store for details. 2013and to October 2013, the reason the winemakers are so caught up in already Includes installation, pad, moving furniture, take-up disposal! See storeand for details. We’re Our ! Got a price? we couldn’t nd disposal! copies of Call On Today & Way Includes installation, pad, moving furniture, take-up fiand Seethe storepaper for details.making wine that they don’t care about * Must purchase padding with carpet. See store for details. already was that they don’t exist. That was a the label. They don’t make labels, they **on selected Shaw products with approved credit ALREADY We’re On Our Way! Got a price? tough six months. It amazes me how make wine. So if the label is horrible, Must GOT A PRICE? * Mustpurchase purchase paddingwith withcarpet. carpet.See Seestore store for for details. details. 2837 Battleground *ave • padding 336-288-6643 **on selected quickly memories fade. I figure the wine is good. I have found **on selectedShaw Shawproducts productswith withapproved approved credit credit www.carpetsbydirect.com this to be true more often than not. Call today and we’re onGuaranteed! our way! Mon-Fri 8am-6pm, Sat 10am-4pm What I don’t buy are wines with Call today and we’re on our way! I went to Total Wine recently to mediocre labels. My thinking is that www.carpetsbydirect.com carpetsbydirect.com replenish on myselectempty products withwine approved rack. Guaranteed! Mon-Fri 8am-6pmSat • 10am-4pm Sat 10am-4pm credit. Seeselection store for details.would Mon-Fri 8am-6pm, GUARANTEED! (continued on page 4) Normally a huge Normandy for the anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944. Copeland’s column will be back when he returns.

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www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

Vote for John Blust for Congress on June 7th to: • Reduce federal spending • Repeal unnecessary regulations • Simplify the federal tax code • Secure the U.S. border • Strengthen our national defense • Protect the right to life • Defend the Second Amendment Distinguished Veteran John Blust has served our country in the elite 82nd Airborne Division, on the Demilitarized Zone in Korea, and as a Captain in the United States Army. Now more than ever, that experience matters.

CONGRESS Paid for by Blust for Congress

voteforblust.com

RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

RHINOSHORTS (continued from page 2)

they didn’t take the time to come up with a good label, nor were they so busy making wine that they were willing to slap any label on the bottles and let them go to market. They did a mediocre job on the label and probably did a mediocre job on the wine also. On this trip I saw a bottle of wine with one of the worst labels I’ve ever seen. The color was ugly, the font was bad, the whole thing didn’t fit together at all, so I bought it. The wine turned out to be surprisingly good. Another bottle I bought had a

beautiful label. Clearly a lot of time and effort went into the design and the name. I hate to admit it but the wine was even better than the awful label, although in defense of my method, it was at the high end of my price range and the hideous bottle was at the low end, so it might not have been a fair comparison. My price range varies but my method does not, and I rarely buy a bottle of wine that I don’t like. To test my theory I’ll buy a bottle or two with mediocre labels and I usually find that I’m right.

table of

CONTENTS 12 PTIA PROJECTS UP,

RHINO PRIMARY ENDORSEMENTS

PASSENGERS DOWN BY SCOTT D. YOST

BY JOHN HAMMER

PUBLIC SAFETY, ROADS, MISSING FROM CITY BONDS

BY JOHN HAMMER

THINK TIRES ARE EXPENSIVE? TRY THROWING THEM AWAY BY SCOTT YOST

13 UNCLE ORSON

BY ORSON SCOTT CARD

41 YOST COLUMN BY SCOTT D. YOST

FEW TURN OUT TO PARTICIPATE IN PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING

51 UNDER THE HAMMER BY JOHN HAMMER

BY JOHN HAMMER

10 JOURNEY OF 1,000

ECON DEV MILES BEGINS WITH FOUR FOCUS GROUPS BY SCOTT D. YOST

RHINO SHORTS

SUDOKU

PUZZLE ANSWERS

REAL ESTATE

CHILDREN’S SCHEDULE

NYT CROSSWORD

THE SOUND OF THE BEEP

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

EDITORIAL CARTOON

Cover: Political signs in front of the Old Guilford County Court House. There is no bond referendum on the ballot on June 7. We were practicing for the fall, just in case. Photo by John Hammer

PUBLISHER Roy Carroll

Anne Bowers at the José Martí International Airport in Havana. She commented that Cuba is the world’s best argument in favor of capitalism. Send your Rhinos Around the World photos to letters@ rhinotimes.com or to PO Box 9023, Greensboro 27429.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF John Hammer

GENERAL MANAGER Joann Zollo

managing editor ELAINE HAMMER

creative director ANTHONY COUNCIL

county editor SCOTT D. YOST

advertising consultants MICK HAYWOOD TYE SINGLETON

contributing editor ORSON SCOTT CARD

cartoonist GEOF BROOKS

216 West Market Street, Greensboro NC 27401 P.O. Box 9023, Greensboro NC 27429 | (336) 763-4170 (continued on page 11) (336) 763-2585 fax | sales@rhinotimes.com | www.rhinotimes.com

Rhino Primary Endorsements

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

Take Yourself-ie Downtown.

by John Hammer We don’t have many primary elections in June in North Carolina, but then again federal judges don’t rule congressional districts unconstitutional after the voting has already started very often either, like they did in February. The judges gave the North Carolina legislature two weeks to redraw the districts and scramble to come up with a new election schedule. Because of the short time frame, there will be no runoff elections. Whatever candidate has the most votes on June 7 wins, even if the percentage is absurdly low, as it may be in the 13th Congressional District with 17 Republican candidates. A fair number of people think that because they voted in the congressional primaries that were on the ballot on March 15, they don’t need to vote again. The votes cast in the congressional races in March were not counted. If you want to vote in the congressional and North Carolina Supreme Court primaries, the election on Tuesday, June 7 is your only opportunity. Most of the congressional districts heavily favor one party or the other, so June 7 is going to determine who will represent the state in Congress to a large extent. If you want to vote in an election where your vote will really count, this is the one. The election turnout is expected to be extremely low. One candidate said they thought 2,500 votes would win the 13th Congressional District. Even if you had been in the 6th District all your life, you might now be in the 13th. It includes western Greensboro and almost all of High Point. If you’re surprised by the names on your ballot at the polls, you won’t be alone. One thing you don’t have to worry about is a line. With voter turnout this light, it may just be you and the election workers at the polls.

Republican Primary 13th District With 17 Republican candidates in the newly formed 13th Congressional District running, it’s hard to even keep

them all straight, much less figure out who would represent the district best. This is a unique race in just about every way imaginable. The truth is that on June 7, whichever of these Republicans has the most votes – and it may be a few thousand – will essentially be elected to Congress. It’s a safe Republican district and, unless the eventual Republican candidate is caught dealing drugs at an elementary school or embezzling money from an orphanage, he or she is most likely going to be elected in November. Out of the 17 there are some good candidates, some not-as-good candidates and some that make you shake your head. The easy thing is to start with the really poor candidates, but fearing that then no one would make it to the good candidates, I’m going to put the ones that don’t deserve much consideration at the end. At the top of my list are five candidates that in my opinion stand out from the field: state Rep. Julia Howard, state Sen. Andrew Brock, state Rep. Harry Warren, Guilford County Commissioner Hank Henning and state Rep. John Blust. I can’t find a whole lot of difference on the issues. They are all strong conservatives who want to cut the size of government and cut taxes, they believe in a strong military, oppose abortion, oppose open borders and are on the conservative side of whatever other hot button issues there are. Pick up any of their campaign literature, black out the name, personal information and photos and it’s hard to tell who it’s from. It’s one of the factors that makes primaries so difficult, particularly primaries with 17 candidates. Five candidates are still a lot for a primary, but that’s a lot less than 17. At the top of the list is Howard, from Mocksville, who I think is the best choice in this race. Howard has been in the state House for 26 years and knows how to get things done. She is not in favor with the current state speaker, Tim Moore, which means she lost a couple of committee chairmanships. But she is still a powerhouse who is sought after to co-sponsor House bills because she knows how the place works, which means she knows how

(continued on page 7)

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Get the lowdown on Downtown Greensboro and share your favorite downtown moments by posting on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter using #DGSOSelfie (or you can email them to Selfies@downtowngreensboro.net). And all your postings may get you featured in our upcoming ads and social media feeds! By sharing your photos, you allow Downtown Greensboro Inc (DGI) to use them for the purpose of advertising. Photos will only be used by DGI and the City of Greensboro.

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RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

Public Safety, Roads, Missing From Proposed City Bonds by John Hammer

In Greensboro City Council discussions on the proposed $106-million bond, several councilmembers have brought up the $140-million bond that Winston-Salem passed in 2014 as a reason Greensboro should pass a bond this year. The Winston-Salem bond proposal bears little resemblance to what the Greensboro City Council plans to put on the ballot in November. One difference that jumps off the page is that in the $140-million bond in Winston, $10 million is for housing development. In the proposed Greensboro bond, $34 million is for housing. What is amazing is that along with the $34 million for affordable housing and to repair both owner-occupied

and rental units, there is more money listed under the category of “Redevelopment” for housing as well, including 250 units in the Ole Asheboro neighborhood. Plus another $1 million for 10 to 20 single-family homes in Ole Asheboro. Union Square is slated to get $4.5 million and a portion would be for 250 housing units. An additional $2 million is set aside for streetscape, street improvements and water, sewer and storm water improvements and site preparation in east Greensboro. In the Winston-Salem bond, $60.7 million was for streets and sidewalks. In the proposed Greensboro bond, $10 million is for street improvements, but none of it is for vehicular travel on streets. In Winston, $15 million was for resurfacing streets. In Greensboro, which the City Council

admits has fallen behind on street resurfacing, none of the $10 million is for resurfacing. In that portion of the bond, $5 million is for sidewalks and $5 million is for pedestrian and bicycle enhancements and improvements. At the Greensboro City Council work session on the 2016-2017 budget May 23, Field Operations Director Dale Wyrick described an additional $3.9 million for street resurfacing as a “game changer.” But said that wouldn’t get the city where it needs to be. However, you won’t find any additional money for street repaving in this $106 million bond. Plus, on the Greensboro bond, there is $13 million for greenways under “Parks and Recreation,” even though a greenway is in fact just a wide sidewalk and most of it runs along

beside streets, just like sidewalks do. The Winston-Salem bond had $31 million for public safety, mainly building new and renovating police and fire stations. The proposed Greensboro bond has $0 for public safety. The Winston bond has $25 million for economic development. The Greensboro bond has $0 for economic development. The Greensboro bond does have $21 million for development, and included in that is $1 million for more food in food deserts. The downtown also gets $10 million in redevelopment money. Councilmember Nancy Hoffmann, who has been involved in developing property downtown, asked how much was needed to make a difference (continued on page 11)

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endorsements (continued from page 5)

to put together the votes to pass bills, which is what the legislature does. Some might hold Howard’s age, 71, against her; but in my opinion that is an advantage. She’s not going to be up there for 30 years and she’ll know on the day she arrives that if she doesn’t get right to work she’ll be home, retired, before she can accomplish anything. And she doesn’t have to worry about pleasing everyone because two or three terms will probably be enough. The National Association of Realtors has reportedly spent over $325,000 to help Howard get elected. That puts her as the only candidate who is playing in the same league financially as Budd. Howard is a Realtor and the National Association of Realtors supports candidates that will help promote issues important to the realty community. About 30 percent of their funds are spent on the campaigns of Democrats and over 40 percent on Republican candidates. Howard doesn’t back away from tough issues. One of her mailers champions her sponsorship of House Bill 2. The only state senator in the race, Brock, 42, from Mooresville, also gets things done in the Senate. He’s been in the Senate for 14 years, is cochairman of major committees and is well respected by his peers. I think Howard would do a better job in Washington. Also, despite what Brock says, I do think once he got in Congress he would not want to come home. It’s easy to be in favor of term limits when you haven’t been elected and much more difficult when you have. Rep. Harry Warren from Salisbury is another legislator who has done a good job in the House. He is 66, so age would also limit his time in Congress. I don’t think his record is as impressive as Howard’s, but he is another strong conservative who understands the legislative process. My first inclination was to endorse one of the two candidates from Guilford County – Blust from Greensboro or Henning from High Point. Henning, 41, has been on the Guilford County Board of Commissioners since 2012 and has served one year as chairman. So he does have experience as an elected official in a small legislative body. When he came on the board in 2012, it was the first time Republicans had had a majority since 1998. The problem is that, unlike when the Republicans took over the state government in 2012 and started

making changes, it’s hard to see how Guilford County is operating much differently under the Republicans. They have cut taxes by a little over 2 cents, but with the economy improving and a lot of new money coming in, that’s not a tremendous tax cut. When a group of Democrats and the Democratically controlled Greensboro City Council sued Guilford County over the Greensboro redistricting bill, the county commissioners chose to act like they weren’t being sued. In court the county attorney offered no defense for the actions of the Republican legislature. The reason the Republicans were in control in the first place was because the state redistricted the county, so it would seem the commissioners wouldn’t be neutral on state redistricting, but they have been. Henning also waffles on House Bill 2, saying that it needs some tweaks. If the state legislature gives in to the pressure from the well-organized and powerful gay lobby, they send the wrong message to liberals, who have taken to protest since they don’t have the votes to pass anything. Henning is a former Marine who served two tours in Iraq when he could have sat at home and watched the war on television. But his campaign literature paints the state legislators as career politicians. Legislators are paid a little over $13,000 a year in salary and Guilford County commissioners are paid over $21,000. Both jobs are considered part time. Henning has a lot of potential, but I think someone who has been successful in the rough and tumble world of the state legislature has more relevant experience. In the spirit of full disclosure, Blust is a long-time friend and has done legal work for the now defunct Hammer Publications. Blust, who turns 62 on Saturday, has represented Greensboro in the state House for 16 years and was in the state Senate for three years before that. The problem I see with sending Blust to Washington is his lack of effectiveness in Raleigh. He frequently says that he stands up to pressure from the Democrats and pressure from his own party, which is absolutely true. However, politics is all about making deals. All the legislators representing a state of 9 million are not going to agree 100 percent on any issue; if you are unable to compromise you can’t be effective. Blust didn’t get a single bill through the last session as the primary sponsor. I don’t see the sense in sending

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | RHINO TIMES someone to Congress who won’t get along with the Democrats or Republicans. If Blust can’t get a bill through the state House after being there for 16 years, it doesn’t make sense to think he would behave any differently in Congress. Blust has seniority, is an attorney and an accountant. He should be in a leadership position but he is cochairman of a lesser committee. Blust is a strong conservative who opposed the Greensboro City Council redistricting bill that passed the legislature and is now tied up in court. Because Blust opposed the bill he temporarily became the darling of the uber liberal News & Record. Politics really does make strange bedfellows. Blust is a veteran who was in the 82nd Airborne and enlisted twice, once before college as an enlisted man and then after college as an officer rising to the rank of captain and serving in Korea. He is hardworking, does his homework on legislation and is strong conservative. It is his lack of effectiveness that holds him back. Then there is a second group that appears qualified but, in my book, not as qualified as the top. Ted Budd, 44, from Advance, has no experience in elected office and has never before run for any office.

He is, however, spending a lot more money than anyone else, or, more accurately, more money is being spent on his behalf. The Club for Growth has put nearly $500,000 into his campaign. I don’t have any problem with PACs putting big money into political campaigns on principle, but Club for Growth has a well-defined political agenda that may not jibe with the needs of the district. Club for Growth is aggressively in favor of free trade and spent millions of dollars in an attempt to defeat Donald Trump. Also, I would be more inclined to support Budd if he were running as who he is rather than as the person some marketing team apparently invented. Budd’s campaign is misleading. His family is extremely wealthy. The Budd Group, started by his father and run by his brother, has over 3,400 employees and operates throughout the Southeast. Ted Budd doesn’t work for the family business, but he certainly benefits from it. It is not unusual for extremely wealthy people to own big tracts of land, and Budd lives on a portion of the land owned by his family. But owning land doesn’t make someone (continued on page 15)

RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

Think Tires Are Expensive? Try Throwing Them Away by Scott D. Yost Guilford County is drowning in scrap tires. To name a few concerns, county commissioners and county staff are looking hard for solutions to end tire dumping, the number of scrap tires dropped off at the county’s disposal site have been increasing for years, funds from the state provided to cover scrap tire disposal aren’t covering the costs, and the county’s next budget, expected to be adopted in a matter of weeks, is likely to contain $220,000 more to deal with scrap tires than the current budget does. Before this new discussion, the commissioners have probably said the words “scrap tire disposal” a total of two or three times in the past 15 years. However, now the issue is a

big bright blob on their radar screen. The increasing costs and citizen complaints about illegal tire dumping – especially in eastern Guilford County – have led to the current attempts to address the issue. Commissioner Alan Branson said the problem seemed to accelerate after the Guilford County Board of Commissioners shut down the Guilford County Prison Farm last year. The former Prison Farm – 806 acres of land in eastern Guilford County and western Alamance County – was a site where Guilford County used inmate labor to separate the rubber from the metal. In Guilford County, the official drop-off point for residents and businesses to bring old tires is at 2138 Bishop Road, which is off Groometown Road, south

of I-85. Those tires were taken from Bishop Road to the farm and, after inmates separated the rubber, that rubber was returned to Bishop Road while the metal was recycled. Early last year, with no warning and about 15 minutes of discussion, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners – at an untelevised work session – voted to cancel all activities at the Prison Farm. That decision keeps coming back to bite them, and now it appears that it’s one of several factors contributing to a big leap in the cost of scrap tire disposal. In fiscal 2014-2015, citizens and businesses brought in 7,582 tons of old tires for the county to dispose of, and that number for the current fiscal year, which closes out at the end of this month, will be 7,650 tons or higher. Projections for 2016-2017 are for that amount to rise to 7,727 tons – though some county officials say it could be much more than that. In addition to those tires being disposed of through official channels, some commissioners say they have noted a marked increase in complaints over illegal scrap tire dumping in their districts. Commissioner Alan Perdue said that when people dump tires illegally, it’s more than just an eyesore. “There are a lot of complications it brings when someone dumps them,” Perdue said. He said health risks are one concern since the tires lead to water collection, in turn transforming a dumpsite into a mosquito bed. He said another concern was that the problem was creating more legal work for the county attorney’s office. Branson, who has been the most vocal commissioner on this issue, said at a Monday, May 23 budget work session, where the matter was discussed in detail, that the problem of dumped tires has been a growing concern in his district, which includes much of eastern Guilford County. “Numerous areas throughout eastern Guilford County are starting to be a dump site for tires,” Branson said. “I know we’ve had situations where some were being dropped on farms and other places.” Branson said the increase in

dumped tires seemed to be tied to the closure of the Prison Farm. Guilford County Facilities, Parks and Property Management Director Robert McNiece stated at that work session that the Prison Farm had never been a tire drop-off point for citizens – it was only a place where the rubber was removed and sent back to Bishop Road. So shutting down the farm, he said, is unlikely to have contributed to more dumping in that part of the county. This week, Branson said that while the Prison Farm site might not have been an official drop off point for tires, he thinks it’s likely that the workers out there would take the tires off the hands of citizens who brought them in and he suspects residents in that area knew that was an option. “There was a lot of back and forth,” Branson said of the Prison Farm site and the Bishop Road site. In the same vein, currently, Guilford County’s official drop-off point for washers, dryers and other large appliances known as “white goods” is the Bishop Road site. However, some county officials said the Prison Farm still accepts washers and dryers dropped off there. Guilford County Sheriff’s Department Capt. Ken Whitesell, who helped oversee operations at the farm for years, said that tires from dump site cleanups where sometimes brought to the Prison Farm, but it was was not a drop-off point for the public or for businesses. He said that people who phoned and asked about dropping off tires were told to take them to Bishop Road. Whitesell said that if someone did come by the farm to drop off some tires, those tires were accepted, provided it was a small load. But he added that it was rare that members of the public brought old tires to the farm. Branson said this week that, whatever the reason, there had been a lot of scrap tire dumping in his part of Guilford County and unhappy landowners wanted to see something done about it. He also said the Bishop Road drop-off point was a good distance from many of his constituents in eastern Guilford County. At the work session, Branson had (continued on page 14)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

Few Turn Out To Participate In Participatory Budgeting by John Hammer Greensboro Participatory Budgeting wasn’t very participatory. A total of 1,132 people voted in a city of over 280,000. You didn’t have to be a registered voter to vote, you only had to be a resident of the district you voted in and over 14. In District 3, the total vote count on spending $100,000 was 132. That’s $757 in spending for each vote. This was despite the fact that the city hired two professionals to show the city how to give away $500,000 at a cost to the city of $100,000. The city also spent an estimated $38,000 for about 1,200 hours of staff time, so the total cost for the project to give away $500,000 was about $138,000. And the actual cost was closer to $200,000 because the city

received some grants to pay a portion of the cost. Under questioning from City Councilmember Tony Wilkins, City Manager Jim Westmoreland admitted that the city staff was capable of handling the task without the outside consultants. But the wasted money is not the worst part of the Participatory Budgeting process. The worst part is that it wasn’t about communities getting together and deciding on particular projects that would help their neighborhood or district, as was advertised. It was about a group – which included a large number of city employees – getting together and deciding what would be good projects for each district. The decisions on what projects to put forth to the people

in the districts was done by a citywide group, not by districts. It’s the reason that so many of the projects presented for each district were the same. The same people picked them out for all the districts, so they picked the same projects. The number of citizen-generated projects were few and far between. In the beginning, Participatory Budgeting was only going to involve projects for a particular district, no citywide projects because that would defeat the whole purpose of having neighborhoods come up with projects. But perhaps because neighborhoods didn’t come up with their own projects there were citywide projects on the list, and one of them passed. The Greensboro Participatory Budgeting Handbook 2015-2016 on

page 12 states, “There are no citywide projects.” So how can a citywide project be a neighborhood project? And if the projects had been chosen by neighborhoods instead of by a group led by city employees, what are the odds that different groups all over the city would independently think up and approve the same project? Somewhere closer to the none side of between slim and none. Looking at the projects, it appeared the city staff got a large number of projects, like street and intersection improvements, that the city should fund from the regular budget if they are needed. If they aren’t needed, they shouldn’t be funded. If an intersection needs to (continued on page 16)

10 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

Journey of 1,000 Econ Dev Miles Begins With Four Focus Groups by Scott D. Yost The Guilford County Economic Development Alliance (GCEDA) is calling all good businessmen – and businesswomen. Well, not all of them, but a good cross-section of them. The alliance that was put together last November by Guilford County and the cities of Greensboro and High Point has invited many heads of area companies, prominent executives, economic development officials and leaders in workforce development and academia to meet in groups with representatives of two firms hired by GCEDA to help figure out on how to jump start the local economy and draw new business in. The local entrepreneurs, developers, business leaders and others are being asked to provide input on many topics for the action plan and to share their views on what issues hinder economic development efforts in the county, limit workforce development and keep large companies from locating here. They’ll also be asked to talk about

Speed Bump

what’s working and suggest actions that will make this area more business friendly and held draw companies, tourists and those planning major events. The meetings will consist of four focus groups: leaders and executives of major companies, entrepreneurs and the leaders of mid-sized companies, those in economic development roles and real estate, and another group of representatives from workforce development groups and academia. The list of those invited to help consultants work on a plan for area development include Wells Fargo Vice President David Black, Polo Ralph Lauren Vice President Ken Cochran, East Market Street Development Corp. President Mac Sims, NAI Piedmont Triad President and former Greensboro Mayor Robbie Perkins, Schulman and Beard partner Richard Beard, Triad Real Estate & Building Industry Coalition (TREBIC) President Marlene Sanford, Allen Tate Company Regional Vice-President Tony Jarrett,

by Dave Coverly

Duke Energy Director of Economic Development John Geib, former Guilford County Interim Manager and Human Services Director Sharisse Fuller, Piedmont Natural Gas Major Accounts Services Representative Todd McDade and many others. The list also includes some of the most prominent names in area colleges and universities as well as downtown developers Andy Zimmerman and President and CEO of The Carroll Companies Roy Carroll. The research on ways to draw more business is being conducted jointly by the two consulting firms that GCEDA selected in April to help Guilford County. New York-based Development Counsellors International (DCI), one of the firms selected for the job, works to help regions, cities and states attract more business and visitors. DCI is partnering with Garner Economics – an Atlanta firm that specializes in economic development research and targeting industries – to aid Guilford County in its push for more economic development. Hiring the consultants, the first major expenditure of GCEDA, is costing about $78,500. Greensboro Partnership President and CEO Brent Christensen, who shares the lead staff role for GCEDA with High Point Development Corp. President Loren Hill, said these working with representatives from area businesses and other groups will be the first major step in forming a plan of action. “These are folks we work with on a regular basis,” Christensen said. He said it’s impossible to invite everyone to participate, but he added that this was a representative selection of people from various-sized area companies as well as from the academic and workforce development communities. “This will look at the business environment in Guilford County – what’s good and what needs improvement,” he said. “It will be a good conversation about how they feel about the business environment.” Christensen said the study should give GCEDA and others looking to promote this area help in lifting the local economy. He said some things that

will be key are workforce development and finding ways of “stemming the brain drain” – the loss of promising graduates who are educated in Guilford County but then choose to move elsewhere after graduating. According to Christensen, the goal is to get a very coherent and effective plan by the end of the summer that offers specifics for enhancing the local economy. “It will say, ‘We suggest you go to this conference and sponsor this event,’” Christensen said. That plan will also include recommendations for branding the community for economic development purposes – which likely means that Guilford County’s economic development efforts will get a new catch phrase and logo. DCI and Garner were selected for the job of helping area economic development officials form a plan after GCEDA sent out a request for proposals earlier this year for marketing and consulting expertise centered on seven industries or market sectors that had been identified in previous studies as key areas for Guilford County’s future economic growth. The seven areas the consultants are focusing on are “Aviation and Aerospace, Supply Chain and Logistics, Life Sciences, Innovative Manufacturing, Specialized Business Services, Furniture Design and Marketing [and] Commercial Photography.” The Greensboro Partnership and the High Point Economic Development Corp. have conducted most of the studies and analyses that will form the foundation for the new plan. In the past, those two organizations based in the county’s two largest cities have worked separately to promote economic development in their two cities individually. But ever since a meeting on Friday, Nov. 20 last year between the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, the Greensboro City Council and the High Point City Council, the three groups have been attempting to work in unison to bring more business to the county. This input from area business and education leaders is the start of a process that those area officials hope will spur economic development in the county.

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

bonds

(continued from page 6) downtown and the most precise figure she could get from staff is “a lot.” It’s generally thought that $20 million to $25 million is needed to do something significant downtown. But even with $10 million in the bond package for the downtown, there doesn’t seem to be any plan on how to spend the money. It appears to be a case where whoever came up with the bond just threw in $10 million for the downtown because it’s a nice round figure. There is no way to know where the $10 million for the downtown came from, or how the $10 million figure was derived because all of the discussions on the bond – except for a brief mention in January when the City Council discussed a bond that would not require a tax increase – have been in secret closed-door meetings. A far cry from no tax increase, the $106 million bond would require an estimated 3-cent property tax increase. Greensboro currently has the highest property tax rate of any comparable city in the state, and a

3-cent tax hike would pretty much guarantee Greensboro will continue to be number one in property tax rates in the state for at least a few more years. It’s not simply that the public wasn’t asked for input, the City Council developed this whole bond package without even letting the public know a bond package of this magnitude, which would require a tax increase, was being considered. The Rhino Times did acquire copies of the handouts from one meeting where a bond of over $200 million was discussed, but how the City Council got from $200 million to $106 million, only the City Council knows; and even some city councilmembers say they have no idea. Evidently those meetings were not held with all members of the City Council, but a select few. The bottom line is that the Winston-Salem bond was mainly for infrastructure, which is the usual purpose of bonds. The largest category of bonds being considered in Greensboro is $35 million for “Parks

and Recreation,” and the second is $34 million for affordable housing. Mayor Nancy Vaughan said the figure in the Rhino Times for the number of houses that would be built or renovated would be more than 1,400, not 580 as the Rhino reported. But if all the discussions are held in secret, how is anyone supposed to know what the figure is? Both Councilmembers Mike Barber and Justin Outling used that figure at the meeting and Vaughan didn’t correct them. But she may not have noticed at the meeting because she was reading her emails or texts, which is how she spends a lot of time at City Council work sessions. One of the major problems with the City Council attitude and the bond is that Greensboro needs economic growth. The City Council should be doing all that it can to create an environment to attract businesses to Greensboro and provide jobs for people. But the City Council, with the departure of Zack Matheny, who kept pushing the airport area as an economic growth engine, is primarily

focused on east Greensboro, which is where most of this bond money will be spent. It’s a case of misplaced priorities. It is far better for east Greensboro to have employers like HondaJet and HAECO in the airport area than having them in Raleigh, Charlotte or at the failed Global TransPark in Greenville. The City Council should not focus on one part of the city, which is what this bond does. The majority of the money in this bond will go to District 1 and District 2, which make up 40 percent of the city. As always, the big loser in the bond proposal is District 5, which is the southwest and western portions of the city. Very little money is proposed for District 5. The City Council might want to consider making some changes to the bond proposal on the table because an organized opposition to this bond package is already in the planning stages. It is rare in Greensboro for a bond package to face organized opposition.

12 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

PTIA Projects Up, Passengers Down by Scott D. Yost The sky may not be falling but the number of passengers using Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) sure is. In 2011, PTIA had 893,009 passengers, which dropped to 888,773 in 2012, 848,605 in 2013, 835,669 in 2014 and 824,149 in 2015. That’s despite the fact that air travel in the US has increased steadily over that same five-year period. The continued descent is one that airport officials are trying hard to reverse. The airport has seen solid success in recent years when it comes to increasing economic activity at PTIA and luring aviation businesses that bring job creation, but the number of passengers using the airport has remained in steady decline for years. Koury Corporation President Steve Showfety, the chairman of the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority Board, said the board and staff are working to bring in more airlines and add flights to existing airlines as well as taking other actions

to attract more passengers to PTIA. “We’re working like hell to recruit more carriers – whether that’s surviving legacy carriers or new ones,” Showfety said. Showfety said everyone can agree that the airport is tremendously important to this area and, he added, that can be seen by the fact that it’s been such an “economic driver” in recent years. He said that, in addition to progress in that regard, airport officials are also attempting to find ways to increase airline service and passenger use rates at PTIA. “There are a number of things we’re doing, including improving passenger experience and working diligently on expanding the economic impact on the region,” Showfety said. “We are forever working to create more.” He said one part of that effort is to upgrade the airport – something that’s been happening in recent years. “We’re in the process of updating and modernizing our facilities,” he said.

According to Showfety, the airport’s terminal is now in good shape and PTIA has a list of other projects underway, including repaving parking areas, renovating concourses and making runway improvements. Last month, the airport’s board put in motion a $20 million runway upgrade. Showfety said those people who do fly in or out of PTIA often have very positive things to say about their experience. “We continue to get great comments from our users about how easy it is, ” he said. Anyone who’s flown out of Greensboro and into a major air hub in recent years has seen the positive side of falling passenger numbers at PTIA: smaller crowds, shorter lines at airline help desks and at rental car service areas, less chaos and faster boarding and luggage recovery. Those are good things – but airport advocates want to see those benefits continue in conjunction with an increase in passenger traffic.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has been in the national news and been chastised on social media a great deal lately due to extremely long lines at TSA checkpoints in some major hubs. Airport officials stress constantly that sometimes fares out of Greensboro are less than out of competing airports, but one major problem for PTIA is that fewer carriers serve PTIA and therefore there are fewer direct flights to destinations than many other airports offer. That lack of choice is tied to ticket rates that are typically, though not always, higher at PTIA. The 824,149 passengers who flew in and out of PTIA in 2015 pales in comparison to the numbers at PTIA’s two main competitors. RaleighDurham International Airport (RDU) had 4.95 million passengers in 2015, which was up from 4.76 million in 2014. Charlotte-Douglas International (CLT) had 22.4 million last year, up from 22.2 million in 2014.

(continued on page 45)

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www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

UNCLE ORSON Reviews

Uncle Orson Reviews Everything

Packaging, Love & Friendship, Wallets by Orson Scott Card

The key to Amazon.com becoming the leading internet retailer was not books. It was the way that Amazon packaged books for shipping. I remember that when I heard about Amazon as an online bookstore, I was skeptical mostly because of packaging. As a writer and reviewer, I had already received hundreds of books by mail, sent from publishing companies who, presumably, knew how to ship books. But they didn’t. Almost all the books were put in padded envelopes or heavy paper envelopes. Many books from Europe were put in very flimsy envelopes. Rarely did any of these packages arrive without serious damage, usually a torn-open envelope. Worse yet, the padded envelopes were often filled with that hideous cardboard fluff that would spread everywhere and, like glitter, could not be gotten rid of. And even on the few occasions where the envelope did not rip open, the books inside were often bent, spine-broken or had pages accordioned into an unreadable mass. That’s because more than one book in an envelope, unless they’re tied together firmly, are going to beat each other up in transit. What’s inside the package causes more damage to the rest of the contents than any ill treatment from the outside. But Amazon knew from early on that what books need is (a) edge protection and (b) firm attachment. They do not need padding, they need structure. So Amazon plasticwrapped the books to a cardboard base, then put them in a sturdy cardboard box. Single books had cardboard boxes that held them firmly in place, yet extended well beyond the edges and corners of the book to keep it from

getting jammed, rammed, bent or accordioned. Speed of service mattered, of course, and so did depth and breadth of inventory. It was important for Amazon’s success that ordering a book from them could easily bring it to your door within 24 hours, if you paid for premium delivery. But it was vital that it arrive in new condition. And Amazon still packages books pretty well. We’ve had a few missteps over the years, but by and large, they know how to ship books. Alas, now that Amazon has evolved into a department store with a great book department, “fulfillment by Amazon” does not mean that everything you order will be as wellpackaged for shipping as the books. For instance, ever since local stores stopped carrying the Country Life Omega Mood fish oil capsules that I take under doctor’s orders, I’ve been ordering them from Amazon. Amazon relies on their “partner” retailers for products like dietary supplements, and I’ve learned that nobody seems to know how to package multiple bottles. When I ordered one bottle of my fish oil capsules at a time, I never had a bottle arrive damaged. But when I ordered from an Amazon-linked pharmacy that offered a two-bottle package, I assumed that they must know how to package two fragile items within the same parcel. I was wrong. They needed separate bubble wrap to keep them from breaking each other in transit. Instead, they were bubble-wrapped together, so that one bottle would impact the other with every jolt. In fine Darwinian fashion, the fittest bottle survived. The other arrived in fragments inside its little box; since it (continued on page 16)

14 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

Memorial Day at Field of Honor

Photos by Sandy Groover

tires (continued from page 8) about two-dozen large photos of dumped tires that he showed the other commissioners and staff. The dumping issue is only one aspect of the tire problem. The part of the scrap tire problem projected to cost the county nearly a quarter-million dollars extra in the coming budget is the cost for getting rid of the tires that are legally disposed of at Bishop Road. Tire retailers, tire transporters and related businesses pay a tax for tire disposal to the state, which pays out some of that revenue to Guilford County. However, that tire disposal tax revenue is distributed on a per capita basis, so, if a county has a lot of used tires in proportion to its population, those counties have to make up the difference with local dollars. Guilford County officials say the allocation of tax money from the state is no longer covering the cost and hasn’t for a while. Guilford County currently pays $72.80 a ton for a disposal company to take the scrap tires off its hands. Guilford County Planning and Development Director Leslie Bell, whose department handles solid waste disposal, said the scrap tire issue has been growing. “We’re generating tires at a disproportionate rate,” Bell said of county residents and businesses. When asked why that was, he said,

“It’s an interesting case.” He said he wasn’t certain of the cause but added that others have suggested to him it’s because there are a lot of car dealerships, tire retailers and auto-related businesses in the county. Guilford County Budget and Management Analyst Carmen Mays made the same point at the board’s May 23 work session. “For whatever reason, Guilford County receives twice or three times as many tires as normal,” she said. “So the dollar doesn’t stretch as far.” Guilford County budgeted $530,000 for scrap tire disposal in fiscal 20152016, the current budget year. The county manager’s proposed budget for 2016-2017 calls for $750,000 for that purpose. Guilford County Budget Director Mike Halford said some of the additional money needed is for “catching up” on those costs, while some of it is due to projections of increases in tire waste in the coming fiscal year. Bell said that a number of factors have led to the larger request. He said the number of tires is constantly increasing and there is an extra major tire collection event in the coming fiscal year, where a very large number of tires will be collected. He also said that past budgets have been very conservative in allocating money for this purpose and, in the current budget

year, will fall short. He added that, if the county budgets too much for scrap tire disposal in the coming year, the amount spent can always be trimmed back if those funds aren’t needed. Branson said he wants Guilford County to explore creating a site like some other counties do, where there’s a large area where residents could bring and dump off their tires – perhaps at any hour of the night or day, whether staff is present or not. Branson said the site might also handle some other forms of waste as well. He added that there’s an issue with construction debris in Guilford County. “I see a lot of other counties throughout North Carolina which have areas to take trash,” Branson said. “Some of them have a staff member present and then there are some of them where you can come and go as you please.” According to Branson, the current structure doesn’t meet the needs for tire disposal for his side of the county. “That’s a pretty far hike from the Alamance County line,” he said. “Plus, they’ll only take five tires per family.” He said a family of four or five people with multiple vehicles could easily find themselves with more than four scrap tires, particularly if they are in “agricultural situations.” Bell said Guilford County was still adjusting its practices after the closure of the Prison Farm. “We’re only about eight or nine months into the transition,” he said. “It’s going well, but again we are just trying to sort of figure this one out as

we go along.” “Right now, we staff Bishop Road with four folks,” Bell added. “Even now, to go out to the Prison Farm, we have to take folks out there as well. For anything we do outside of Bishop Road, we’ve got to plan for personnel and how we manage that.” Bell said the county is looking at several options. He said that staff had been exploring if a Pilot Mountain tire processing plant could be used for some county tire disposal. However, that plant had a fire earlier this year, ending the possibility of using that service anytime soon. Bell said the county holds special one-day collection events, where the county accepts citizens’ disposals of more than five scrap tires without requiring state certification that they are a tire hauler, processor or collector. There’s a Greensboro event in April, one in Summerfield in October, and an event every other year in High Point. Bell added that the county works with each of those jurisdictions to publicize tire disposal days so that citizens’ awareness level of them was high. County’s Environmental Services Program Manager Clyde Harding said one part of the current problem may be that it’s spring. He said spring is a time when there seems to be a substantial rise in dumping tires and other items. He also said he anticipated a great deal of scrap tires to be collected in the coming fiscal year and he added that it is hard to precisely predict that number.

(continued from page 7)

a farmer anymore than owning a large boat makes somebody a commercial fisherman. I have several flyers that say Budd was raised on a cattle and chicken farm. I have no doubt they have cattle and chickens on their land, but that’s not how his father made his living. He made his living running and expanding a multi-state, family-owned business. Politicians present themselves in the most favorable light all the time, but this light is a little too favorable for my liking. He doesn’t need the money from Club for Growth – his family could have put up the money – but then he couldn’t pass himself off as chicken farmer and small business owner. Budd owns a gun range and, as you would imagine, strongly supports the Second Amendment. But all the others at the top of this list also support the Second Amendment. Davie County Commissioner Dan Barrett, 57, from Advance, has a conservative record of service. He ran for governor in 2004 and lost in the Republican primary. In that race he walked across the state. In this one he has walked across the district. It’s a political gimmick that resonates with some people. It was more impressive when he walked across the state when running for governor. Iredell County Register of Deeds Matthew McCall from Mooresville is an impressive young man. He’s 31 and says if elected he would be the youngest member currently in Congress. He’s served as register of deeds since 2010 and has a good record of cutting costs in his office. He says he’s reduced the cost of running his office 46 percent in six years. But running an office is not legislative experience. I’d like to elect someone who can hit the ground running in Washington. He has held elective office, which is better than no experience, but working as a member of an elective body is different. This doesn’t seem like the time to send someone with no legislative experience to Congress. George Rouco, 40, also from Mooresville, is an attorney and former CIA agent who was running in the 9th Congressional District and got redistricted into the 13th. The experience as a CIA agent is a plus considering all the turmoil in the world, but the lack of legislative experience is a problem. Like most candidates he appears to be a solid conservative, but, and this applies to all those without legislative experience, you never know how

someone is going to govern until they have held office. The final group in my opinion should not be considered as viable candidates. Farren Shoaf, 49, who owns a radio station in Mocksville, talks about defending our “European heritage.” This is thinly veiled racism. Either Shoaf knows that and is trying to send that message or he is extremely naive. In either case, he’s not who I want representing me in Congress. Chad Gant, is 41 and just graduated from law school. He says he is a strong Christian conservative, but that doesn’t separate him from this group of candidates. Jason Walser, 44, from Salisbury, is more moderate than most of the folks in the race. He has problems with HB2, which wasn’t a national issue when it passed with the votes of every Republican in the state House and Senate, but it is now. If you’re looking for a moderate candidate, he may be your man. Walser was the director of the Central North Carolina Land Trust for 16 years and is now a consultant. Jim Snyder, 70, is an attorney from Lexington and the only candidate from Davidson County. He was appointed to the state legislature and served in 1972. He has a history of running and losing statewide races. He has run for lieutenant governor, and for the US Senate in 2002 and 2014. He’s not exactly a perennial candidate but has never been elected. Vernon Robinson, 60, from WinstonSalem, is a perennial candidate and there are a host of reasons not to vote for him. One is that he doesn’t live in the district. By law a member of Congress isn’t required to live in the district, but nobody is required to vote for someone who doesn’t. Just as important is what Robinson did as a co-founder of the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee. People donated to that committee because they were supporters of Dr. Ben Carson running for president and they believed that donations to this PAC would be used mainly to help his presidential campaign. The PAC, which became The 2016 Committee, spent most of its money raising money. It raised over $12 million and most of that was paid out to an assortment of organizations to raise money. Robinson’s own company was paid over $250,000 by the PAC. People didn’t donate to the PAC to put money in Robinson’s pocket, but that’s what they were doing. Kay Daly, 49, doesn’t actually live in

the district either. She voted on March 15 from her home in Moore County, and then changed her registration to an address in Mooresville, but her husband is still registered to vote in Moore County. When she spoke at a candidates’ forum in Greensboro, she started talking about all the people she knew in the district, which is pretty weird when you think about it. She’s claiming to live in the district; shouldn’t she be expected to know people in the district? At least Robinson is honest about not living in the district. Daly in some ways is worse, claiming that she does when it appears it is simply for political expediency. Also, a bunch of the information on her 13th Congressional District campaign website is about her planned run against Congresswoman Renee Ellmers. Since Ellmers is not running in the 13th, it’s hard to see what comments about her have to do with this race, but it does add more material to the website. Cathy Feather, 59, from Granite Quarry in Rowan County is a certified lactation consultant who has never run for office, and it shows. At one forum, given three minutes for her campaign spiel, she spent most of her time talking about a hard day she had had at work. I completely missed any connection to being a member of Congress.

She appears to be a very thoughtful woman who, like many Republicans, is extremely dissatisfied with what’s going on in Congress. But that doesn’t mean she needs to be there. She is also soft on the Second Amendment and is in favor of a ban on assault weapons – one of the dumber laws ever passed. It outlawed a category of rifles based on how they look, not how they operate. David Thompson, age 41, from Mooresville, says he’s offended by the idea that you have to raise money to run for office, which pretty much eliminates him from the race since there is no way to communicate with the 750,000-plus people in the district without using the media, and that takes money. One of his slogans is, “Elect a local who cares about the past, present and future of our hometown.” Since I don’t live in Mooresville and want someone who cares about the entire district, that eliminates him from my consideration. He has also been arrested a number of times but so far has avoided conviction. He says he shot a man once, but didn’t kill him. 6th District Sixth District Congressman Mark Walker has done a good job in his first 18 months in office and the voters would be wise to send him back for

(continued on page 37)

Hyper-Sudoku The New York Times

endorsements

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

sudoku_528B Created by Peter Ritmeester/Presented by Will Shortz

2 9 8 9 3 1

8 1 2 1 4 5 9 6

4 5

528B

Distributed by The New York Times syndicate

Solution sudoku_528B

16 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

uncle orson (continued from page 13)

broke first, it no longer had the ability to damage its mate. Ordering the bottles one at a time was the only solution I could think of to solve the problem of ignorant packaging. It isn’t just Amazon-related companies that make such mistakes. I once ordered a couple of porcelains from an art gallery and they, two, were packaged together and destroyed each other in transit. Let’s face it, shipping is full of risks, and anybody who’s working as a packager has to be trained to know how to prepare different kinds of items to make it safely to their destinations. An art gallery once shipped me a framed original piece of art so loosely confined to its crate that the frame had room to pull away from the painting, whereupon the frame’s hardware cut a deep gouge in the canvas. Apparently their shippers needed more training. When UPS bought Mail Boxes Etc., one of the things they acquired was years of experience in packaging. I’ve watched the folks at many different UPS Stores wrap, cushion, affix, shrink-wrap and whatever else the items needed – and I can’t remember anything being damaged in transit when the UPS Store (nee Mail Boxes Etc.) boxed it up for me. But it was precisely because Mail Boxes Etc. had become rebranded as FedEx’s biggest competitor, UPS, that FedEx refused to allow the UPS Stores to ship via Federal Express. This cut into their overall revenues, so ... FedEx acquired Kinko’s and then made every Kinko’s also become a packaging and shipping store. Voila! FedEx/Kinko’s stores were now competing directly with UPS Stores. Kinko’s had way more experience at making large numbers of copies, so they win that part of the

Sudoku Solution

Crossword Solution C O A S T

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R E S I Z E R O S T P A A T R E T A N N E I N G O H N E E D

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Distributed by The New York Times syndicate

Solution sudoku_528A

H A I R

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D I S A R M

competition without a worry. However, the Kinko’s employees knew nothing about packaging, and cared even less than that. Boxing things up was just a weird new sideline that distracted them from the print jobs that they took pride in. I learned immediately that I walked into any FedEx/Kinko’s knowing more about packaging than any of the store’s employees. Some got quite testy about my micromanaging, but how could I not take over when it was clear that not a single brain cell of any FedEx/Kinko’s employee had been used for storing information or skills involved in packaging? Weirdly enough, the situation has not changed. Everybody is better at packaging than the Kinko’s people. We still rely on them for print jobs, because they’re very good at it and take pride in their work. But packaging? Not so much. Sometimes, though, when I’m traveling, FedEx/Kinko’s is the only pack-and-ship store that’s open late at night or early in the morning so I can have something packed and shipped before I have to leave for the airport. So I get to check up on FedEx/Kinko’s progress now and then. Now let’s come back to Amazon. com. They got the excellent idea of sudoku_528A offering subscriptions on non-print Created by Peter Ritmeester/Presented by Will Shortz items that customers use repeatedly. They 4 offer somewhat lower prices, 1 but what attracted me was the idea of 5 that 9 would being able to order items simply show up at my door, month 8 7 after month, without my having to remember 1 to go to the store and 6 buy them. 5At first,2the Amazon 4Subscribe 7 8 & Save program didn’t carry any 3 9 products I wanted once, let alone month after month. But gradually their menu of available products grew until 1 9a few 7 things 8 that2I actually5 it included want and need regularly.

D E L I A

S E L I G

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From last week’s issue

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2 4 7 6 8 9 1 5 3

528A

That’s because they’ve learned that it isn’t the “Save” part of “Subscribe & Save” that will drive their business. Offering the lowest-price products for even lower prices will only appeal to one segment of the consuming public. I wasn’t going to buy secondrate products just because they were especially cheap. If something has zero value to me, than any price is too high. I intended to keep buying the brands I prefer, and so I would only subscribe with Amazon if they offered exactly the products I wanted. About a year ago, they started offering them. It’s still a very timeconsuming job to shop their huge list of random Subscribe & Save products – they really need to do a better job of indexing, because I don’t have time to scroll through 20 screens for each product. Naturally, the companies that first leapt at the chance to be part of the program were the ones that didn’t have many customers in the first place. It was no surprise I’d never heard of them or their products. Amazon’s lower prices do not come from Amazon forgoing any of their profit margin. This is Amazon. They balance their books on the backs of their suppliers. That’s why Amazon went to war with publishers who wouldn’t bow to their unsustainable price on Kindle books – at the wholesale price they insisted on, the publishers could not make enough to fund the value they add to the product, and authors would take a steep pay cut in their royalties – but Amazon, which created nothing,

would make money on every book. (Now that Amazon has bought Audible.com, the same things is happening with audiobooks – prices are kept so low that the finest producers of audiobooks are going broke, so the only suppliers who can make money are narrators who act as their own directors, editors and audio engineers. (This doesn’t work well, but Amazon doesn’t care, because they make money regardless of the quality of the product. [Shockingly, the Screen Actors Guild went along with Amazon’s policy of letting narrators be their own engineers, thus cooperating in the destruction of union jobs.]) So I’m assuming, given Amazon’s normal policies, that the manufacturers whose products are included in Subscribe & Save are supplying Amazon at a cost way below the normal wholesale price. Even if they aren’t losing money on everything Amazon sells, they’re certainly not making as much as Amazon is. Yet more and more manufacturers seem to be accepting Amazon’s terms ... and the result is that Subscribe & Save offers a decent number of products we use regularly enough for a subscription to make sense. This includes Cottonelle toilet paper, Dial foaming soap, Finish dishwasher soap, Glad Forceflex garbage bags, SkinnyPop popcorn, Viva Choose-a-Size paper towels and an array of candies. The candies were to stock the big (continued on page 38)

participate (continued from page 9)

be improved it should be improved from the Greensboro Department of Transportation budget, not a neighborhood budget. But if the project is on the Participatory Budgeting list then it is funded out of a separate budget, freeing up money in city departments for projects they would rather do. There are a lot of advantages for city employees participating in Participatory Budgeting. In District 5, enough people voted for two $10,000 outdoor game tables for them to be approved. If the city can’t find a better use for $10,000 than an outdoor game table then something is wrong. If the City Council approves all the projects that won in the districts then the total cost of this ill-advised city giveaway will be close to $638,000.

At the City Council budget meeting May 23, the council was looking for funds to free up to pave streets. If the council canceled the Participatory Budgeting program, it could free up $638,000 for street paving – a function the city should provide. It may not sound like much for street resurfacing, but in the proposed budget, $2.1 million is allocated for street repair and resurfacing. So this $638,000 would increase that budget by almost a third. It costs $85,000 to resurface one lane mile of street, so that would be an additional 1.5 miles. When you consider that the current budget will surface almost 25 lane miles, that would be a significant increase, and no one can argue that the city needs an outdoor game table more than city streets.

RHINO

REALESTATE www.rhinotimes.com

June 2, 2016

Everything you need to find, finance and buy the house of your dreams

BACKYARD ACCESSORIES BY SANDY GROOVER

Until the end of World War II, a backyard was primarily used to support the needs of its household. Gardens were planted to provide food, chickens raised for meat and eggs, and cows were kept for milk. Many handcrafts were also often done in a homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s backyard, as was the weekly washing and drying of clothes. The backyard was also the place where the outhouse was located. Needless to say, the proximity of that

feature was hardly conducive to playing games and outdoor grilling. How times have changed. With the advent of indoor refrigeration, washing machines and indoor plumbing, backyards began to be a place of leisure rather than hard work. As the country prospered after World War II, a growing economy enabled people to buy the things they needed rather than grow or make their own. No longer (continued on page 18)

LOCALREALTORDIRECTORY www.realestate.rhinotimes.com

Chidi Akwari 336.337.1927

Gil Vaughan 336.337.4780

Wayne Young 336.253.4472

www.justcallgil.com

www.allentate.com/wayneyoung

Karen Bickham Jobe 336.430.6552

Xan Tisdale 336.601.2337

Successfully selling homes for 30 years

http://www.trmrealestate.com/broker/karen-bickham-jobe

http://xantisdale.bhhsyostandlittle.com/

Chidi@Akwari.com

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karen.jobe@trm.info

Lender Directory

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Betty Howard 336.337.7535

betty@bettyhoward.com

New Home Listings

18 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

backyard

REAL ESTATE

(continued from page 17)

TANGER FAMILY BICENTENNIAL GARDEN 1105 Hobbs Road

Parisian Promenade

Sunday, June 5 from noon to 5 p.m., enjoy the sights, sounds, scenes and smells of an afternoon in Paris. Sidewalk artists, live music, children’s activities, family games, sidewalk cafes, a poodle parade, garden quest and more are featured. Admission is free and a complimentary shuttle will be available from the parking lot at 805 Pembroke Road. For more information, call (336) 373-2199 or visit www.greensborobeautiful.org.

GREENSBORO CHILDREN’S MUSEUM 220 N. Church St.

$2 Family Fridays

On Friday, Feb. 4 from 5 to 8 p.m. enjoy all the Children’s Museum has to offer for only $2 per person. For more information, call (336) 5742898 or visit hwww.gcmuseum.com.

HIGH POINT MUSEUM

1859 East Lexington Ave., High Point

Here Comes the Bride

Saturday, June 4 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday, June 5 from 1 to 4 p.m., historical interpreters will reenact a typical Quaker ceremony from the early American period. This event is free and all ages are welcome. For more information, call (336) 885-1859 or visit highpointmuseum.org.

COMMUNITY THEATRE OF GREENSBORO 520 S. Elm St.

Summer Theatre Camp

June 13 through July 15, the Community Theatre is offering weeklong summer theater camps for ages 3 to 16. Camp sessions include auditioning for musical theater, improv, acting and singing. For information, visit ctgso.org or call (336) 333-7470, ext. 201.

GREENSBORO SCIENCE CENTER 4301 Lawndale Dr.

Summer Camp

From June 13 to August 19, enjoy science fun ranging from amazing animals to rockin’ robots. For ages 4 to 15. To learn more or register, visit www.greensboroscience.org or call (336) 288-3769.

GREENSBORO PUBLIC LIBRARY

Summer Reading 2016

Pre-readers through high school students, register at your favorite library location, then track reading minutes to earn prizes every month this summer. Bring your reading sheet, with total number of monthly reading minutes, back to the library anytime in July to receive your prizes. Continue reading and return in August to get even more prizes. Get more information at your favorite library branch.

CHECK US OUT ON THE OPEN HOUSE PAGE

This schedule brought to you by your friends & neighbors at

Coldwell Banker (336) 282-4414

essential for the family’s livelihood, the backyard space became available for relaxation and fun. Of course, those early backyards were often dirty, muddy places, not exactly they type of place in which to play or relax. In order to use these spaces, people began to design things like patios that would allow them to use the yard and stay clean while doing so. With the advent of these structures, it wasn’t long before furnishings were developed to make them enjoyable family gathering spots. Today, outdoor living spaces can be an extension and reflection of the interior of our homes. Not only are they places of leisure, they have become centers for entertaining guests and cooking as well. Outdoor kitchens have become one of the of the most popular features found in modern backyards. Many of them now rival even the most sophisticated indoor gourmet kitchens. Built to withstand variable weather conditions, outdoor kitchens can have stainless steel gas barbecue grills, pizza ovens, double sinks and refrigerators. Countertops range from concrete to granite, and accessories such as wine coolers, kegerators and commercial-type ovens are available for outdoor use. The outdoor kitchen can be as simple or elaborate as a budget allows. Fireplaces and fire pits are also high on the list of “must-haves” for backyard entertaining. Whether they are wood-burning, natural gas or propane, fireplaces and fire pits have a way of drawing people to them, especially on cool evenings. There is something primeval and instinctive in our attraction to fire. We are naturally drawn to its mesmerizing warmth. To enjoy those patios and decks in practical comfort, new types of furniture were designed. Adirondack chairs were a popular choice for many years; canvas, wicker, aluminum and plastic chairs all had a time when they were the trendy choice. Some are still in use today, such as wicker and newer types of plastic, but as technology improved fabrics and enabled them to withstand outdoor weather conditions, designers were able to produce furniture that is just as attractive as that made solely for indoor use. Outdoor furniture today is constructed from a wide variety of materials – wrought iron, aluminum, steel, wood (teak, cedar, etc.) and water-, moldand weather-resistant materials such as composite resins and recycled plastics. However, even these new materials have to be protected to a

certain degree, so it’s wise to have some storage space available that is watertight, to store cushions during periods of heavy or prolonged rain. Outdoor decor also now includes such things as rugs. Once, the closest thing to an outdoor rug was Astroturf. Today, like the fabrics used for cushions and pillows, outdoor rugs are mildew resistant and colorfast to avoid fading. They come in a wide variety of colors and prints with styles ranging from an Oriental look to bold geometric patterns, allowing an indoor decorating style to move right out to the outdoor living areas for a cohesive look. Achieving just the right outdoor ambience can include strategically placed lighting around lounging and eating areas. Raised decks and patios with lighted steps improve both safety and ambience. Reducing shadows on steps makes using them easier, and task lighting is, of course, necessary for those outdoor kitchens. Accent lighting can also transform a backyard into an evening wonderland. By highlighting specific garden features such as ponds, topiaries or unique plants and shrubs, the yard becomes a visual delight There are four kinds of lighting to brighten a home’s landscape: uplighting, down-lighting, zonal lighting and moonlighting. Up-light fixtures illuminate and accent targeted features for a dramatic effect. Downlighting provides safe footing on stairs and paths. Zonal lighting highlights individual objects and plantings. And moonlighting is a mix of up and down lighting that attempts to create the light that a full moon casts. The choice of fixtures in all of these categories continues to grow and evolve. The low-voltage and LED lamps available today are both attractive and energy efficient, allowing their use for longer periods of time than with traditional incandescent bulbs. Solarpowered lights are also a good way to conserve energy while lighting a yard’s pathways, while many types of lighting will have efficient Energy Star ratings. Other popular backyard amenities include pergolas over patios and outdoor kitchens, gazebos to provide shady spots in open yards, and sheds that often are turned into art and craft studios, writers’ retreats or just peaceful getaways. Swimming pools, hot tubs and children’s play areas are among the myriad ways a backyard can be put to use. With an investment in thought, effort and money, your back yard can be all that you want it to be.

CAROLINA

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Treasurer wants more pension real estate investments/3

JOURNAL A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF NEWS, ANALYSIS, AND OPINION FROM THE JOHN LOCKE FOUNDATION

Check us out online at carolinajournal.com and johnlocke.org

DEPARTMENTS North Carolina Washington From Page 1 Education Opinion Parting Shot

2 6 8 10 12 16

WESTERN EDITION

Big Business Rakes In Renewable Tax Credits Those receiving the most in tax credits are large corporations

BY DAN WAY

RALEIGH

lue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest insurance company, in 2015 received state tax credits for investments in renewable energy projects worth more than $40 million, and Duke Energy, the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest electric utility, used the 35 percent renewable credit for a tax break worth nearly $14 million. While those companies were the top two renewable tax credit recipients in the state, Department of Revenue data show a total of $136,289,577 in renewable tax credits were issued in 2015. That was a 7.6 percent jump over the 2014 total of $126,661,982. The top two tax credit recipients that year were Duke Energy, $62.9 million, and BCBSNC, $16.9 million. As in past years, the lionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s share of the 2015 tax credits awarded for

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Millis said the huge 2015 tax credit windfall to large corporations â&#x20AC;&#x153;is just another continuation of the arguments of why we fought to sunset it last session.â&#x20AC;? He said politicians were picking and choosing winners by â&#x20AC;&#x153;subsidizaWLRQ RI WKLV VSHFLĂ&#x20AC;F IRUP RI HQHUJ\ RYHU all others.â&#x20AC;? Special treatment of the renewable industry produces no net enviURQPHQWDO EHQHĂ&#x20AC;WV EHFDXVH VRODU DQG wind energy are â&#x20AC;&#x153;intermittent and unreliable,â&#x20AC;? Millis said. Solar energy isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t produced when the sunâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not shining, and wind energy is dead when there is no wind blowing. Both renewables require a â&#x20AC;&#x153;redundant shadow gridâ&#x20AC;? usually providInvestors in solar farms like this one, built by FLS Energy near Ellenboro in Ruther- HG E\ FRDO RU JDV Ă&#x20AC;UHG SRZHU SODQWV ford County in 2015, receive renewable energy tax credits. Power generated by this during the renewable sourceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s down farm goes to Duke Energy, but it is unclear what companies got tax credits for this times, he said. project. (CJ photo by Don Carrington) While the $40 million Blue Cross â&#x20AC;&#x153;It sort of feeds into the theme tax credit accounted for nearly 30 perinvesting in renewable projects went to large banking and insurance com- that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s corporate welfare,â&#x20AC;? said Don- cent of the 2015 total, spokesman Lew panies. The 23 entities receiving $1 ald Bryson, North Carolina state direc- Borman said that, put in context, â&#x20AC;&#x153;BCBSNC is a fully taxed North Carolina million or more in credits were large tor at Americans for Prosperity. Â´, GHĂ&#x20AC;QLWHO\ IHHO WKHUHÂˇV D ORW business, and last year incurred more corporations. Of the top 86 recipients awarded at least $100,000 in tax cred- wrong with that,â&#x20AC;? said state Rep. Chris than $372 million in state, federal, and Millis, R-Pender. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s another example local taxes.â&#x20AC;? its, only six were individuals. The company invested in both Since 2010, almost $361 million of how big business snuggles up to solar and mill tax credits, Borman said. JRYHUQPHQW IRU WKHLU EHQHĂ&#x20AC;W DW WKH has been diverted from the state budget as a result of the renewable tax demise of the very citizens weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re supposed to represent.â&#x20AC;? credits. Continued as â&#x20AC;&#x153;N.C.,â&#x20AC;? Page 8

Top GOP Condemns Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bathroom Edict

*23 RIĂ&#x20AC;FHKROGHUV call Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rules â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;executive overreachâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; BY DAN WAY

RALEIGH

.S. Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis signed a letter sent May 19 to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Education Secretary John King, objecting that the executive branch of the federal government was acting â&#x20AC;&#x153;as a national school boardâ&#x20AC;? in its â&#x20AC;&#x153;guidanceâ&#x20AC;? requiring public schools to make special accommodations for transgender students

using bathrooms, locker rooms, and shower facilities at public schools. The letter, authored by Senate Education Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, was signed by 25 Republican senators, including Burr and Tillis. North Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s senators joined

Gov. Pat McCrory, General Assembly leadership, and the entire GOP U.S. House delegation in condemning the May 12 letter from Lynch and King threatening local school districts with possible loss of federal funding if they did not comply with federal facilities rules. The letter from Lynch and King interprets Title IX of the Civil Rights Act to indicate that â&#x20AC;&#x153;when a student or the studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s parent or guardian, as DSSURSULDWH QRWLĂ&#x20AC;HV WKH VFKRRO DGPLQistration that the student will assert a JHQGHU LGHQWLW\ WKDW GLÍżHUV IURP SUHvious representations or records, the school will begin treating the student consistent with the studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gender Continued as â&#x20AC;&#x153;Top,â&#x20AC;? Page 9

PAGE CJ2

NORTH CAROLINA

CAROLINA

JOURNAL Rick Henderson Managing Editor Don Carrington Executive Editor Mitch Kokai, Barry Smith Kari Travis, Dan Way Associate Editors Kristen Blair, Roy Cordato Becki Gray, Sam A. Hieb Lindalyn Kakadelis, Troy Kickler George Leef, Michael Lowrey Donna Martinez, Harry Painter Jenna Ashley Robinson 0DUF 5RWWHUPDQ -HVVH 6DÍżURQ Jay Schalin,Terry Stoops Andy Taylor, Michael Walden Contributors Joseph Chesser, Zak Hasanin Catherine Koniecsny, Charles Logan $XVWLQ 3UXLWW 0DWW 6KDHÍżHU Interns Published by The John Locke Foundation 200 W. Morgan St., # 200 Raleigh, N.C. 27601 (919) 828-3876 â&#x20AC;˘ Fax: 821-5117 www.JohnLocke.org Jon Ham Vice President & Publisher Kory Swanson President John Hood Chairman Charles S. Carter, Charles F. Fuller Bill Graham, John M. Hood Christine Mele, Baker A. Mitchell Jr. Paul Slobodian, David Stover J.M Bryan Taylor Board of Directors Carolina Journal is a monthly journal of news, analysis, and commentary on state and local government and public policy issues in North Carolina. ÂŠ2016 by The John Locke Foundation Inc. All opinions expressed in bylined articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily UHĂ HFW WKH YLHZV RI WKH HGLWRUV RI CJ or the VWDÍż DQG ERDUG RI WKH -RKQ /RFNH )RXQGDWLRQ Material published herein may be reprinted as long as appropriate credit is given. Submissions and letters are welcome and should be directed to the editor. To subscribe, call 919-828-3876. Readers also can request Carolina Journal Weekly Report, delivered each weekend by e-mail, or visit CarolinaJournal.com for news, links, and exclusive content updated each weekday. Those interested in education, economics, higher education, health care or local government also can ask to receive weekly e-letters covering these issues.

JUNE 2016 | CAROLINA JOURNAL

House Budget Directs Dix Funds to Rural Hospitals &URU\ RÎ&#x20AC;FLDOV VRXJKW 7KH SURYLVLRQÂˇV IDWH LV XQFOHDU LQ WKH Senate, but several Senate leaders have suggested repealing FHUWLĂ&#x20AC;FDWH RI QHHG UHTXLUHPHQWV HQWLUHO\ RALEIGH he $22.2 billion General Fund budget passed by the â&#x20AC;&#x153;If you have a lot of high-cost, new construction projstate House includes a provision to convert vacant ects, then weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll probably have fewer beds,â&#x20AC;? Cantrell said. beds at struggling rural hospitals into crisis facilities But with a concentration on renovations and upgrades, 150 for mental health, substance abuse, and developmentally beds might be possible. disabled patients â&#x20AC;&#x201D; giving a big boost to a proposal McHospitals would submit competitive proposals in&URU\ DGPLQLVWUDWLRQ RÎ&#x20AC;FLDOV VD\ ZRXOG DOOHYLDWH D JURZ- cluding a â&#x20AC;&#x153;sustainability planâ&#x20AC;? outlining how they would ing public health need. cover operating costs, what insurance companies they But even if the proposal passes the Senate and gets the would work with, and available community programs and governorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s OK, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unclear whether enough money will be partnerships. available to keep the program funded in the long term and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard to expand services with one-time fundsâ&#x20AC;? beLI UXUDO FRPPXQLWLHV KDYH WKH SURSHU PHGLFDO VWDÎ&#x20AC;QJ WR cause costs persist with no revenue to maintain the services, treat the patients. Cantrell said, so the sustainability plan would be key. State Department of â&#x20AC;&#x153;We certainly support Health and Human Services '++6Âˇ HÍżRUWV WR LQFUHDVH DFRÎ&#x20AC;FLDOV WHVWLĂ&#x20AC;HG DERXW WKH SURcess to appropriate care for posal before two legislative people with behavioral health committees in April. It is an issues,â&#x20AC;? said Julie Henry, outgrowth of the Governorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spokeswoman for the North Task Force on Mental Health Carolina Hospital Association. and Substance Abuse that Gov. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been saying for Pat McCrory commissioned. a long time that many of our McCrory has emphasized hospitals, small and large, are the expansion of mental health QRW HTXLSSHG RU VWDÍżHGÂľ ZLWK and substance abuse services, the proper infrastructure in saying failing to confront the the right settings for individuproblem is â&#x20AC;&#x153;an issue being hidals in behavioral health criden in our emergency rooms, sis â&#x20AC;&#x153;whether thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s substance in our county jails, and in our abuse or â&#x20AC;Ś mental health,â&#x20AC;? state prisons, and underneath Henry said. bridges across North Caroâ&#x20AC;&#x153;We do have some smalllina.â&#x20AC;? er hospitals that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the The House budget alloinpatient census that they once cates $25 million from the prohad, so there are opportunities ceeds of the sale of the Dorothere,â&#x20AC;? Henry said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Certainly, thea Dix hospital property to this infusion of funds could be the city of Raleigh for a threehelpful in that aspect.â&#x20AC;? year pilot program to test this But making the crisis repurposing of rural hospital units for behavioral health and beds â&#x20AC;&#x201D; adding developmenVXEVWDQFH DEXVH SDWLHQWV Ă&#x20AC;tally disabled patients to those nancially sustainable â&#x20AC;&#x153;is somewith a mental health or subthing that we would want to stance abuse crisis. The provihave more conversation about, sion also repeals the requireDQG WKDWÂˇV IURP D Ă&#x20AC;QDQFLDO ment for facilities in the pilot standpoint for our hospitals, SURJUDP WR UHFHLYH D FHUWLĂ&#x20AC;FDWH DQG DOVR IURP D VWDÎ&#x20AC;QJ VWDQGof need (or formal approval) The city of Raleigh recently acquired the 308-acre Doro- point,â&#x20AC;? Henry said. IURP VWDWH RÎ&#x20AC;FLDOV WR DGG QHZ thea Dix property from the state of North Carolina for There is a statewide beds or renovate existing ones. $52 million. The state will occupy some of the buildings shortage of behavioral health Â´:H LGHQWLĂ&#x20AC;HG FRXQWLHV for another 10 years and others for 25 years. The city is professionals, ranging from liacross North Carolina that are seeking public input prior to developing a plan to turn it censed clinical social workers adjacent to large counties that into a â&#x20AC;&#x153;destination park.â&#x20AC;? (CJ photo by Don Carrington) to psychologists and psychiahave overuse of their emergentrists, she said. cy departments. We also look to see where most referrals â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to take on a population of patients that were coming from,â&#x20AC;? deputy DHHS director Flo Stein told an is not traditionally insured, and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to tell us that April 28 meeting of the House Appropriations Committee \RXÂˇUH JRLQJ WR KHOS XV Ă&#x20AC;[ WKH EXLOGLQJ WR DFFRPPRGDWH on Health and Human Services. them, but youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not going to assure us that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to Priority for the one-time money would go to hospitals be reimbursed when they stay in our building for a month,â&#x20AC;? located where patients must travel the greatest distance to Henry said. get treatment and stay the longest while receiving it. Those patients without insurance often are covered by The state will ask hospitals for proposals to â&#x20AC;&#x153;allow for Medicaid or other government programs that do not pay those counties to either do inpatient beds or facility-based the full costs of treatment. Â´,I ZH LQYHVW LQ WKH VWDÍż WR VXSSRUW WKHLU FDUH DQG crisis beds for either adults or children, and for mental health and substance use disorders,â&#x20AC;? Stein said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are re- thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on us, then how can we be assured that we are going to be able to sustain that?â&#x20AC;? Henry said. ally looking forward to moving on this.â&#x20AC;? Cantrell suggested one option would be reallocating DHHS would prefer to upgrade and renovate existing hospitals â&#x20AC;&#x201D; at a cost ranging from $25,000 to $166,000 per funds set aside only for patients with one type of illness and bed â&#x20AC;&#x201D; rather than building new facilities, which cost be- using them to cover several â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the so-called â&#x20AC;&#x153;three-wayâ&#x20AC;? tween $82,000 and $379,000 per bed, said DHHS division bed funds. Another possibility would be to allow three-way director Courtney Cantrell on April 12 to another legislative bed funds, now available only for inpatient units, to support facility-based crisis programs. That would require a change committee. CJ The House budget targeted the full $25 million Mc- in legislation.

BY DAN WAY

JUNE 2016 | CAROLINA JOURNAL

PAGE CJ3

NORTH CAROLINA

Treasurer Wants to Put More Pension Funds in Real Estate bonds and other â&#x20AC;&#x153;safeâ&#x20AC;? investments have lagged. New York Times Ă&#x20AC;QDQFLDO FROXPRALEIGH f the General Assembly approves nist Josh Barro cited the dilemma state State Treasurer Janet Cowellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s re- pension funds face during periods of TXHVW IRU PRUH Ă H[LELOLW\ LQ KRZ LW slow growth in a June 2014 column. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It invests the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pension plan, North wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be impossible for pension funds Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s investment in real estate to meet a return target of 7 to 8 percould be among the largest in the na- cent in that environment, tion. The department wants to in- but doing so crease the percentage of real estate in- will involve vestments the pension plan can hold taking on a from the current maximum of 10 per- lot of risk â&#x20AC;&#x201D; cent to 15 percent. The General Assem- which means blyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s OK would place North Carolina the next stock alongside Alaska and Pennsylvania as market crash the states with the greatest percentage is likely to of pension fund money allowed to be also bring another round invested in real estate. Real estate is one class of what are of exacerbatcalled alternative investments, which HG VWDWH Ă&#x20AC;Valso include private equity and hedge cal crises and funds, and they are becoming increas- cuts to peningly popular among pension fund VLRQ EHQHĂ&#x20AC;WV Âľ %DUUR ZURWH According to a public fund surmanagers, according to The Financial Times. Real estate is the most popular vey conducted by the National Conferof the alternative investment classes ence of State Legislatures, most statesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; for state pension funds, reports The pension fund investments in real estate Wall Street Journal. Alternative asset ventures fall well below 15 percent. The Alaska Public Employees investments are viewed as more risky and less liquid than stocks, bonds, or Retirement System and Alaska Teachers Retirement System have the highcash. In a March 2016 Forbes.com est percentage invested in real estate column, Andrew Biggs, who studies at 17.2 percent. The percentages are all pension and retirement issues at the 2013 numbers, the latest available, and American Enterprise Institute, noted, GRQÂˇW UHĂ HFW FKDQJHV PDGH VLQFH WKHQ The only other state pension plan â&#x20AC;&#x153;The simple reality is that pensions are bigger than in the past and taking listed as having 15 percent or more a lot more investment risk. Why? Be- invested in real estate is the PennsylFDXVH WKH\ FDQÂˇW DÍżRUG QRW WR Âľ 0RUH vania State Employees Retirement Sysand more public pension plans are ex- tem at 15.6 percent. The rate listed in the survey for panding their alternative investments â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and putting taxpayer-backed retire- the North Carolina Retirement Sysment funds at greater risk â&#x20AC;&#x201D; because tems was 8.1 percent, which was highin recent years returns on government er than the average of 7.2 percent for

BY BARRY SMITH

the 84 systems shown in the report. That was as of June 30, 2013. North Carolina currently is limited to investing 35 percent of its funds in alternative investments. The state treasurer wants to maintain that 35 percent limit, but increase the amount of real estate that can be part of the alternative investment portfolio, said Brad Young, Cowellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s press secretary. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the proposed bill, the real estate limit would increase from 10 percent to 15 percent, but real estate investments would continue to count toward the 35 percent limit,â&#x20AC;? Young said. The stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s retirement portfolio is valued at about $84 billion. The amount allowed to be invested in real estate in states surrounding North Carolina varied. The Virginia Retirement System had 9.4 percent invested in real estate, the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System had 4.9 percent, and the South Carolina Retirement Systems had 2.3 percent. Both the Georgia Employees Retirement System and the Georgia Teachers Retirement System had 0 percent invested in real estate. Young said that since late 2015, WKH VWDWH WUHDVXUHUÂˇV RÎ&#x20AC;FH KDV EHHQ working with Buck Consulting and the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Investment Advisory Committee to analyze which combinations of investment types would work best un-

der a wide variety of possible market conditions. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The work conducted by Buck showed highly attractive risk-adjusted returns for real estate and private equity, two of the so-called â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;alternativeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; asset classes,â&#x20AC;? Young said. Reaction to the proposal has been muted, even among candidates to succeed Democrat Cowell as treasurer. Cowell did not seek re-election this year. The Democratic nominee, Raleigh attorney Dan Blue III, did not RÍżHU D FRPPHQW RQ WKH WUHDVXUHUÂˇV proposal, said Brad Kennedy, Blueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s campaign manager. The Republican nominee, former state Rep. Dale Folwell of Forsyth &RXQW\ ZKR LV D FHUWLĂ&#x20AC;HG SXEOLF DFcountant and former head of the Division of Employment Security, said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;My priority as the next state treasurer will be to determine how well the alternative investment portfolios are performing and to make sure that the allocations are in compliance with state law.â&#x20AC;? So far, no bill allowing for the change has been introduced in the General Assembly. But Rep. Allen McNeill, R-Randolph, co-chairman of the House Pensions and Retirement ComPLWWHH VDLG WKDW RÎ&#x20AC;FLDOV IURP WKH WUHDVXUHUÂˇV RÎ&#x20AC;FH KDYH Â´VHQW XV D ZKROH host of things that theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re asking for. I have looked at what the treasurerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s RÎ&#x20AC;FH KDV SXW IRUZDUG DQG ,ÂˇOO PDNH a determination based on what is best for the retirees.â&#x20AC;? McNeill also noted that even if the investment changes for the treasurHUÂˇV RÎ&#x20AC;FH DUH QRW LQFOXGHG LQ SURSRVDOV Ă&#x20AC;OHG E\ KLV FRPPLWWHH RWKHU OHJLVODWRUV FDQ RÍżHU DPHQGPHQWV WR WKH proposals until the session adjourns. CJ

Keep Up With the General Assembly

Be sure to visit CarolinaJournal.com often for the latest on whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going on during the North Carolina General Assembly. CJ writers are posting several news stories daily online. And for real-time coverage of breaking events, be sure to follow us online, and on Twitter and Facebook: TWITTER: http://www.twitter.com/CarolinaJournal CJ ONLINE: http://www.CarolinaJournal.com FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/jlf.carolina.journal/

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NORTH CAROLINA

JUNE 2016 | CAROLINA JOURNAL

N.C. Experts Leery of Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Effect on Down-Ballot Races BY DAN WAY

RALEIGH

epublicans across the country have voiced concerns that Donald Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s likely presidential nomination could harm down-ballot Republican candidatesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; electoral fortunes. But some political analysts say time and Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unpredictable pivots to soften his image may ease some of those concerns as the general election approaches. Recent polls showing Trump FORVLQJ KLV GHĂ&#x20AC;FLW DJDLQVW OLNHO\ 'HPocratic nominee Hillary Clinton also have cheered Republicans. In contrast, Democrats believe the combination of Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brashness, his historically high negative ratings at this stage of a presidential campaign, along with a backlash against North Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Republican-led passage of House Bill 2, could boost opposition votes in November, possibly handing Democrats the governorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s seat and more legislative wins than previously expected. Earl Phillip, North Carolina state director for Trump, who won the state primary with a 40.2 percent plurality, declined to comment for this story. North Carolina Republican Party executive director Dallas Woodhouse dismissed any notion that Trump would be an albatross for state Republicans. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Not at all. We think weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to do well,â&#x20AC;? Woodhouse said May 7 from the Republicansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; state convention LQ *UHHQVERUR 8 6 6HQ -HÍż 6HVVLRQV R-Ala., who has been working with Trump on foreign policy issues, spoke at the convention. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think people are excited,â&#x20AC;? Woodhouse said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our patrons, our DFWLYLVWV DUH Ă&#x20AC;UHG XS DQG UHDG\ WR JR hard this weekend to send a delegation to [the nominating convention in] Cleveland and get ready for this fall.â&#x20AC;? Woodhouse noted that Republicans turned out 1,139,282 primary voters, 10,000 more than Democrats. He compared that to 2008, when Democratic primary voters outnumbered Republicans 1,580,726 to 517,583 and favored Barack Obama. &LWLQJ XQDÎ&#x20AC;OLDWHG YRWHUV ZKR supported the billionaire candidate, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mr. Trump is obviously keyed in on something about the need to make America great again, and we would also say that our governor, working with legislators on tax reform, and other economic policy, already is making North Carolina even greater. So I think WKRVH WZR HOHPHQWV ZLOO Ă&#x20AC;W LQ ZHOO ZLWK each other,â&#x20AC;? Woodhouse said. Jim Burton, the state House of Representatives Republican Caucus director, agreed that Trump resonated with primary voters on issues such as the closure of textile mills, lost jobs, and trade deals, but sounded a more cautionary note at a May 4 Raleigh event hosted by the North Carolina FreeEnterprise Foundation.

said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ideologically ambiguous. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not clearly conservative, and there are a lot of conservatives who say heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not conservative.â&#x20AC;? He views Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s candidacy as a Rorschach test for voters â&#x20AC;&#x201D; many see in him what they want to see. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no doubt that there will EH 5HSXEOLFDQ Ă&#x20AC;JXUHV SURPLQHQW RQHV across the country who will say, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;I just canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t vote for Trump,â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;? Taylor said, a phenomenon not seen in American presidential races for decades. â&#x20AC;&#x153;With Trump at the top of the ticket, it certainly doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get any easier for down-ballot candidates on the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaking at a Dec. 4 campaign GOP side. A lot of Democrats are going event at Dorton Arena on the N.C. State Fairgrounds. (CJ photo by Don Carrington) to come out and vote against Trumpâ&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;A lot of people are concerned negatives and the disdain by conserva- because they are energized â&#x20AC;&#x153;more so about Donald Trump,â&#x20AC;? and worry tives in the â&#x20AC;&#x153;never Trumpâ&#x20AC;? movement than usualâ&#x20AC;? by a Trump candidacy, said North Carolina Democratic Party whether national polls consistently could diminish by then. showing him trailing Clinton will â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think it can really have spokesman Dave Miranda. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attacked nearly every WUDQVODWH LQWR GLÎ&#x20AC;FXOWLHV LQ WKHLU 1RUWK too many positive down-ballot efCarolina races, Burton said. fects,â&#x20AC;? N.C. State University political group you can think of â&#x20AC;&#x201D; veterans, â&#x20AC;&#x153;If his numbers with certain science professor Andy Taylor said of disabled people, African-Americans, groups like women, and Latinos, a Trump-led GOP presidential ticket. Latinos, women â&#x20AC;&#x201D; repeatedly. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s that and African-Americans were to hold â&#x20AC;&#x153;Just in the head-to-head with Clinton, kind of divisive rhetoric thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really where they are now, that could poten- Trump is down 10 to 15 points, so that caused a lot of people to not like him,â&#x20AC;? tially cause problems down ballotâ&#x20AC;? for canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be good.â&#x20AC;? Miranda said. North Carolina Republicans, said DaBut, like McLennan, Taylor said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Elections have become so navid McLennan, a political science pro- â&#x20AC;&#x153;Things can change between now and tionalized, and in a presidential year fessor at Meredith College. then.â&#x20AC;? what happens at the top of the ticket However, he cautioned, â&#x20AC;&#x153;EveryOne â&#x20AC;&#x153;saving graceâ&#x20AC;? for other Re- will be felt all the way down,â&#x20AC;? said thing about the Trump candidacy has publican candidates is that anti-Trump Democratic strategist Gary Pearce, gone against the conventional wis- donors and party activists â&#x20AC;&#x153;may conwho publishes the blog â&#x20AC;&#x153;Talking About dom,â&#x20AC;? and his approval ratings could FHQWUDWH WKHLU HÍżRUWV RQ NHHSLQJ WKH rise. Congress and maybe even the guber- Politicsâ&#x20AC;? with Republican campaign â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re looking at everything natorial seats like the one in North strategist Carter Wrenn. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My Republican friends tell me through the lens of today when weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve Carolinaâ&#x20AC;? rather than devote time and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re really worried about it, and JRW Ă&#x20AC;YH PRQWKV RI FDPSDLJQLQJ FLU- resources to Trump, Taylor said. cumstances and everything else. Some election observers say I think thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what the polling right Things may change dramatically for Trump may veer away from some of now is showing,â&#x20AC;? Pearce said, citing a Donald Trump,â&#x20AC;? McLennan said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I his more incendiary primary tactics late April Civitas Institute poll showing Gov. Pat McCrory well behind his canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t say heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to be this big an- and positions for the general election. chorâ&#x20AC;? on other Republican candidates. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This question of him pivot- Democratic opponent, Attorney GenUnless state legislative candi- ing back to the middle, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know eral Roy Cooper, and Trump trailing dates â&#x20AC;&#x153;literally adopt some of Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what that means for Trump,â&#x20AC;? Taylor Clinton. CJ positions, voters are smart enough WR GLÍżHUHQWLDWH EHWZHHQ ORFDO SROLWLcians and statewide issues, and what goes on in the presidential election,â&#x20AC;? McLennan said. Congressional races â&#x20AC;&#x153;may be PRUH RI D GLÍżHUHQW DQLPDOÂľ EHFDXVH federal issues align more closely with presidential politics, he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think if I was a Richard Burr I might be a little bit more concerned right now,â&#x20AC;? McLennan said of North Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s senior Republican U.S. senator, who supports Trump. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If his positions on foreign policy start shifting towards Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s positions, people might see a vote for one as a vote for the other.â&#x20AC;? McLennan doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t envision voters casting ballots for or against Trump and then splitting their ticket on downballot races. But it is likely some dispirited voters might stay home rather than vote for the New York billionaire. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Time has a way of healing a lot of wounds, and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to be looking at a lot of time, a lot of campaign http://carolinajournal.com promises â&#x20AC;Ś between now and election day,â&#x20AC;? McLennan said. Both Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Visit the new Carolina Journal Online

JUNE 2016 | CAROLINA JOURNAL

NORTH CAROLINA

PAGE CJ5

N.C. One of Many States Reviewing Occupational Licensing Legislators may consider alternatives in the 2017 session

create â&#x20AC;&#x153;substantial costs, and often the requirements for obtaining a license are not in sync with the skills needed for the job,â&#x20AC;? according to a report from the departments of Treasury and Labor and the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Historically, such requirements were used to keep certain groups from BY REUT RORY COHEN attaining upward mobility. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Whether it was the Chinese in San Francisco or RALEIGH blacks in the South, it was primarily a legislative proposal that would discriminatory tool to keep out compeconsolidate or eliminate licenstition,â&#x20AC;? said Adam Summers, an editoing boards for a dozen occuparial writer and columnist at the Orange tions may be stalled until next year, but County Register who has studied the as legislators weigh public input on liissue. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not so much ethnically or censing rules, other states may serve racially based right now. But stringent as models for reforming occupational occupational licensing still disproporlicensing provisions. WLRQDOO\ DÍżHFWV WKH SRRUHU RU HWKQLF PLThe issue got the attention of the General Assembly after a landmark The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has ranked the occupational norities.â&#x20AC;? States with less restrictive licensU.S. Supreme Court decision issued freedom of all 50 states. North Carolina ranks 39th. The category takes into account ing requirements have higher rates of last year struck down North Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s occupational licensing, education, and experience requirements. licensing regulations for teeth-whit- licensing freedom, ahead of neighbor- profession centered on health and safe- entrepreneurship among low-income workers, concluded a study from the HQLQJ VHUYLFHV Âł SRWHQWLDOO\ DÍżHFWLQJ ing South Carolina (41st) and Tennes- ty concerns. In others, the process has been Arizona-based Goldwater Institute. other state-based occupational licens- see (44th) but trailing Georgia (30th) PRUH WDUJHWHG ,Q 9LUJLQLD RÎ&#x20AC;- Overall restructuring of occupational ing programs. The decision, stating it and Virginia (34th). Many states retain extensive li- cials deregulated hair braiding, allow- licensing laws and sunshine provisions wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessary to be a licensed dentist to provide teeth whitening, led to censing regimes. In Arizona, attorneys ing people to braid hair commercially to keep boards accountable are some a proposal before the Joint Legislative with the libertarian public-interest without a license from the state. The steps taken at the state level. Regular review, which includes Administrative Procedure Oversight OHJDO Ă&#x20AC;UP ,QVWLWXWH IRU -XVWLFH Ă&#x20AC;OHG D deregulation process took years. Hair Committee that would have ended lawsuit on behalf of a woman accused braiders previously had to complete FRVW EHQHĂ&#x20AC;W DVVHVVPHQWV ZDV DOVR a 1,500-hour cos- touted as a major policy prescription or merged licensing boards regulat- of practicing vetmetology course in the White House report. erinary medicine ing acupuncturists, alarm systems to qualify for a professionals, athletic trainers, clini- without a license â&#x20AC;&#x153;Without that extra bureaucratic license. The state protection, they say, people will be excal perfusionists, foresters, laser hair because she was reduced the re- posed to unnecessary risk from bad practitioners, employee assistance pro- giving horses rubquirement to a actors,â&#x20AC;? Wells told The Insider. â&#x20AC;&#x153;That fessionals, irrigation contractors, inter- downs. Two years 170-hour course may have been true 50 years ago. But later, the case is preters, locksmiths, pastoral counselEHIRUH Ă&#x20AC;QDOO\ GR- in the age of smartphones and Yelp, ors, public librarians, and recreational still in litigation. ing away with the there may be a better way to protect Further west, therapists, among others. rule altogether. In April, the committee decided California requires consumers than more bureaucracy.â&#x20AC;? Support for not to recommend any major changes a state license for Popular sites like Yelp, Angieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easing licensing List, Consumer Reports and others are during the current short legislative GLÍżHUHQW MRE rules has tran- empowering consumers, helping them session. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re still gathering infor- categories â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the scended the typi- locate quality practitioners. Furthermation,â&#x20AC;? Sen. Andy Wells, R-Catawba, most of any U.S. cal left/right ideo- more, industry groups themselves oftold the committee. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m still hearing state and nearly logical divide. from boards, and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re still hearing twice the national WHQ RÍżHU WKHLU RZQ YROXQWDU\ FHUWLĂ&#x20AC;A c c o r d i n g cation programs, allowing markets to from citizens.â&#x20AC;? The committee may average of 92 octo the left-leaning self-regulate. propose alternatives to licensing dur- cupations. In 2012, Brookings Instithere was an ating the 2017 session. Studies from the Mercatus Centution, there are In most cases, occupational li- tempt to license ter and Goldwater Institute concluded â&#x20AC;&#x153;plenty of activicensing requirements require workers pet groomers. that licensing laws neither have imties where licensN a t i o n a l l y, seeking to enter an occupation to pass proved the quality of service nor kept ing is unnecessary, industry-authorized tests, certify the 36 states require costs down for consumers. In fact, they or unnecessarily completion of coursework from au- a person to have have reduced job growth. strict, which limits thorized providers, perform a number a license in order â&#x20AC;&#x153;The existing practitioners are market dynamism of hours of work as an apprentice, or WR EH D Â´PDNHXS DUWLVW Âľ $W OHDVW Ă&#x20AC;YH WKH RQHV ZKR EHQHĂ&#x20AC;W IURP RFFXSDand possibly social mobility, too.â&#x20AC;? For states require a license to be a â&#x20AC;&#x153;shamsome combination of the three. tional licensing,â&#x20AC;? said Summers, pointexample, since laws vary from state to Wells notes there are more than pooer.â&#x20AC;? ing to an analysis from the Reason state, a license earned in one place ofBut some states have undertaken 50 occupational licensing boards in ten is not honored in other states. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In Foundation which also ranked statesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; North Carolina, and more than 700,000 aggressive reforms. In Texas and Colo- South Carolina, only 12 percent of the requirements. â&#x20AC;&#x153;These are laws born occupational licenses of one form are rado, state â&#x20AC;&#x153;sunsetâ&#x20AC;? commissions re- work force is licensed, versus 33 per- of the special interest rather than the active in the state. (A person can hold view occupational licensing rules and cent in Iowa,â&#x20AC;? Brookings found. While public interest.â&#x20AC;? licenses for several occupations.) And â&#x20AC;&#x201D; unless the regulations are approved it would take 16 months of education Moreover, Summers noted, exyet some of these rules may interfere by the legislature â&#x20AC;&#x201D; requirements for to become a cosmetologist in Iowa, it isting businesses often are â&#x20AC;&#x153;grandfawith the North Carolina Constitutionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s licensing are eliminated if the licens- takes half that time in New York. Cen- thered inâ&#x20AC;? when new restrictions are acknowledgment of a â&#x20AC;&#x153;self-evidentâ&#x20AC;? ing boards cannot demonstrate that VXV Ă&#x20AC;JXUHV VKRZ WKDW WKRVH ZRUNLQJ LQ placed on occupations; they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have right of residents â&#x20AC;&#x153;to the enjoyment of the rules â&#x20AC;&#x153;protect the public interest.â&#x20AC;? licensed professions are less likely to to abide by the stricter regulations For example, a Colorado Sunset Com- be mobile across state lines. the fruits of their own labor.â&#x20AC;? placed on their future competitors. The Mercatus Center at George mission eased requirements for maniA report from the Obama ad- The costs of those new regulations are Mason University ranks North Caroli- FXULVWV DIWHU Ă&#x20AC;QGLQJ WKDW MXVW RI WKH ministration echoed similar concerns. shifted to consumers and would-be enna 39th of the 50 states on occupational required 350 hours of training for the Unnecessary licensing requirements trepreneurs. CJ

There are more than 50 occupational licensing boards in North Carolina, and more than 700,000 occupational licenses are active in the state

PAGE CJ6

NORTH CAROLINA

JUNE 2016 | CAROLINA JOURNAL

Judge Dismisses State Bar Complaint Involving Roy Cooper Judge chides attorney Gene Boyce; Boyce says he will appeal BY DON CARRINGTON

RALEIGH

ake County Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens ruled in a May 6 hearing that Raleigh attorney Gene Boyce cannot force the North Carolina State Bar to investigate a misconduct complaint %R\FH KDG Ă&#x20AC;OHG DJDLQVW $WWRUQH\ *HQeral Roy Cooper. The State Bar is the state agency that regulates attorneys. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The purpose of the State Bar disciplinary system is to protect the public, the courts, and the integrity of the legal profession. It is not to provide a remedy for any kind of individual grievance,â&#x20AC;? said Stephens. Stephens said he believed that Boyce lacks standing and ruled in favor of the State Barâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s motion to dismiss the case. Stephens also chided Boyce, saying he had 14 years to seek relief through the courts and did not do so. At the conclusion of the 90-minute hearing, Boyce told Stephens he would appeal the decision to dismiss the case. Cooper has been North Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attorney general since 2001. He is the Democratic Party nominee for governor facing Republican Gov. Pat

nominee for attorney general and his main opponent was Republican Dan Boyce, Geneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s son. Cooper won that race and has served as attorney general since then. The Boyces and their law partQHUV 3KLOLS DQG /DXUD ,VOH\ Ă&#x20AC;OHG D GHIDmation lawsuit in 2000 against Cooper based on ads run by the Cooper campaign committee. The lawsuit alleged that Cooper and his committee ran a political ad that was defamatory and constituted an unfair and deceptive trade practice. It also charged that Cooper and his committee participated in a conspiracy to violate a North Carolina law prohibiting false ads during election campaigns. A trial court judge dismissed the lawsuit, but appellate courts ruled in Boyceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s favor on sevAttorney Gene Boyce, shown standing in front of the Campbell Law School center eral occasions, and in 2014 the matter named after him, is alleging professional misconduct against Attorney General Roy was scheduled to go to trial. &RRSHU &- ÂżOH SKRWR

The dispute appeared to be over McCrory in the November election. conduct but the State Bar had not re- in April 2014 when Cooper issued a Boyce claims that, starting in sponded. Boyce also believes the State written apology to Boyce for state2000, Cooper knowingly made false %DU KDV D FRQĂ LFW RI LQWHUHVW LQ WKH PDW- ments Cooperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s political campaign statements that harmed the reputation ter because Cooper also serves as the made in the political ads. Cooper paid $75,000 plus the fees of a mediator. The of Boyce and his law partners. Seek- attorney for the State Bar. ing to force an investigation, in JanuBoyce asked the court for a de- parties signed an agreement ending DU\ %R\FH Ă&#x20AC;OHG D IRUPDO FRPSODLQW LQ claratory judgment forcing the State the civil action, but Boyceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s complaint Wake County Superior Court against Bar to acknowledge Boyceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s claims of said Cooperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s conduct is a separate isthe North Carolina State Bar. Cooperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s misconduct; declare that the sue that the State Bar must address. In the complaint, Boyce said that 6WDWH %DU KDV D FRQĂ LFW RI LQWHUHVW LQ WKH Boyce has been practicing law as an attorney he has an obligation to matter; and refer the matter to an ap- since 1956. He served as assistant chief report the professional misconduct of propriate alternative agency for inves- counsel to the Senate Watergate Comother attorneys to the State Bar. Ac- WLJDWLRQ Ă&#x20AC;QGLQJV RI IDFW DQG GLVFLSOLQH mittee, working with U.S. Sen. Sam cording to the complaint, Boyce had if appropriate. Ervin, D-N.C., on the investigation of QRWLĂ&#x20AC;HG WKH 6WDWH %DU RQ PXOWLSOH RFThe dispute began in 2000, when President Nixonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1972 presidential casions about Cooperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s alleged mis- Cooper was the Democratic Partyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s campaign. CJ

Auditor: State IT Systems Vulnerable to Security Breaches Beth Wood: Many instances of attempted access to system

really donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have them setting performance metrics to make sure our data canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be breached.â&#x20AC;? 7KH DXGLWRUÂˇV RÎ&#x20AC;FH UHFRPPHQGV that the state CIO direct the departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Enterprise Security and Risk 0DQDJHPHQW 2Î&#x20AC;FH WR DGRSW D FRPprehensive and well-documented risk BY BARRY SMITH management framework. It also rec ommends the CIO direct ESRMO to RALEIGH establish and postperformance meastate audit released in late May sures on the departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s website as has revealed shortcomings in required by law. the state government inforOther recommendations request mation technology system that could the state CIO to direct: compromise security. Â&#x2021; WKH ULVN PDQDJHPHQW RÎ&#x20AC;FH â&#x20AC;&#x153;There have not been breaches,â&#x20AC;? to begin annual assessments of each State Auditor Beth Wood said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There agency and each vendor to determine have been a lot of instances where peo- compliance with state security stanple were trying to get in.â&#x20AC;? Wood added dards; that the state took too much time reactÂ&#x2021; WKH ULVN PDQDJHPHQW RÎ&#x20AC;FH WR ing to the vulnerabilities. complete a comprehensive strategy for â&#x20AC;&#x153;The stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s [chief information agencies to conduct security assessRÎ&#x20AC;FHUÂˇV@ RÎ&#x20AC;FH GRHVQÂˇW KDYH D SODQ IRU ments and communicate that strategy risk management,â&#x20AC;? Wood said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You to all agencies;

â&#x20AC;˘ personnel to address and resolve immediately vulnerabilities detected during scans of systems within established deadlines. 7KH DXGLWRUÂˇV RÎ&#x20AC;FH DOVR VXJJHVWV that the General Assembly consider modernizing the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s IT security law. Wood said that the state CIO has no authority over a lot of local organizations with information systems that are tied into the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s system. Those include local school systems connected to the state Department of Public Instructionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s system, local clerks of court RÎ&#x20AC;FHV OLQNHG ZLWK WKH VWDWH $GPLQLVWUDWLYH 2Î&#x20AC;FH RI WKH &RXUWV DQG FRXQW\ agencies tied into the Department of Health and Human Services. 7KH ODFN RI VXÎ&#x20AC;FLHQW VDIHJXDUGV puts state and personal information at risk, Wood said. That includes Social Security numbers, bank accounts, medical information, criminal records, and tax information, she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is a lot of our private per-

VRQDO VWXÍż WKDW FRXOG EH XVHG WR HLWKHU steal money or steal our identities,â&#x20AC;? Wood said. Keith Werner, state chief informaWLRQ RÎ&#x20AC;FHU JHQHUDOO\ DJUHHG ZLWK WKH DXGLWRUÂˇV Ă&#x20AC;QGLQJV DQG UHFRPPHQGDtions. In an eight-page letter to Wood, :HUQHU ODLG RXW PHDVXUHV KLV RÎ&#x20AC;FH LV taking or will take to address the shortcomings of the state IT system. Werner noted that many of the issues began at a time when the IT system was divided among a host of state agencies. Last year, the General Assembly established a Cabinet-level Department of Information Technology in DQ DWWHPSW WR FHQWUDOL]H ,7 HÍżRUWV DQG modernization. Wood said she was pleased with Wernerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s response. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The new CIO is very appreciative of the work,â&#x20AC;? Wood said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He was on to some of this before our audit started. â&#x20AC;Ś This is good news for me as CJ a taxpayer.â&#x20AC;?

JUNE 2016 | CAROLINA JOURNAL

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WASHINGTON

Experts: 13th Congressional District Primary Hard to Predict 17 Republicans, Ă&#x20AC;YH 'HPRFUDWV one independent in June 7 contest BY DAN WAY

RALEIGH

nticipated low voter turnout, new geographic boundaries, 23 candidates, and a courtinduced, drastically compressed campaign schedule present a fascinating political script, making it impossible to handicap the June 7 Republican primary for North Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 13th Congressional District, political science academics say. There are 17 Republicans vying for the seat. Five Democrats are seeking their partyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nomination, and one independent candidate is running. â&#x20AC;&#x153;To use the old cliche, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s almost the perfect storm for an undemocratic, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;small d,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; election. But thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got,â&#x20AC;? said David McLennan, a political science professor at Meredith College. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is bad for the voters. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bad for the candidates,â&#x20AC;? and poses the greatest challenge to Republicans runQLQJ LQ VXFK D FURZGHG Ă&#x20AC;HOG â&#x20AC;&#x153;The political science literature doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a model for thisâ&#x20AC;? in assessing a favorite for the GOP nomination, McLennan said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think the chance of [electing] someone whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s untested is higher than normal.â&#x20AC;? If thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s any edge, he said, it might go to incumbent state lawmakers who have some name recognition

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Sen. Andrew Brock, R-Davie, and Reps. John Blust, R-Guilford, and Julia Howard, R-Davie. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think a lot of this is going to be the friends-and-neighbors phenomenon, where certain people do well in their home territory, and the battle is going to be for splitting up the rest of WKH FRXQWLHV LQ GLÍżHUHQW ZD\V Âľ VDLG Michael Bitzer, provost and professor of politics and history at Catawba College. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Could the winner end up with 15 to 20 percent of the vote? Could be,â&#x20AC;? Bitzer said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s almost friends and familyâ&#x20AC;? that could tip a low-turnout election spread among so many candidates, High Point University political science professor Martin Kifer said in half jest. (OHFWHG RÎ&#x20AC;FLDOV Â´ZKR KDYH DW least some of their constituency within the districtâ&#x20AC;? that supported their past electoral campaigns would do well to identify them and aggressively solicit their votes, Kifer said. Since itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s impossible to gauge voter support in a newly drawn district with so many candidacies in play, â&#x20AC;&#x153;we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know how many votes itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s actually going to take to win this election,â&#x20AC;? he said. Kifer, who is director of High Point Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Survey Research Center, said the dynamics of this race steered him away from doing a public opinion poll. â&#x20AC;&#x153;As somebody who thinks about how to sample in polls, it gives me a lot of pause. You just have to be so careful about who youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re sampling because youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got these multiple overlapping state legislative districts, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got some people who are known in some places and not others, and so unless

info@popecenter.org

Candidates in June 7 13th Congressional District Primary

Republicans

â&#x20AC;˘ Davie County Commissioner Dan Barrett â&#x20AC;˘ State Rep. John Blust â&#x20AC;˘ State Sen. Andrew Brock â&#x20AC;˘ Gun range owner Ted Budd â&#x20AC;˘ Political consultant Kay Daly â&#x20AC;˘ Hospital consultant Kathy Feather â&#x20AC;˘ Recent law school graduate Chad Gant â&#x20AC;˘ Guilford County Commissioner Hank Henning â&#x20AC;˘ State Rep. Julia Howard â&#x20AC;˘ Iredell County Register of Deeds Matt McCall â&#x20AC;˘ Ex-Winston-Salem City Council member Vernon Robinson â&#x20AC;˘ Attorney George Rouco â&#x20AC;˘ Real estate broker Farren Shoaf â&#x20AC;˘ Attorney Jim Snyder â&#x20AC;˘ Mooresville resident David Thompson â&#x20AC;˘ Central N.C. Land Trust Executive Director Jason Walser â&#x20AC;˘ State Rep. Harry Warren

Democrats â&#x20AC;˘ Filmmaker Adam Coker â&#x20AC;˘ Ex-Guilford County Commissioner Bruce Davis â&#x20AC;˘ Attorney Mazie Ferguson Â&#x2021; %XVLQHVVPDQ .HYLQ *ULIÂżQ â&#x20AC;˘ Real Estate Developer Bob Isner

Independents â&#x20AC;˘ Nicholas Tolerton

you do that right you risk getting some really strange results,â&#x20AC;? Kifer said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;To me itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sort of unpollable,â&#x20AC;? he said, adding another important reason. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Because youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got this primary at this odd time, the likelihood that thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to be any kind of turnout is pretty low. So how you identify who the likely voters are sounds absolutely so daunting that it would keep me away from doing a poll,â&#x20AC;? Kifer said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be getting a very rough set of estimates.â&#x20AC;? The General Assembly moved the congressional primary from March 15 to June 7 in response to a ruling in February by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Middle District of North Carolina that struck down the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1st and 12th congressional districts. The judges ruled too many minority voters were packed into those districts, a charge the Republican-led legislature denied. By the time the court decision came out, and maps were redrawn without taking any racial factors into consideration, it was too late to hold the primary as originally scheduled. Kifer noted that both the presidential campaign and 13th District had 17 GOP candidates, but presidential contenders â&#x20AC;&#x153;had a year to sort it outâ&#x20AC;?

with the help of a series of televised debates. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In this case we just have a couple of monthsâ&#x20AC;? in a congressional race garnering little media coverage for the candidates to make their case, gain name recognition, and build support. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the end what youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re doing is getting a real test of someoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to get votes early and quickly,â&#x20AC;? Kifer said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I would be hard-pressed to say that any voter is going to walk into the voting booth in early June and know all of the candidates and all of the positions,â&#x20AC;? Bitzer said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a very compressed schedXOH DQG SUREDEO\ WKH IRONV WKDW EHQHĂ&#x20AC;W from getting an edge on fundraising are those who either are well-estabOLVKHG DQG DOUHDG\ LQ HOHFWHG RÎ&#x20AC;FH or who potentially have deep connections within the district,â&#x20AC;? Bitzer said. He doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see any of the candidates holding that edge. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Modern campaigns generally tend to be fought through the air, and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s media,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think this will be more of a ground war game, pounding the pavement, being at local events.â&#x20AC;? Kifer, Bitzer, and McLennan all said fundraising would be a challenging issue due to the dynamics of this race. However, the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks outside election spending, shows the Club for Growth PAC has spent $285,053, and all of it has gone to gun range owner Ted Budd. Conversely, Budd reported QR UHFHLSWV RQ KLV Ă&#x20AC;UVW TXDUWHU )HGHUDO Elections CommisVLRQ FDPSDLJQ Ă&#x20AC;nance report. About half of the candidates Ă&#x20AC;OHG QR Ă&#x20AC;UVW quarter reports or showed no receipts. Campaigns reporting receipts were Kay Daly, $107,068; Brock, $104,500; George Rouco, $72,340; Paul Henning, $28,175; Howard, $15,340; Harry Warren, $15,000; Matt McCall, $14,980; Jason Walser, $11,740; and Blust, $11,200. The confusion created by the courts in this election â&#x20AC;&#x153;is having maMRU UDPLĂ&#x20AC;FDWLRQV DOO DFURVV WKH VWDWH Âľ McLennan said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to think that the courts are immune from politics, but theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not,â&#x20AC;? McLennan said. Recognizing the upheaval caused in this case could give some judges in future situations â&#x20AC;&#x153;pause not to disrupt a campaign schedule. â&#x20AC;ŚThey may choose to kind of let the election go before forcing any CJ change.â&#x20AC;?

Primary was moved from March 15 due to a redistricting court case

PAGE CJ8

JUNE 2016 | CAROLINA JOURNAL

FROM PAGE 1

N.C. Big Business Rakes In Renewable Tax Credits Continued from Page 1

â&#x20AC;&#x153;These are investments in North Carolina communities and North Carolina infrastructure in revitalizing old mills and diversifying North Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s energy grid,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;These investments create real jobs, construction jobs, and permanent jobs, as well as asVLVW LQ WKH GLYHUVLĂ&#x20AC;FDWLRQ RI RXU HQHUJ\ sources.â&#x20AC;? Although the 35 percent tax credit program ended at the close of 2015, the FUHGLW FDQ EH VSUHDG RYHU Ă&#x20AC;YH \HDUV VR it is possible that the volume of issued but unused tax credits carried forward could continue the upward trend in future years. But projecting a trend â&#x20AC;&#x153;is GLÎ&#x20AC;FXOW GXH WR D QXPEHU RI YDULDEOHV Âľ Revenue Department spokesman Trevor Johnson cautioned. Because a renewable tax credit FDQQRW RÍżVHW PRUH WKDQ SHUFHQW RI a recipientâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tax liability, and due to WKH Ă&#x20AC;YH \HDU ZLQGRZ IRU XVH Â´ZKDW D business or individual may be eligible IRU OLNHO\ GLÍżHUV IURP \HDU WR \HDU Âľ Johnson said. The Revenue Department â&#x20AC;&#x153;does not track or have a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;remaining tallyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of what credits may be claimed in the future on an aggregate taxpayer scale,â&#x20AC;? Johnson said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We obviously track remaining credits, which can be taken on a taxpayer-by-taxpayer case, but unfortunately that information cannot be released due to secrecy provisionsâ&#x20AC;? that are part of state law, he said. In 2015, $40.3 million in renewable credits were claimed by 1,162 companies and individuals for activities that occurred before 2015 but were carried forward to that tax year. Those credits could have resulted from investment in projects or purchase of the credits, which can be transferred by the original investors to third parties. Maggie Clark, a spokeswoman for the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association, a trade group that lobbies for the renewable industry, defended the tax credit. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Renewable energy in North Carolina was responsible for $1.97 billion in investment in 2015, resulting in considerable tax base for communities who need it most,â&#x20AC;? Clark said. In all, 85 percent of the investment occurred in Tier 1 and Tier 2 counties, the most economically distressed. However, Revenue Department data show only $892 million in spending related to the tax credits. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Nonrefundable tax credits like the Renewable Energy Investment Tax Credit do not take money from state FRÍżHUV Âľ &ODUN VDLG Â´7KH\ VLPSO\ UHduce the tax liability of taxpayers who make these investments in our communities. It is money that is never collected by the government, so how can LW FRPH RXW RI VWDWH FRÍżHUV"Âľ â&#x20AC;&#x153;In a sense theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re right,â&#x20AC;? Bryson

Corporations and individuals claiming more than $100,000 in renewable energy investment tax credits in North Carolina

In 2015 there were 86 corporations and individuals who claimed renewable energy investment tax credits for $100,000 or more. Of those, 23 were for $1 million or more. Total tax credits claimed were $126,661,982 in 2014 and $136,289,577 in 2015, a 7.6 percent increase. The total tax credits claimed since 2010 are $360, 797, 758. 1 Blue Cross and Blue Shield of NC 2 Duke Energy Corporation 3 North Carolina Farm Bureau Mutual. 4 Wells Fargo Bank NA 5 Bank of America Corp. and Subs 6 Integon National Insurance Co. 7 Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. 8 United Services Automobile Assoc. 9 Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance 10 US Bank National Association 11 UnitedHealthCare Insurance Co. 12 Branch Banking and Trust Company 13 Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance 14 USAA Casualty Insurance Company 15 AJ Fletcher Foundation 16 Auto Owners Insurance Company 17 Colonial Life & Accident Ins. Co. 18 First Citizens BancShares, Inc. 19 USAA General Indemnity Company 20 Federal Insurance Co. 21 Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance 3DFLÂżF /LIH ,QVXUDQFH &R 23 Builders Mutual Insurance Co. 24 Hartford Life and Accident Insurance 25 QVC, Inc. 26 Owners Insurance Co. 27 Unum Life Insurance Co. of America 28 Genworth Life Insurance Co. 29 Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc. 30 Southern Power Co. 31 Hartford Underwriters Insurance 32 Wells Fargo Equipment Finance 33 Transamerica Life Insurance Co. 34 Hartford Life and Annuity Insurance 35 Kenny C. Habul 36 Hartford Casualty Insurance Company 37 STCE NC 2013 Energy Fund, LLC 38 Hartford Fire Insurance Company 39 Carolina Power & Light Company 40 Genworth Life and Annuity Insurance 41 United Therapeutics Corporation 42 Provident Life and Accident Insurance 43 USAA Life Insurance Company Source: N.C. Department of Revenue

said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a tax credit, so itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not necessarily like the state is paying them like a pure subsidy.â&#x20AC;? But because the General Assembly passed the renewable subsidy legislation, the large corporations in the special-interest renewable industry â&#x20AC;&#x153;got to keep $136 million that the rest of us had to pay into the system. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s being subsidized.â&#x20AC;? The 2015 renewable credits were â&#x20AC;&#x153;a lot of money,â&#x20AC;? Bryson said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They could fund towns or several school systems with $136 million.â&#x20AC;? Indeed, a Carolina Journal review of the House 2016-17 budget determined that if that $136 million had been collected it could have funded various combinations of state appropriations for such things as:

$40,117,428 $13,854,949 $6,800,000 $5,807,890 $5,545,779 $3,778,982 $3,477,374 $2,548,525 $2,262,225 $1,922,316 $1,816,247 $1,609,747 $1,556,785 $1,535,769 $1,389,664 $1,251,928 $1,110,000 $1,103,769 $1,073,881 $1,055,394 $1,043,075 $1,036,140 $1,000,000 $998,884 $890,124 $851,928 $850,000 $727,144 $667,385 $648,886 $591,448 $556,355 $545,357 $512,546 $499,045 $469,760 $452,925 $451,806 $442,848 $407,978 $404,026 $400,000 $379,732

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 84 85 86

House of Raeford Farms, Inc. Sentinel Insurance Company Ltd. Hartford Insurance Co. Midwest Monumental Life Insurance Co. Selective Insurance Co. Southeast Markus F. Wilhelm Waste Management of Carolinas, Inc. Melvin F. Graham Phoenix Insurance Company Standard Fire Insurance Company Verizon Business Network Services Weyerhaeuser NR Company American Bankers Ins.Co. of Florida Charlotte Pipe and Foundry Company Investors Title Insurance Company Ravenwood International Corporation The Cato Corporation WSOC Television, Inc. James Whitehurst Selective Insurance Co. of S.C. Twin City Fire Insurance Company Standard Insurance Company Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co. Selective Insurance Co. of America Union Security Insurance Company Troy Lumber Company Genworth Mortgage Ins. Corporation Hanover Insurance Company Time Insurance Company FLS Energy, Inc. William C. Baxley Attends Healthcare Products, Inc. Catosouth, LLC Prestage Farms, Inc. John P. Cato NGM Insurance Co. American Reliable Insurance Co. Vigilant Insurance Co. Trumbull Insurance Company %URRNÂżHOG 3RZHU 86 +ROGLQJ $PHULFD Time Warner Cable Enterprises, LLC Kapstone Kraft Paper Corporation Garrett N. Blackwelder

â&#x20AC;˘ Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services ($120,510,983) and Department of State Treasurer ($10,635,520) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; $131,146,503. â&#x20AC;˘ Division of Motor Vehicles DQG 2Î&#x20AC;FH RI 6WDWH %XGget and Management ($7,531,408) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; $133,887,531. Â&#x2021; 2Î&#x20AC;FH RI ,QGLJHQW 'HIHQVH ($116,629,964) and Department of Labor ($15,762,231) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; $132,392,195. â&#x20AC;˘ Department of Environmental Quality ($79,752,533) and Department of Justice ($56,767,296) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; $136,519,829. â&#x20AC;˘ Department of Commerce ($62,715,572), Department of Information Technology ($43,002,697), OfĂ&#x20AC;FH RI WKH 6WDWH $XGLWRU and Wildlife Resources Commission

$377,670 $373,360 $371,563 $363,568 $354,000 $346,850 $334,468 $325,004 $322,487 $322,487 $322,430 $317,686 $302,575 $298,895 $293,999 $280,060 $274,574 $258,852 $250,000 $234,000 $232,837 $226,564 $219,202 $212,000 $191,339 $187,608 $181,789 $166,639 $166,430 $162,106 $160,000 $157,415 $156,919 $150,720 $149,449 $146,584 $144,635 $138,184 $119,047 $117,938 $105,175 $104,767 $101,102

($10,023,496) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; $127,958,927. While reports abound that renewable energy companies are lobbying lawmakers to reinstate the tax credit, Clark would not say if her association was directly involved in any discussions. â&#x20AC;&#x153;NCSEA is aware of legislators on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers that want to advance new policies so that North Carolina can see more clean energy jobs and investments,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The details and WLPLQJ RI WKHVH HÍżRUWV >DUH@ DW WKH GLVcretion of policymakers.â&#x20AC;? Millis said he remains vigilant in opposition to reviving the tax credit. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If it rears its head I would do evHU\WKLQJ , FDQ WR Ă&#x20AC;JKW IRU WKH WD[SD\HUV of this state,â&#x20AC;? he said. CJ

JUNE 2016 | CAROLINA JOURNAL

FROM PAGE 1

PAGE CJ9

Top GOP OfďŹ ceholders Condemn Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bathroom Edict â&#x20AC;&#x153;I commend the Department of Education for putting the needs of stuidentity. Under Title IX, there is no dents above playing politics. The demedical diagnosis or treatment repartmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guidance is a much-needed quirement that students must meet as step to ensuring the transgender coma prerequisite to being treated consisPXQLW\ÂˇV YRLFHV DUH KHDUG Âľ %XWWHUĂ&#x20AC;HOG tent with their gender identity.â&#x20AC;? said. McCrory said the federal edict afâ&#x20AC;&#x153;Our public schools must serve as fects â&#x20AC;&#x153;employees as well as every parsafe havens where students can grow ent and child within a public school and learn without worrying which fasystem. This national bathroom, locker FLOLWLHV WR XVH Âľ %XWWHUĂ&#x20AC;HOG VDLG Â´1RUWK room, and shower policy for almost evCarolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s H.B. 2 is about much more ery business, university, and now K-12 than bathrooms, and it infringes on school in our country changes generathe rights of many more than just the tions of gender etiquette and privacy LGBT community. This law is taknorms, which parents, children, and ing our state and country backward. employees have expected in the most â&#x20AC;Ś Discrimination has no place in our personal and private settings of their schools or society.â&#x20AC;? Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th Diseveryday lives.â&#x20AC;? trict, disagreed. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s directive is He called on the federal courts yet another outrageous example of the and Congress â&#x20AC;&#x153;to stop this massive exObama administration exceeding its ecutive branch overreach, which clearconstitutionally granted authority and ly oversteps constitutional authority.â&#x20AC;? Protesters demonstrate against House Bill 2 at the legislative complex on May 16. attempting to change law through exThe executive branch â&#x20AC;&#x153;does not (CJ photo by Kari Travis) HFXWLYH Ă&#x20AC;DW Âľ VKH VDLG Â´7KLV DFWLRQ LJKDYH WKH DXWKRULW\ WR EH WKH Ă&#x20AC;QDO DUELnores the views of millions of students, McCrory and the General Assemcountable, carefully divided system of terâ&#x20AC;? of the law, McCrory said. Meanwhile, all 10 N.C. Republi- government. He canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just create new EO\ Ă&#x20AC;OHG D ODZVXLW DJDLQVW WKH -XVWLFH parents, teachers, and administrators can members of Congress sent a letter laws based on how heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s feeling today,â&#x20AC;? Department on May 9 for attempting across the country. It is unacceptable to King demanding â&#x20AC;&#x153;immediate assur- said U.S. Rep. Robert Pittenger, R-9th to make the state open girlsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; bath- and unlawful.â&#x20AC;? In a statement, Rep. Mark Walker, rooms, locker rooms, and showers to ances that you are not directing or oth- District. R-6th District, said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Gender identity is â&#x20AC;&#x153;Big picture, we need to reinmen and vice versa. The Justice DepartHUZLVH FRQGRQLQJ DQ\ HÍżRUWV RI \RXU agency to curtail funds designated for force the Constitutionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s separation ment countersued hours later. Those QRW LQFOXGHG LQ WKH GHĂ&#x20AC;QLWLRQ RI VH[ North Carolina based on a perceived of powers, and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m actively engaged actions stemmed from the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pas- discrimination as it relates to the Civil violation of law that was passed by with colleagues in exploring reason- sage of House Bill 2, which invalidated Rights Act, Title VII, and Title IX. Any able options to restrict the ability of the a Charlotte ordinance allowing men to FRQĂ&#x20AC;UPDWLRQ RU H[SDQVLRQ RI GLVFULPLCongress.â&#x20AC;? nation law should come from federal Lt. Gov. Dan Forest issued a state- Executive Branch to bully a state or lo- use womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s facilities. or state legislatures. The Obama adcal government,â&#x20AC;? Pittenger said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our ment reminding North Carolina public The Obama administration an- ministration is well beyond their auschools in receipt of the presidentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s let- Founding Fathers gave us a system for nounced on May 12 that it would not thority; they are trying to unilaterally ter that â&#x20AC;&#x153;there is a binding state law on changing or updating laws. It involves carry through with a threat to withhold rewrite federal statute.â&#x20AC;? the books governing bathroom policy, Congress, not royal decree.â&#x20AC;? federal funding to North Carolina but The White Houseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s action â&#x20AC;&#x153;is cerâ&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m disappointed that this ad- instead issued the nationwide compliand the presidentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nonbinding directainly a radical move to demand that tive is merely his attempt to push his ministration is doubling down on their ance letter. every school receiving public funding version of a social policy on our state HÍżRUWV WR JR RXWVLGH RI WKHLU FRQVWLWXThe UNC system has been threat- follow guidance based on DOJâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s prewith no constitutional authority to do tional authority and bully North Caro- ened with a loss of $1.4 billion in fund- ferred version of the law, rather than so. It should be rejected as a matter of lina. The law is clear, and executive ing for complying with H.B. 2, and its precedent or statute,â&#x20AC;? Walker said. agencies canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t simply rewrite or re- Board of Governors agreed to hire leprinciple and policy.â&#x20AC;? Rep. Walter Jones, R-3rd District, He said North Carolina would GHĂ&#x20AC;QH LW WR SXVK WKLV DGPLQLVWUDWLRQÂˇV gal representation for the matter after a also called the actions â&#x20AC;&#x153;gross executive overreachâ&#x20AC;? by the Obama administranot â&#x20AC;&#x153;stand by and let our locker rooms radical social agenda,â&#x20AC;? said Rep. Rich- May 10 special session. and high school showers be used for ard Hudson, a Republican representâ&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not just a North Carolina is- WLRQ Â´2QFH DJDLQ WKH\ DUH Ă RXWLQJ social experimentation at the expense ing the 8th District. sue, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an issue for all states, and it the plain language of the law in order Yet Obama and Lynch issued will be interesting to see how the dif- to force their radical agenda onto the of the privacy and protection of our the letter anyway, saying their de- ferent states respond to this,â&#x20AC;? Cobey American people. To use children as young boys and girls.â&#x20AC;? State Board of Education Chair- partments interpret the word â&#x20AC;&#x153;sexâ&#x20AC;? in said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s certainly an overreach [by SDZQV LQ WKDW HÍżRUW LV MXVW ZURQJ /LNH man Bill Cobey said there would be no federal Title VII, barring employment the White House], and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to be Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve said for decades, we need to get board action compelling local school discrimination, and Title IX, barring played out in the courts even though the federal government out of our lodistricts to comply with the White discrimination based on sex at uni- it should be a matter of Congress and cal schools, period.â&#x20AC;? Rep. Mark Meadows, R-11th DisHouse directive allowing transgender versities accepting federal funds, to QRW WKH FRXUWV EXW ZH OLYH LQ GLÍżHUHQW trict, said the presidentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s overruling students in K-12 public schools and include an individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perception of times.â&#x20AC;? state and local bathroom safety politheir â&#x20AC;&#x153;genderâ&#x20AC;? regardless of biological universities to use the bathrooms and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Nothing has come to my attencies is â&#x20AC;&#x153;federal overreach, this time by locker rooms of the gender with which reality. The Department of Education tionâ&#x20AC;? that there has ever been a probusurping local school boards and sualso released a document containing lem or complaint in North Carolina they identify. perintendents.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really nothing we can do â&#x20AC;&#x153;emerging practicesâ&#x20AC;? to help school public schools regarding transgender Meadows asked, â&#x20AC;&#x153;If the federal about it. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re subject to state laws,â&#x20AC;? systems deal with transgender stu- students, Cobey said. government can reach into the privacy He said he doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe the of our bathrooms and locker rooms, is Cobey said of the federal demand let- dents. A studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s parent or guardian administration â&#x20AC;&#x153;is going to take mon- WKHUH DQ\WKLQJ WKDW LV WUXO\ RÍż OLPLWV WR WHU Â´2XU JRYHUQRU KDV Ă&#x20AC;OHG D ODZVXLW our legislature has passed a law, so may notify a school that a studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ey away for lunches for kids living in their executive reach?â&#x20AC;? weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to comply with whatever gender identity has changed from povertyâ&#x20AC;? or special education instrucAt press time, neither Democratprevious records, and the school must tion. â&#x20AC;&#x153;These are the neediest children ic Reps. David Price, 4th District, nor the law addresses us to do.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;President Obama seems to be- recognize the student by that gender, in our state and in our society that ben- Alma Adams, 12th District, had issued lieve he is a monarch, ruling through according to the letter. No medical di- HĂ&#x20AC;W IURP WKHVH IHGHUDO IXQGV Âľ public responses to the letter from 5HS * . %XWWHUĂ&#x20AC;HOG ' VW 'LV- Lynch and King, though both earlier edict like kings of old, instead of gov- agnosis or treatment requirement is trict, supported the federal mandate. had condemned H.B. 2. CJ erning responsibly as one part of an ac- necessary. Continued from Page 1

PAGE CJ10

EDUCATION

JUNE 2016 | CAROLINA JOURNAL

Opinion

If College Students Are Hungry, Should Uncle Sam Feed Them?

ince the federal government feeds students in K-12 schools via the National School Lunch Program, it should similarly feed college students who are â&#x20AC;&#x153;food insecure,â&#x20AC;? argues a policy paper published in March by the Wisconsin HOPE Lab. According to the authors, the country loses productivity because students who are hungry underperform and therefore donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t graduate on WLPH LI DW DOO Â´,QVXÎ&#x20AC;FLHQW DWWHQWLRQ WR the nutritional needs of undergraduates,â&#x20AC;? they write, â&#x20AC;&#x153;could contribute to the inadequate production of collegeeducated labor.â&#x20AC;? It is funny to hear talk about â&#x20AC;&#x153;underproductionâ&#x20AC;? regarding college graduates when large numbers of them work in lowskill jobs. Nonetheless, the HOPE Lab paper argues the failure to produce enough college graduates presents a serious economic problem. GEORGE Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s put that LEEF aside and focus on the paperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s claim that large numbers of college students go hungry. The authors acknowledge there is â&#x20AC;&#x153;limited information about the extent to which undergraduates struggle WR Ă&#x20AC;QG HQRXJK IRRG WR HDW Âľ :KDW LQformation they have comes primarily from a survey administered to 4,000 students at 10 community colleges. The results: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Half of all respondents were at least marginally food

recipients.â&#x20AC;? insecure over the My conclupast 30 days. â&#x20AC;Ś sion, however, is More than one in ,VVXHV TXLWH GLÍżHUHQW four respondents Instead of ate less than they LQ another top-down felt they should, +LJKHU (GXFDWLRQ program that relies and 22 percent said on a shower of that they had gone money from Uncle hungry due to lack Sam and more of money.â&#x20AC;? federal regulations, One problem the better approach with this is that ZRXOG EH YROXQWDU\ HÍżRUWV E\ Â´OLWWOH such surveys are not very accurate. SODWRRQVÂľ LQ VRFLHW\ WR Ă&#x20AC;QG WKH EHVW People often give answers that they way to feed college students who rethink are either what the researchers want to hear, or that might help them- DOO\ FDQQRW DÍżRUG WR HDW ZHOO HQRXJK There are already charitable selves. From the survey responses we food banks at do not know that many campuses any of the stuâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; many of which dents in the samoperate under a ple actually went national network hungry because called the Colthey couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t aflege and Univerford food. We only sity Food Bank know that quite a Alliance. And as few said they were the paper states, â&#x20AC;&#x153;food insecure.â&#x20AC;? Â´VWDÍż DQG IDFXOW\ But assume are reaching into for the sake of artheir own pockets gument that a sigQLĂ&#x20AC;FDQW QXPEHU RI FROOHJH VWXGHQWV GR to provide lunch money to struggling students.â&#x20AC;? eat less than they think they should, The great thing about private efor even, on occasion, go hungry. What conclusion follows from that premise? forts to alleviate hunger (and all other social problems) is that it is far more To the authors, the conclusion GLÎ&#x20AC;FXOW IRU SHRSOH WR Â´JDPH WKH V\Vis that we should expand the federal WHPÂľ DQG PDNH RÍż ZLWK XQGHVHUYHG governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s National School Lunch EHQHĂ&#x20AC;WV ZKHQ WKH PRQH\ FRPHV Program. They advocate expanding from individuals and is given out NSLP â&#x20AC;&#x153;to all public and private notpersonally. If there is a good reason IRU SURĂ&#x20AC;W FROOHJHV DQG XQLYHUVLWLHV to expand these food banks, and/or and students of all ages.â&#x20AC;? Doing that discover other means to assist those would â&#x20AC;&#x153;provide food assistance to students who do their best but canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t approximately 7 million Pell [Grant]

'R ZH UHDOO\ need a new federal entitlement for hungry college students?

eat well, then advocates for student â&#x20AC;&#x153;food securityâ&#x20AC;? ought to take their case to Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s huge philanthropic community. If we instead plunge ahead into another expansion of federal welfare, increased waste is one sure result. The proposed expansion of NSLP to cover college students who qualify as â&#x20AC;&#x153;needyâ&#x20AC;? will only give further momentum to the harmful idea that college degrees are an entitlement. Taxpayers already cover the prodigious tuition expense for many students who arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t serious about learning. This idea increases that cost to cover food. After that it will be something else that supposedly prevents students from completing their degrees. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the logic of welfare. Fifty years ago we had a higher education system in which college didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t cost much for those who thought it a worthwhile pursuit. Some students came from poor families, but they persevered without free food from the federal government. Now â&#x20AC;&#x201D; after the vast expansion of federal aid for college â&#x20AC;&#x201D; we have huge numbers of undereducated DQG LQGLÍżHUHQW VWXGHQWV ZKR SXUVXH degrees (or maybe just the â&#x20AC;&#x153;college experienceâ&#x20AC;?) and an expectation that the government will keep increasing the largess. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want anyone to starve but donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think another expansion of the government is the solution to this CJ dubious problem.

George Leef is director of research for the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.

JUNE 2016 | CAROLINA JOURNAL

PAGE CJ11

EDUCATION

COMMENTARY

Is U.S. Education Worth $675 Billion?

Free Speech And Political Correctness

U.S. fourth-grade students reached ast month, the National Eduthe advanced level, 39 percent of cation Association released South Korean students and 30 perâ&#x20AC;&#x153;Rankings of the States 2015 cent of Japanese students hit that and Estimates of School Statistics mark. Science performance among 2016.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Rankings and Estimatesâ&#x20AC;? fourth-graders in the United States is a useful publication for its per was competitive with Japan and pupil expenditure and teacher Russia, but no nation outperpay rankings. For example, North formed academic powerhouse Carolina is ranked 41st in teacher South Korea. pay this year, an improvement of %\ HLJKWK JUDGH 3DFLĂ&#x20AC;F 5LP one spot since last year and six nations begin pulling away from spots since 2014. the pack. Nearly half of eighthBut take a step back from grade students in South Korea North Carolina and consider the and 27 percent of Japanese eighthmassive size and scope of the graders scored at the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s public educaadvanced level in math. tion enterprise and the That compared to only relatively disappoint7 percent in the United ing academic results it States. In science, the produces. gap between the United NEA researchers States and other G-20 estimate that the United nations was not as large. States will spend just unEven so, Japan, South Koder $675 billon on public rea, Russia, and England education this school all had higher percent\HDU 7R SXW WKDW Ă&#x20AC;JXUH ages of eighth-grade stuin perspective, public TERRY dents who scored in the school spending alone STOOPS upper achievement tiers is roughly equal to the on international science gross domestic product assessments. of Switzerland, the 20thlargest economy in the world. 3URĂ&#x20AC;FLHQF\ OHYHOV LQ UHDGOf course, the United States ing, mathematics, and science educates nearly 50 million children, literacy among 15-year-old stuwhich is around six times the total dents suggests that the academic population of Switzerland, so one deceleration that begins in middle would expect that taxpayers would school continues into high school. QHHG WR PDNH D VLJQLĂ&#x20AC;FDQWO\ ODUJHU Indeed, reading performance in investment in public schools. Yet, WKH 8QLWHG 6WDWHV ODJV VLJQLĂ&#x20AC;FDQWO\ the national average expenditure in behind Australia, Canada, France, the United States is around $12,000 Germany, Japan, and South Korea. per student, which, coincidentally, Although 9 percent of U.S. high joins Switzerland as the fourthschoolers scored at the top two highest in the world. achievement levels on international Even the Swiss would agree math assessments, 24 percent of that that is some serious cheddar. Japanese and 31 percent of South Unfortunately, it does not mean Korean 15-year-olds attained top that the United States is the acascores. Australian, German, and demic big cheese. Canadian students were not far In â&#x20AC;&#x153;Comparative Indicators behind. of Education in the United States Over the next year, internaand Other G-20 Countries: 2015,â&#x20AC;? tional testing programs will release the National Center for Educaupdated results from math, science, tion Statistics compared education and reading assessments. Those input and output measures in the reports will provide insight into United States with those in Canawhether the near-universal adopda, Germany, Japan, South Korea, tion of the Common Core State the United Kingdom, and other Standards in reading and math has Group of 20 countries. The report is the most current summary of the improved the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s international competitiveness. Yet, even if the performance of students on major United States closes the perforinternational assessments. mance gap with top-performing In fourth-grade reading, nations, we will have done so at students in the United States fared a great and largely unsustainable well. Seventeen percent of stuCJ cost. dents reached an advanced level on international tests, eclipsing Terry Stoops is director of Canada, Germany, and several othresearch and education studies at the ers. Mathematics performance is a GLÍżHUHQW VWRU\ :KLOH SHUFHQW RI John Locke Foundation.

o case better illustrates the with him, and he tried to bring the degree to which Amerimatter up with Abbateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s superiors can universities are in the in the department â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but to no thrall of political correctness than avail. Weeks later, the studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s WKH Ă&#x20AC;JKW WKDW HUXSWHG EDFN LQ recording of his encounter with at Marquette and continues to this Abbate came to the attention of day. Professor John McAdams. A tenured professor of politiMcAdams then wrote a post cal science, John McAdams, was on his personal blog, criticizing the barred from campus, suspended way Abbate handled the encounter. from teaching, threatened with Abbate, he wrote, â&#x20AC;&#x153;was just termination, and told that he could using a tactic typical among liberreturn only if he made a groveling als now. Opinions with which they apology â&#x20AC;&#x201D; all for having written disagree are not merely wrong, a blog post critical of and are not to be argued the way a student was against on their merits, treated by another faculty EXW DUH GHHPHG ÂśRÍżHQmember. siveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and need to be shut Ordinarily, such a up.â&#x20AC;? minor incident would The academic world have occasioned no is loaded with arguinterest by school adminments such as McAdams istrators. In this instance, made every day, and they however, there were rarely lead to anything WZR KLJKO\ LQĂ DPPDEOH more than hot tempers GEORGE ingredients involved: and more argumentative LEEF The faculty member blogging. being criticized was Not in this case, female, and the criticism however. McAdams had, involved her stance that same-sex as Marquette president Michael marriage could not be discussed /RYHOO ZRXOG ODWHU SXW LW Â´LQĂ LFWHG in class because doing so would be a personal attackâ&#x20AC;? on Abbate. Â´KRPRSKRELFÂľ DQG RÍżHQVLYH 7KH XQLYHUVLW\ÂˇV Ă&#x20AC;UVW VDOYR Hypersensitive administraagainst McAdams came from Dean tors felt the need to respond by inRichard Holz of the school of arts Ă LFWLQJ WKH DFDGHPLF HTXLYDOHQW RI and sciences when he summarily capital punishment on the tenured canceled all of McAdamsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; classes professor. for the coming semester and even This story began in the fall barred him from setting foot on of 2014. Cheryl Abbate, who had campus. Subsequently, McAdams been a teaching assistant in Marwas informed that the university quetteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Department of Philosophy was going to revoke his tenure and for several years, was teaching dismiss him from the faculty. an ethics course. In a class where Despite mounting opposishe had listed topics that would tion to its attack on free speech be considered during the course, and tenure, for more than a year a student asked if gay marriage Marquette kept the case in limbo. would be included and she said 0F$GDPV Ă&#x20AC;QDOO\ UHFHLYHG D OHWWHU that it wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be. from President Lovell that gave Afterward, another student him a path back to reinstatement, approached her and said that he provided that he state (among thought there were valid arguother things) that his blog post ments against gay marriage and â&#x20AC;&#x153;was reckless and incompatible gave his opinion that the issue with the mission and values of should be addressed. Marquette Universityâ&#x20AC;? and further Abbate made it emphatically that he â&#x20AC;&#x153;express deep regret for the clear to him that there would be no KDUP VXÍżHUHGÂľ E\ 0V $EEDWH such discussion because, she said, McAdams refused to comply the issue was settled and bringing with Lovellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s demands and is preit up would be â&#x20AC;&#x153;homophobicâ&#x20AC;? and pared to sue if Marquette carries CJ RÍżHQVLYH WR DQ\ JD\ VWXGHQWV LQ WKH through on its threats. class. She also told the student that George Leef is director of reif he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t like it, he ought to drop search for the John W. Pope Center for the class. Higher Education Policy. That rebuke did not sit well

PAGE CJ12

OPINION

JUNE 2016 | CAROLINA JOURNAL

COMMENTARY

Keep Tax Reform On Track

s the General Assembly expenses are deducted is another continues to work through worthy tax reform. Both the federal the 2016-17 budget, part of and state tax codes allow busiWKH Ă&#x20AC;QDO SDFNDJH VKRXOG EXLOG RQ nesses to deduct from their taxes WKH WD[ UHIRUPV Ă&#x20AC;UVW LPSOHPHQWHG LQ expenses and investments in assets 2011. The 0 percent tax bracket will that are meant to produce goods EH LQFUHDVHG RÍżHULQJ D UHDO WD[ FXW DQG VHUYLFHV IRU VDOH Âł ODQG RÎ&#x20AC;FH to the 70 percent of N.C. taxpayers equipment, machinery, buildings, ZKR Ă&#x20AC;OH ZLWK WKH VWDQGDUG GHGXFvehicles, and such. Companies can deduct these tion, mostly middle- and lowincome folks. There is talk of further investments over time, depending on the kind of investment. For sales tax expansion and lowering WKRVH FODVVLĂ&#x20AC;HG DV Â´ORQJ ODVWLQJ Âľ the personal income tax rate. North OLNH DQ RÎ&#x20AC;FH EXLOGLQJ Carolina is on the right the deduction is spread track. out over a long period of But there is more time. For a â&#x20AC;&#x153;shorter-livedâ&#x20AC;? to be done. Eliminating investment like computer the bias in our tax code equipment, the deducagainst savings, investWLRQ LV ZULWWHQ RÍż PRUH ments, and entrepreneurquickly. This system creship is the next important ates an incentive to make step. Repealing capital investments in short-term gains taxes, changing assets rather than more the way business investdurable ones. BECKI ments are deducted, and North Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tax GRAY eliminating business-tocode should treat all asset business taxes are worth investments the same and serious consideration. allow business owners to make the Capital gains taxes penalize best decision for their business. The saving, investment, and entrepredecision to depreciate a tax deducneurship by applying an extra layer tion over time, or to expense that deduction in the year the investof taxation on equity investment, ment occurs, should be up to the discouraging the very activity we should be encouraging. North Caro- business owner, not written into the tax code. Restructuring how busilina taxes capital gains from the sale of stocks and bonds, real estate, ness deductions are taken will open options for business owners and homes, and businesses at the same help North Carolina attract new inrate as regular income. Instead, vestment and additional capital and the tax on capital gains should be encourage economic growth. repealed. North Carolina imposes a Complete repeal at one time privilege tax on certain mill mamight be too much of a hit to state chinery and equipment at a rate of revenue. Calculations by the Beacon 1 percent with a maximum of $80 +LOO ,QVWLWXWH RI 6XÍżRON 8QLYHUVLW\ on each article. The House budget estimate that complete repeal at repeals this tax. Forty percent of the current 5.75 percent personal North Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sales tax base income rate would result in a $502 comprises business-to-business million revenue loss. Using next taxes, which penalize investments yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s personal income rate of 5.499 and result in double taxation. With percent, revenue loss would be about a $50 million revenue impact, about $480 million. Understanding UHSHDOLQJ WKH WD[ ZLOO QRW DÍżHFW WKH that, a prudent consideration would VWDWH EXGJHW VLJQLĂ&#x20AC;FDQWO\ 7R UHPDLQ be phasing out the tax over several competitive with our neighbors â&#x20AC;&#x201D; years or adopting the federal pracVirginia, Georgia, South Carolina, tice of taxing capital gains at half and Tennessee â&#x20AC;&#x201D; North Carolina the rate of regular income. Another should exempt this equipment from approach would be to exempt some the state sales tax, as our neighbors have done. capital gains from taxation â&#x20AC;&#x201D; say 30 or 40 percent â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as several other North Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s current tax states do. Whatever the approach, code penalizes savings and investNorth Carolina should encourage ments while discouraging entrepresaving, investment, and entrepreQHXUVKLS /HWÂˇV Ă&#x20AC;[ WKDW CJ neurship by changing the way we tax capital gains. Becki Gray is vice president for Changing how business outreach at the John Locke Foundation.

(',725,$/

Taking a Sling Blade to N.C. Regulations

orth Carolina regulators appear to be doing a good job to date of implementing a key regulatory reform measure enacted in 2013 by the state legislature. It requires agencies to review regulations that currently are on the ERRNV 2Î&#x20AC;FLDOV PXVW PDNH DQ DÎ&#x20AC;UPDtive decision to 1) keep a rule, 2) run the rule through a lengthy â&#x20AC;&#x153;re-adoptionâ&#x20AC;? process, or 3) eliminate the rule. Think of it as a mandate to use a sling blade on North Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s regulatory underbrush on a regular basis. 6R IDU D JRRG DPRXQW RI WKH VWXÍż either has been turned into mulch or piled up next to the shredder for future action. Of the 6,225 state regulations already reviewed under the 2013 law, 690 have been removed and another 1,929 are being put back through the re-adoption process. A bit over half of the reviewed regulations have stayed in place, in other words. Not bad at all. Of course, we still have a lot of work to do. The cost of doing business in North Carolina has come down RYHU WKH SDVW Ă&#x20AC;YH \HDUV WKDQNV WR D VHries of tax cuts and regulatory reforms that began in 2011. But it is still too expensive to start new enterprises and create jobs in the state. $ 3DFLĂ&#x20AC;F 5HVHDUFK ,QVWLWXWH study released last year ranked North Carolina 31st in the nation in regulatory costs, with No. 1 Indiana having the lowest costs and No. 50 California with the highest. There are bills or budget provisions this session to reform the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s permitting system for medical services FDOOHG Â´FHUWLĂ&#x20AC;FDWH RI QHHGÂľ DQG WR remove restrictions on venture capital.

The budget passed by the state House, for instance, removed the CON requirement for hospitals, mostly in rural areas, seeking to convert unused beds into space for some SDWLHQWV VXÍżHULQJ DFXWH SUREOHPV ZLWK mental illness, substance abuse, or developmental disabilities. The funding would come from the proceeds of the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sale of the Dorothea Dix campus to the city of Raleigh, meeting a public health need, satisfying the historical purpose of the property and aiding rural hospitals that are struggling to keep their doors open. Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hoping the Senate leaves that provision â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a priority for the McCrory administration â&#x20AC;&#x201D; intact. Next session, lawmakers will consider a bill to modify or eliminate some licensing requirements for occupations that North Carolina heavily regulates even when neighboring states such as South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do the same. Again, the goal here is not to eliminate all state regulation. Conservatives believe that state and local government should enact rules to protect the lives, health, and property of our residents from infringement by pollution, fraud, or negligence. We simply believe that many current regulations donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t meet such a test. They cost more to implement and comply with than they deliver in real EHQHĂ&#x20AC;WV IRU FRQVXPHUV ZRUNHUV RU the general public. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s keep swinging that sling blade and clearing the underbrush of needless and economy-sapping regulations. That will leave space for new ideas, companies, and jobs to grow. CJ

JUNE 2016 | CAROLINA JOURNAL (',725,$/6

COMMENTARY

Private Sector Growing

State spending lower share of GDP

ver the past quarter-century, scholars have published hundreds of peer-reviewed studies examining the question of whether higher government spending boosts economic growth. The most recent one, by University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point economist Jerome Segura in the journal Papers in Regional Science, looked at revenues, expenditures, and gross domestic product for every state from 1977 to 2012. Using a sophisticated model, Segura found that raising taxes to fund more government spending is a â&#x20AC;&#x153;growth deterrent,â&#x20AC;? not a growth enhancer. +LV Ă&#x20AC;QGLQJV DUH FRQVLVWHQW ZLWK the idea that â&#x20AC;&#x153;few public services are underfunded,â&#x20AC;? Segura wrote, â&#x20AC;&#x153;and further that, in terms of economic growth, most public services fail to MXVWLI\ WKH WD[HV QHHGHG WR Ă&#x20AC;QDQFH them.â&#x20AC;? His point is not that state and local governments provide no value. In the past, adding core public services likely created more economic value than was destroyed by the necessary taxes. But as governments got larger, they exceeded their optimal size â&#x20AC;&#x201D; measured, as Segura did, by government expenditures as a share of GDP. As it happens, state government in North Carolina is headed in the opposite direction. Although General

Fund spending has gone up every year since 2011 in dollars, this does not account for increases in population, prices, and the overall economy. Based on our rough projections, the $22.2 billion General Fund budget now working its way through the legislature would spend about 4 percent of GDP. At its peak, in 2008-09, North Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s General Fund budget was just over 5 percent of GDP. Some conservatives in our state say they are disappointed that Gov. Pat McCrory and the General Assembly have allowed state spending to grow at all in nominal terms. But if LQĂ DWLRQ LV UXQQLQJ DW SHUFHQW DQG your employer gives you a 1 percent raise, you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t conclude that youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve come out ahead. If tax rates stay the same but you get a big raise at work, leading to higher taxes paid the next year, you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t accuse politicians of raising your taxes. %\ VHWWLQJ Ă&#x20AC;UP SULRULWLHV SROLF\makers have funded core services, creDWHG Ă&#x20AC;VFDO VSDFH IRU D VHULHV RI JURZWK enhancing tax cuts, and reduced state spending as a share of the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economy. In other words, North Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s private sector is growing as a share of the overall economy. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ă&#x20AC;VFDO FRQVHUYDWLVP Âł DQG ZLVH SROLF\ CJ

Paying Teachers

Reward performance, not just seniority

V VWDWH ODZPDNHUV Ă&#x20AC;QLVK XS their 2016-17 spending plan, they arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t likely to embrace the 5 percent average pay increase for public schoolteachers that Gov. Pat McCrory proposed a few weeks ago. But there will be a substantial teacher pay boost. 0RVW Ă&#x20AC;VFDO FRQVHUYDWLYHV IDYRU such a raise because it is the right SULRULW\ JLYHQ FXUUHQW Ă&#x20AC;VFDO DQG HFRnomic conditions. Moreover, the General Assembly and the McCrory administration are led by politicians who recognize the limits of â&#x20AC;&#x153;average teacher payâ&#x20AC;? as a guide for good policy. If they simply raised the compensation of all teachers by an equivalent percentage â&#x20AC;&#x201D; regardless of performance, duties, or the QHHGV RI KDUG WR VWDÍż SRVLWLRQV DQG VFKRROV Âł WKHQ Ă&#x20AC;VFDO FRQVHUYDWLYHV would be skeptical. The current leadership in Raleigh instead wisely has focused legislative attention on starting sala-

PAGE CJ13

OPINION

ries and pay raises for teachers in their early careers, which is when most LPSURYHPHQW LQ WHDFKHU HÍżHFWLYHQHVV occurs. As a recent report from the National Education Association makes clear, North Carolina has raised teacher pay more than any other state VLQFH 0F&URU\ WRRN RÎ&#x20AC;FH LQ And when John Locke Foundation research director Terry Stoops adMXVWHG WKH ODWHVW 1($ VDODU\ Ă&#x20AC;JXUHV IRU cost of living, his preliminary analysis found that North Carolina ranked 33rd in average teacher pay in 201516. Adjusting for years of experience would move the state even closer to the national median. McCrory and legislative leaders are boosting and reforming teacher compensation in order to attract and retain high-performing educators to some of the most essential and challenging jobs in the public sector. CJ Makes sense to us.

Road Policies Deserve Attention

hen you ask North Carohow transportation dollars are lina voters to name the spent. A couple of months ago, top election issue in state WKH &RQJUHVVLRQDO %XGJHW 2Î&#x20AC;FH politics, the most common answer released a study of federal transâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; unless we are in the midst of a portation priorities. It found that recession â&#x20AC;&#x201D; is education. LI D ULJRURXV FRVW EHQHĂ&#x20AC;W WHVW ZHUH That answer makes sense. applied to federal dollars, more North Carolina state and local govwould go to adding freeway lanes ernments combined spend more on in congested urban areas, repaireducation, from preschool to grad ing other highways in and around school, than on any other program metros, and repairing bridges on or service. While we may disagree rural interstates and primary and about how best to improve student secondary roads. learning, most of us see that goal On the revenue side, policyas closely linked to the health of makers have added hundreds of families, the growth of the economy, millions of dollars a year to North and the strength of our Carolina transportarepublic. tion budgets. The most Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d also like to see VLJQLĂ&#x20AC;FDQW FKDQJH ZDV candidates present and last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decision to debate their views about end the transfer of gas the other major categories tax revenue from the of government spending. Highway Fund to the One is transportation. stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s General Fund. That North Carolina governIROORZHG HÍżRUWV GXULQJ ments spend about $4.5 the Easley and Perdue billion a year on transadministrations to phase JOHN portation, with about 90 out similar transfers of gas percent of it devoted to and car tax revenue from HOOD roads and bridges. the Highway Trust Fund. The past 10 years Lawmakers also increased KDYH VHHQ VLJQLĂ&#x20AC;FDQW SRVLWLYH some Division of Motor Vehicles changes in state transportation fees and changed the way North policy. Beginning under former Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gas tax is calculated. The Democratic governors Mike Easley latter will allow collections to rise and Bev Perdue, and then accelerat- in the future in tandem with overall ing under current Republican Gov. LQĂ DWLRQ Pat McCrory, North Carolina has Finally, the state reintroduced changed its funding formulas and pay-for-use in roadways by conexplored new ways for motorists to structing the Triangle Expressway, fund the roadways they use. a toll road now in use along the The biggest change occurred southern side of the Raleigh-Durin 2013, when McCrory and the ham metro, and contracting with state legislature enacted the StrateD SULYDWH Ă&#x20AC;UP WR EXLOG DQG RSHUDWH gic Transportation Investments law. additional toll lanes on Interstate 77 It changed the way states, regions, north of Charlotte. and localities set priorities. Projects North Carolina voters do not now compete with each other based like paying tolls, based on a recent on clearly stated goals such as High Point University survey, UHGXFLQJ WUDÎ&#x20AC;F FRQJHVWLRQ LQFUHDVwhich found 32 percent saying yes ing safety, and moving people and and 63 percent saying no. But that IUHLJKW PRUH HÎ&#x20AC;FLHQWO\ was actually the least-unpopular In practice, North Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s option for raising road revenue. new â&#x20AC;&#x153;Strategy Mobility Formulaâ&#x20AC;? Respondents disapproved of hiking will shift scarce road dollars from gas taxes by a margin of 72 percent projects that would have transportto 23 percent and overwhelmingly ed relatively few people to those opposed charging motorists per that will transport lots of people. vehicle mile traveled (87 percent to Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s good for all North Carolin10 percent). ians â&#x20AC;&#x201D; even those in less-populous 7KHVH Ă&#x20AC;QGLQJV VXJJHVW WKH communities, because congested Ă&#x20AC;UVW SULRULW\ VKRXOG EH WR VSHQG H[urban interstates can deter business isting transportation revenues more locations or expansions and keep wisely â&#x20AC;&#x201D; something that North rural residents from accessing jobs, Carolina is beginning to do. Stay on CJ retail, and other amenities in metro- course. politan areas. John Hood is chairman of the North Carolina is helping lead John Locke Foundation. a national movement to rethink

PAGE CJ14

OPINION

JUNE 2016 | CAROLINA JOURNAL

0(',$ 0$1*/(

Calling It Both Ways

ne of the best things an umpire can do to convince sports fans that he is unbiased is to be consistent: If you call something against one side, you need to call it on the other. Being a journalist and an editor is a bit like being an umpire in an athletic contest. If you want a bunch of angry fans on your back, just violate the consistency rule a few times. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll forgive you the occasional mistake, but if you make a habit of always ruling against one side, your integrity is toast. I was reminded of this when news broke that Democratic Virginia Gov. 7HUU\ 0F$XOLÍżH LV WKH VXEMHFW of a probe by the FBI and the JON Justice Departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s public HAM integrity unit. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a big story, something youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d think The Washington Post would put multiple reporters on. After all, Northern Virginia is in the heart of the Postâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s circulation area, and news that the commonwealthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chief executive was under federal investigation is a big story, right? Well, not so much. 7KH 0F$XOLÍżH VWRU\ ZDV QRW RQ WKH IURQW page on May 24, when you would have expected it to be. It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t on page 2, or 3, or 4, or 5, or on any page in the 18-page front section. Instead, the editors of the Post put it in the Metro section, a placement that can only be described as â&#x20AC;&#x153;buried.â&#x20AC;? This is the same paper that ran 140 stories on then-Sen. George Allenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s use of the word â&#x20AC;&#x153;macacaâ&#x20AC;? in 2006, many of those on the front page. Allen was a Republican in a tight race against Democrat James Webb at the time, and many accused the Post of trying to drag down Allenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s support in Northern Virginia. The editors protested that this was not the case, but the compariVRQ WR WKH 0F$XOLÍżH VWRU\ UDLVHV GRXEWV Another news story that reminded me of the mediaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;umpireâ&#x20AC;? role was the Trump campaignâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reference a few times last month to the various Bill Clinton sex scandals of the â&#x20AC;&#x2122;90s, and Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s accusation that Hillary was Billâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s enabler in those HVFDSDGHV DQG OHG WKH Â´%LPER (UXSWLRQÂľ HÍżRUW WR intimidate and silence Billâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s victims. Immediately, the mainstream media rushed WR FRQGHPQ 7UXPSÂˇV HÍżRUW $QGUHD 0LWFKHOO RI NBC, for instance, called the well-known instances â&#x20AC;&#x153;discreditedâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;just allegations,â&#x20AC;? when the public record shows plainly that they have been neither discredited, nor are they just allegations. Liberal commentators on cable shows said Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s references to Billâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s past were a bridge too far because they happened so long ago, even as Hillary had announced just days earlier that she would give Bill the task of reviving the American economy should she win. This is the same media that obsessed in 2012 over Mitt Romney giving a kid a noogie while in high school and going on vacation in 1983 with the family dog in a cage atop the family station wagon. With â&#x20AC;&#x153;umpiringâ&#x20AC;? like this, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no wonder that polls show support for the media at an alltime low and sinking. CJ

Jon Ham is a vice president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.

Occupational Churn in N.C.

â&#x20AC;&#x2122;m up to my neck in jobs. However, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t contact I was wrong on both counts! While the numme for a job â&#x20AC;&#x201D; I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t actually have any to hand ber of declining occupations exceeded the number out. Instead, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been looking closely at jobs in of expanding occupations, still almost 300 occupaNorth Carolina â&#x20AC;&#x201D; what kinds are out there and how tions in North Carolina increased their employment they have been changing. during the recession. Our job market is constantly â&#x20AC;&#x153;churning,â&#x20AC;? But here was the real shocker to me. The avermeaning there are always some existing jobs being age wage rate of occupations adding jobs between cut while new jobs are being created. Even during 2007 and 2010 was 24 percent higher than the wage recessions, there are new jobs added. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just that in for occupations cutting jobs! In short, if an individan economic downturn, many more jobs get the ax ual landed a job in a growing occupation during the compared to those placed in the want ads. recession, the wage rate was relatively good! My focus has been in looking at jobs in terms :KLOH ERWK RI WKHVH Ă&#x20AC;QGLQJV DUH FRXQWHULQWXLof what workers do â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that is, their octive to many, there are actually some logiFXSDWLRQV 6SHFLĂ&#x20AC;FDOO\ ,ÂˇYH ORRNHG DW cal explanations. Recessions are disruphow North Carolinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s occupational mix tive periods that force many people and has changed since the early 2000s (2002). companies to think â&#x20AC;&#x153;outside the boxâ&#x20AC;? to While much of what I have found was survive. As a result, economic historians expected, I was also hit with a couple of tell us that bad economic times â&#x20AC;&#x201D; like the surprises. Great Depression of the 1930s â&#x20AC;&#x201D; can be I divided the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s occupations into very innovative and entrepreneurial peritwo groups â&#x20AC;&#x201D; occupations gaining jobs, ods. If successful, these actions can create and occupations losing jobs. Over the new businesses and new jobs. period I examined (2002-15), more occupaAlso, even businesses cutting proMICHAEL tions in the state added jobs than cut jobs, GXFWLRQ DQG MREV PD\ Ă&#x20AC;QG LW EHQHĂ&#x20AC;FLDO WALDEN with the margin of gainers over cutters to hire more highly trained workers who being 15 percent. might have a plan for navigating the com%XW WKHUH ZDV D VWDUN GLÍżHUHQFH LQ pany through the treacherous waters of the recesthe pay of gaining occupations and shrinking ocsion. The idea may be to hire people who are really cupations. The median hourly wage of occupations JRRG LQ RUGHU WR NHHS WKH Ă&#x20AC;UP DĂ RDW HYHQ LI WKRVH adding jobs was 10 percent lower than the median employees cost more. hourly wage of occupations reducing jobs. I discovered one other important fact. OccupaBetween 2002 and 2015 there were two growth tions losing jobs in North Carolina are more likely periods and one recessionary period. I wanted to to be those whose tasks can be performed by new see if occupational change in North Carolina was technology. GLÍżHUHQW GXULQJ WKHVH GLVWLQFWLYH SHULRGV Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the bottom line from my research? The short answer is yes, very much! During First, occupational churning is occurring in North the two growth periods the number of occupations Carolina. Second, even in the darkest days of a adding jobs exceeded the number of occupations recession, there are some occupations that add jobs decreasing jobs by a double-digit margin. Interestand pay well. Third, technology can eliminate jobs ingly, the average yearly rates at which jobs inin some occupations. creased for growing occupations and jobs declined The past can often help us prepare for the for shrinking occupations were almost the same. future. We know from the past that some occupaThe big surprise for me was what happened tions rise and others fall. We should get ready for to the occupational mix during the recession years. the same in the future. CJ I had two preconceived expectations. One was that very few occupations would have added employment during this dismal period. The second was Michael Walden is a William Neal Reynolds Disthat those occupations that did add jobs would not tinguished Professor at N.C. State University. He doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be very good-paying. speak for the university.

JUNE 2016 | CAROLINA JOURNAL

PAGE CJ15

OPINION

How Republicans Might Survive Trump

hat should Republicans do if, like me, they arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exactly thrilled at the prospect of Donald Trump being their presidential nominee? Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not just that the New <RUN Ă&#x20AC;QDQFLHU DGYRFDWHV SROLFLHV WKDW contradict the partyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s freedom agenda. In every reputable national poll he loses a general election contest to Hillary Clinton, sometimes by double digits. Many forecast negative down-ballot effects that will cost the party seats in Congress and ANDY the states. Trump TAYLOR also may cause lasting damage as the GOP attempts to broaden support and construct a durable governing coalition at the national level. There are already signs he is driving middleclass Hispanics and suburban women away. I think playing defense might be the best strategy. Despite Barack 2EDPDÂˇV HÍżRUWV SXEOLF SROLF\ UHPDLQV to the right of where it was in the 1970s. The GOP controls both chambers of Congress â&#x20AC;&#x201D; there are more House Republicans than there have been at any time since World War II â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and 34 governorships, with the party also occupying a majority of seats in 67 of the 98 partisan state legislative

bodies. These are gains worth protecting. An all-in on the unpredictable and unprincipled Donald Trump gravely threatens them. What does this advice mean in practical terms? On fundraising, Republican donors should funnel support to congressional and gubernatorial candidates and the state parties. Take Trump at his word when he says heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s worth billions and is uncomfortable being â&#x20AC;&#x153;boughtâ&#x20AC;? by others â&#x20AC;&#x201D; even if he recently turned a 180 and now is soliciting donations aggressively. Republican candidates also should run their campaigns without regard to the presidential race. The Republican National Committee, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the Republican Governorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Association should focus on bedrock GOP principles, making a solid conservaWLYH DUJXPHQW IRU UHVWUDLQHG Ă&#x20AC;VFDO DQG regulatory policies and a prudent and strong national defense. Make the case that these will be pursued regardless of who the presidential candidate is and what comes out of his mouth on any particular day. If the GOP congressional majorities survive candidate Trump, they will prove enough to block the Clinton agenda. If elected, she is likely to be the most unpopular newly inaugurated president in modern history. Her Â´QHJDWLYHVÂľ DUH RÍż WKH FKDUWV ,Q DQ April Wall Street Journal/NBC News

poll, 56 percent of respondents viewed her unfavorably, a score only â&#x20AC;&#x153;bestedâ&#x20AC;? among presidential nominees since the 1960s by Trump â&#x20AC;&#x201D; whose name solicited the same response from 65 percent. Clinton will be elected because she is not Trump. Her mandate will be to do nothing. If he did not lose Congress in 2016, President Trump almost certainly would lose it in 2018. Since 1934 the RQO\ SUHVLGHQW QRW WR VXÍżHU ORVVHV LQ an initial midterm is George W. Bush, who in the aftermath of 9/11 won a paltry eight House seats for Republicans in 2002. The average number of +RXVH VHDWV ORVW LQ RÍż \HDU HOHFWLRQV by a presidential party is 33, enough to bring back Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The record in the Senate is a little EHWWHU EXW DW PLQXV Ă&#x20AC;YH 5HSXEOLFDQV still would be forced to hand over the body to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Under President Hillary Clinton and with Trump forgotten, DemoFUDWV DUH OLNHO\ WR VXÍżHU GHIHDWV OLNH those experienced by Bill Clinton and 2EDPD LQ WKHLU Ă&#x20AC;UVW PLGWHUPV 7KH\ lost 60 seats in Congress in 1994, and 69 in 2010. In both years Republicans took back the House majority and in 1994 the Senate as well. , KDYH VRPH FRQĂ&#x20AC;GHQFH LQ WKHVH predictions. As for 2020, conservatives should realize that if Trump wins this year, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll almost certainly be the Republican candidate in four years. I

think Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal is correct. Even if a Trump presidency is better than a Clinton one, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hardly something you would want to own. We can survive liberal presidents, but Trump might destroy conservatism for a generation. 0DQ\ 5HSXEOLFDQV Ă&#x20AC;QG WKLV strategy unacceptable. Even I am not completely sold. It is possible the Supreme Court hangs in the balance â&#x20AC;&#x201D; although it is anybodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guess who dealmaker Trump would nominate, let alone get through a Democratic Senate. Still, my conscience is clear. The only persuasive argument made by the loyal Republican and reluctant Trumpeter is that we cannot have Hillary Clinton as president. For those of you who are willing to pay any price, however astronomical, to prevent that from happening, why didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t you work harder for Marco Rubio in the primaries â&#x20AC;&#x201D; or, for that matter, John Kasich, Carly Fiorina, etc., etc.? If it was just about stopping Hillary, you would have done that because those individuals were much better positioned to win the White House than Trump. Now the GOP majorities in Congress are in jeopardy CJ as well. Andy Taylor is a professor of political science at the School of International DQG 3XEOLF $ÍżDLUV DW 1 & 6WDWH 8QLYHUsity. He does not speak for the university.

Hillaryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Election Would Be Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Third Term

resident Obama is at it again, issuing guidance to schools in the United States to ensure that transgender students be allowed to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity. His spokesman, Josh Earnest, has declared House Bill 2 a â&#x20AC;&#x153;civil rightsâ&#x20AC;? issue so the Obama administration had no choice but to step in and give us common folks â&#x20AC;&#x153;guidanceâ&#x20AC;? even though â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in the MARC opinion of many â&#x20AC;&#x201D; this is a soluROTTERMAN tion in search of a problem. Of course this LV QRW WKH Ă&#x20AC;UVW WLPH RXU FRPPDQGHU in chief has used executive orders to circumvent Congress with the stroke of a pen. Executive amnesty is one example that comes to mind. And let

us not forget rules issued by Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Environmental Protectio Agency that have devastated the coal industry and thrown thousands of coal miners out of work. Now itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s being reported that Obama is just weeks away from jumping into the campaign to help Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton bolster her case against Donald Trump. Conservatives and Republicans who underestimate Obama do so at their own electoral peril. Obama is a true believer, someone who understands that transforming policy translates into a citizenry that is more reliant on the federal government. And unlike another failed Democrat president, Jimmy Carter, Obama is a streetwise, tough politician who will not give an inch when it to comes to his vision of a â&#x20AC;&#x153;New Americaâ&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; one that is modeled after European socialism. Make no mistake: Obama sees Hillaryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s election as his third term

DQG D FRQĂ&#x20AC;UPDWLRQ WKDW $PHULFD LV LQ step with his policies and legacy. His insertion into the presidential race will test both his appeal with the American public and his ability to raise funds. He will pay particular attention to Ohio and other rust-belt states as well as the South. Expect to see him in North Carolina campaigning for the Democratic ticket. He will vilify Gov. Pat McCrory for intransigence on H.B. 2. He will be at the top of his oratory comparing the transgender issue to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. His argument will be about equality, diversity, and fairness. In regard to Trump, he will GHĂ&#x20AC;QH WKH Â´'RQDOGÂľ DV XQĂ&#x20AC;W IRU WKH complex job he seeks. Obama will forget to note that he had very little experience prior to his SUHVLGHQF\ +LV RQO\ TXDOLĂ&#x20AC;FDWLRQV FRQsisted of being a community organizer, a backbench Illinois legislator, and three years on the job as a U.S. senator. Unlike Trump, Obama never has created a job in the private sector, nor

has he met a payroll. In his entire term heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s never submitted a balanced budget to Congress, and he has tripled the size of our national debt since assumLQJ RÎ&#x20AC;FH 1LQHW\ Ă&#x20AC;YH PLOOLRQ $PHULcans have stopped looking for work, and millions more are on welfare and food stamps. His signature issue, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Obamacare,â&#x20AC;? is likely to go bankrupt in 2017, and his foreign policy is in chaos. Our foes donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t respect the United States, and our friends feel they can no longer count on us. To counter Obama and Hillary, conservatives have an obligation in messaging and advertising to illustrate in stark terms what Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s transformation has done to America, its families, traditions, and culture. In short, America must reject a CJ third Obama term. Marc Rotterman is a senior fellow at the John Locke Foundation and host of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Front Row,â&#x20AC;? a look at policy and politics on UNC-TVâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s NC Channel.

PAGE CJ16

JUNE 2016 | CAROLINA JOURNAL

PARTING SHOT

Perdue Calls For Cancellation of 2016 State, Federal Elections (a CJ parody) BY JERRY MANDER

RALEIGH

ormer Gov. Beverly Perdue, a Democrat, has been working privately with members of the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Republican General Assembly majority to cancel the 2016 elections, Carolina Journal has learned. ,WÂˇV D UHYLYDO RI DQ LGHD 3HUGXH Ă&#x20AC;UVW PHQWLRQHG four years ago, as her single term as governor wound down. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I got a lot of grief when I suggested we cancel the congressional elections in 2012,â&#x20AC;? Perdue told CJ, citing an answer she gave in September 2011 to a question about reviving the economy. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Maybe I was just ahead of the curve.â&#x20AC;? Perdue drew scorn locally â&#x20AC;&#x201D; along with jabs from late-night talk-show hosts â&#x20AC;&#x201D; when she said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. You want people who donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t worry about the next election.â&#x20AC;? The 2012 elections ended up moving forward ZLWKRXW 3HUGXH ZKR EHFDPH WKH Ă&#x20AC;UVW 1 & FKLHI H[ecutive to decline to run for a second term since that option became available in 1980. Canceling elections makes even more sense today than it did four years ago, Perdue said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I mean, look at how crazy the situation is right now.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got a likely presidential race between the two most loathed candidates in memory,â&#x20AC;? Perdue Former Gov. Beverly Perdue at a recent press conference explained. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got a governorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s race with the announcing her plan for elections. (CJ spoof photo)

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;changeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; candidate being a guy whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spent 30 years in the political establishment. Heck, we even have a General Assembly with a Senate that votes unanimously in favor of a tax cut and a House in which overwhelming majorities of both parties vote for the budget plan. What the heck is going on?â&#x20AC;? Perdue is particularly perplexed about her fellow Democratsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; approach today toward the state sales tax. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I wish I would have known in 2012 that Dems were going to speak out against expanding the sales tax,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Back then, we Democrats wanted higher sales taxes. It was the Republicans who wanted lower rates. For crying out loud, that was the whole reason I vetoed the budget two years in a row.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;We need a break from elections so we can get our ducks in a row,â&#x20AC;? Perdue added. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Are we going to be the party of unsustainable higher spending and higher taxes, or are we going to move in another diUHFWLRQ" :H QHHG VRPH WLPH WR Ă&#x20AC;JXUH WKDW RXW Âľ Perdue has been trying to line up additional KLJK SURĂ&#x20AC;OH VXSSRUW IRU KHU HOHFWLRQ FDQFHOODWLRQ plan. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Roy Cooper seems to be doing pretty well in fundraising and in the polls, but I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know that KHÂˇV Ă&#x20AC;JXUHG RXW WKDW EHLQJ JRYHUQRU LQYROYHV DFWXDO work,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been telling him he canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just roll out crime stats once a year and say â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;no commentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; WKH UHVW RI WKH WLPH +HÂˇG EH EHWWHU RÍż VWLFNLQJ WR KLV gig as attorney general.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;And Kay Hagan said sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d go along with me, but only if the plan included a retroactive cancellation of the 2014 U.S. Senate race,â&#x20AC;? which Hagan lost to Republican Thom Tillis, Perdue said. CJ

Take action. Advance freedom. Get government out of your life. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what we do. Invest in the John Locke Foundation today. To donate, go to http://johnlocke.org/support/

REAL ESTATE

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

The New York Times

crossword puzzle No. 0522 RISE AND FALL

BY VICTOR BAROCAS AND ANDY KRAVIS / EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ

44 Coin issued in values of 1 to 500 1 “Hooked on Classics” record promoter 45 Tongue, anatomically 5 Japanese electronics 47 Largest labor union in the U.S. giant 49 Does a certain dog 10 Swell locale? trick 13 Director Apatow 52 Some iPods 17 View from the Uffizi 54 “Dance of the Sugar Gallery Plum Fairy” 18 Polo in the 13th instrument century 58 Howard Stern rival 19 Unyielding 61 “Jeez!” 20 Annual event at 65 “L’____ del Cairo” Pebble Beach (unfinished Mozart 22 Like a well-off señora opera) 23 Greek philosopher 66 Prefix with lingual who wrote, “Man is 68 With full attention the measure of all 69 Gooey stuff things” 70 Classic song with 25 Tomato trouble the repeated line 26 Harrison ____, last “If you need me, I person to set foot on will be nearby” … the moon shown symbolically 28 Round of applause in this puzzle 29 One on a talk show 75 Ewoks’ home in sci-fi couch, say 76 Upstate SUNY 31 Argentine aunt campus site 32 Like some brownies 77 Regret and towelettes 78 Filbert, for one 35 Brings out 79 Woman’s floral nickname 37 Still 38 Country named for 80 Common plastic base one of its patrons 82 Vocal cats 40 Basic material 85 Part of Polynesia 87 It’s least palatable 41 ____ Day (Nov. 19, when raw in Brazil) 89 Little twisted part of 42 Identify, as in a us all? Facebook photo 90 Egg, for one 43 It’s never free of charge 93 Bygone cable inits. 96 Main ingredient in a Online subscriptions: Tom Collins Today’s puzzle and more than 4,000 past puzzles, 98 Wenders who nytimes.com/crosswords directed “Buena ($39.95 a year). Vista Social Club” ACROSS

100 Santa ____ (some winds) 101 Close with a knot 104 Good thing to get from Moody’s 108 Disaster area, so to speak 109 Marked down 110 Six-time All-Star Garciaparra 111 Prefix for a revived style 112 French mime 115 Go off course 117 Use as a conclusion 119 Insurance giant 120 Find out about 124 Prefix with -plasm 125 Subject of an annual festival in Holland, Mich. 126 French buds 127 Instrument at Rick’s Café 128 With 132-Across, place to get a date 129 Spew fire and brimstone, say 130 Dusk-____-dawn 131 Animal sought in 2016’s “Zootopia” 132 See 128-Across DOWN

1 Limestone areas with sinkholes and caverns 2 One of the Nixons 3 Captivate 4 Rich soil 5 Caveat ____ 6 Final installment of “The Hangover” 7 Sign of theatrical success

8 Fall mo. 9 Title biblical character played by Russell Crowe 10 Hit from “Songs in the Key of Life” dedicated to Ellington 11 End of an ____ 12 Dutch beer brand 13 Compressed-file format 14 Language that gave us “cummerbund” 15 They impart an innocent look 16 Maidens 19 How good times are remembered 21 Country singer Kathy with the #1 “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses” 24 Mother and wife of Uranus 27 Google heading 30 Churchill gesture 33 Supercilious sort 34 Muscular 36 Shaped like a tube 39 Long, flowing locks 41 In a luxurious manner 46 Untethered 48 Lead-in to boy 50 More bloody 51 Caught 53 Refugee’s request 54 Rising star 55 Money-saving brand prefix 56 Extols 57 Melodic passage 59 Galaxy rival 60 “True Life” airer

66 71

52 59

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96 103

83 89

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110 115

111

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64 Pond wrigglers 67 Establishes 71 They may keep you awake at night 72 Reward for Fido 73 It may take a toll: Abbr.

74 Certification for ecofriendly buildings, for short 81 MinneapolisSt. Paul suburb 83 Direction of progress 84 “Hold it!” 86 “Same here” 88 Chinese dynasty of 1,000 years ago 90 React to, as a shock 91 Like PETA

122

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63 Love, in the Louvre

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62 “Now We Are Six” author

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73 76

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37 41

65 70

92 Bob Ewell’s daughter in “To Kill a Mockingbird” 94 Uselessly, after “to” 95 Texans, e.g. 97 “Oh yeah? Give an example!” 99 Subcompact 102 Because 103 A limerick has 13 105 Sought, as office 106 Irk

124

107 Order to a pest 113 It can come in sheets 114 A.T.M. printout: Abbr. 116 Certain tow job, for short 118 Shed tears 121 Bygone record label 122 Sauced 123 Back muscle, briefly

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36 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

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endorsements (continued from page 15)

a second term. The 6th District is considered a safe Republican district, so, like most congressional districts in the state, the real election is in the primary. Walker had the unenviable job of replacing the late Howard Coble, who represented the 6th District in Congress for 30 years before retiring in 2014. Coble was loved and respected by his constituents. But that relationship didn’t come about overnight, and, when ran for his second term, Coble defeated former Congressman Robin Britt by a mere 79 votes. The last time I checked, Walker hadn’t learned the mascots of every high school in the 6th District like Coble had, which is probably a good thing because Walker’s district, like all congressional districts in the state, was redrawn this spring – cutting out a big chunk of Greensboro, almost all of High Point and putting those in the 13th District. He also lost some counties to the north and gained some to the south. The primary is next week and the courts still have not approved the districts, which is a failure that would

be considered malpractice in most professions. But as is sadly more and more evident, the federal courts answer to no one. Appointed-for-life federal judges are free to create any degree of havoc they choose, and often they choose to create a lot. They certainly did so in North Carolina this year, forcing the legislature into a special session to create new districts and setting the unusual June primary. Walker in the new 6th District is being challenged from the right, which is interesting, or amusing, depending on your point of view. Walker is considered by most of the groups that rate congressmen to be among the more conservative members of Congress, so there isn’t much territory to his right. A vote by Walker that is a campaign issue was the vote in his first days as a congressman to reelect Speaker John Boehner. Walker was not a fan of Boehner, but in 2015, Boehner didn’t have a serious challenger. The representatives who ended up challenging him did so at the last minute. Walker told me he couldn’t have picked the challengers out of

NC Supreme Court The focus in the June 7 primary has been on the congressional primaries, but the most important race in all 13 congressional districts, is not the congressional primaries but the Supreme Court justice primary, which is a statewide race. Supreme Court Justice Bob Edmunds is the only Republican in the four-way primary, and the only incumbent. The North Carolina Supreme Court currently has a 4-to-3 Republican majority. If Edmunds loses then that switches over to a Democratic majority, and much of the work of the Republican legislature will be overturned by the courts. North Carolina will in essence be run by four Democratic Supreme Court justices rather than the legislature and governor. Despite what many people think, on political issues the court almost always votes along party lines. Currently the actions of the legislature are being upheld on 4-to-3 votes in the state Supreme Court. All of that changes if Edmunds is not reelected. This is a nonpartisan race, so

there is no indication on the ballot the political party of the candidates running. The top two vote-getters in the primary will face each other in the November election. What makes this race particularly scary is the extremely low voter turnout that is expected. The vote totals in the judicial race are expected to be significantly lower than in the congressional races because so many people will walk into the polls having no idea that a Supreme Court race is on the ballot and, not knowing anything about the candidates, won’t vote. Edmunds is from Greensboro, has served as US attorney and been a Supreme Court justice since 2000. Prior to that he was on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. He is running against two Democrats – North Carolina Superior Court Judge Michael R. Morgan and Daniel Robertson, who recently returned to the state after spending most of his legal career practicing elsewhere – and an unaffiliated candidate, Wake County attorney Sabra Jean Faires.

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

a lineup and didn’t have time to do sufficient research on them to be comfortable voting for any of them to be second in line for the presidency. Another factor at play is facing political reality. It’s easy to sit back and yell at a quarterback for throwing an interception and swearing that you never would have thrown the ball. It’s a whole different story to be in the game with 300-pound defensive linemen barreling at you blocking your view. In this case, with no legitimate opposition, it was a given that Boehner was going to be reelected speaker, even though a large number of Republicans were not happy with his leadership. If Walker had voted for anyone else, he would have found his office was a broom closet and he wouldn’t have been appointed to any committee that he had expressed any interest in. Politics is political. If you aren’t willing to play the political game, you aren’t going to have any success. You can’t represent your constituents well if you’re not allowed in the same room with the guys running the show. Walker made the right choice in voting for Boehner. It appears to me that Walker is making the right moves to be a successful congressman, but he is one of 435. No congressman can get anything done if he if he can’t convince 217 of his fellow representatives to vote with him. It’s our system of government, and it’s far from perfect, but it is the best system that man has so far devised. Chris Hardin of Brown Summit says he is a lifelong conservative, but until 2010 he was a registered Democrat. You can be a conservative registered as a Democrat, but when you’re running in the Republican primary, it sure looks better to have a few more votes as a Republican under your belt. If you were planning on voting for Walker or Hardin in the 6th District and, when you look at your ballot, you find 17 names instead of two, that means you’re in the 13th District, not the 6th, and we recommend you vote for state Rep. Julia Howard. Don’t be embarrassed, a lot of voters are going to be surprised when they go to the polls and find unfamiliar names on the ballot.

Democratic Primary 13th District The reality is that the winner of the Democratic primary doesn’t have much chance of winning the 13th Congressional District seat. It is considered a safe Republican district, and whichever of the 17 Republican candidates wins, the primary is going to have to do something really dumb to

endorsements

REPUBLICAN PRIMARY

13th Congressional District: Julia Howard 6th Congressional District: Mark Walker

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY 13th Congressional District: Bob Isner SUPREME COURT Robert H. (Bob) Edmunds

give the Democrat a chance. There is a good reason 17 Republicans are in the race, because whoever wins the primary has a cakewalk in November. But the best Democrat in the race is Bob Isner. He’s a Greensboro developer who understands first hand the difficulty of working with the government as a small business owner. This may not help him in the Democratic primary, but he appears to be the most conservative candidate in the race. Isner believes that security and national defense are the primary functions of the federal government. When was the last time you heard a Democrat say that? He is also in favor of controlling our borders and is in favor of a path to citizenship for the illegal immigrants who are already here. A plus is that if Isner gets the nomination, he may get his son, John Isner, who is ranked as one of the top 20 tennis players in the world, up here to campaign. I think a fundraiser where budding tennis stars would get a chance to try and return one of John Isner’s serves would be a lot of fun. Adam Coker, from Boone, who appears to be the only other serious candidate in the race, describes himself as a progressive. Coker has a much more mainline Democratic platform. (continued on page 38)

38 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

uncle orson (continued from page 16)

bowl of candy we offer to guests – most particularly to the high schoolers who attend the religion class that my wife teaches on school days at 6 in the morning. We expected that the Subscribe & Save items would be packaged with the same attention and care that Amazon lavishes on everything else they ship. So you can imagine our surprise when our monthly box arrived with the Fiji water loosely stacked in the same box with the toilet paper and the candy. Bottled water is heavy. When the shippers are tossing the carton around, the water makes one end of the package way heavier than the other. So it’s going to slip and drop and get upended. In the process, the Twix bars and Ghirardelli Squares were crushed by the package of water bottles. Mashed. Pulped. Inedible, even for a teenager. It’s not a bargain if the contents of the box arrive smithereened. In addition, the bottles of V8 High Fiber that I ordered arrived cracked and broken. Yes, the bottles are plastic ... but these Subscribe & Save boxes get such a beating, and contain such a strange variety of items, that a tough plastic bottle can and does crack, covering everything in the box with V8. So I no longer subscribe to the High Fiber V8, even though local stores rarely carry it. And even though my wife lives on Fiji water, constantly hydrating throughout the day, we had to drop that from my Subscribe & Save, too. However, she started her own separate Subscribe & Save in order to buy the Fiji water, so it will never end up in the same box as the stuff ordered under my account. You would expect Amazon.com to train their packagers to have as much sense as, say, a bagger at the grocery store. The eggs don’t go into the same bag as anything heavier. Nothing goes on top of the bread or the chips. You know, common sense. And when it’s not going into a shopping bag that will always be carried vertically, but rather into a big box that will be tossed and stacked with any side up, and whose contents will be lurching about constantly, then you spend a little time making sure that the items will not pound each other into oblivion during shipping. Amazon knows how to package and ship books. But other items, from

other retailers? Not so much. Subscribe & Save is still a great idea, and there are still items we buy that way. The toilet paper is not going to destroy the Finish dishwashing detergent. The Dial soaps will not be destroying the Glad ForceFlex garbage bags. But they will all get dumped into the same box with all the care of a child dumping the contents of a toy box all over the floor. I’m told that part of the problem is that Amazon treats their packagers the way UPS treats their drivers – as if they were machines and not people. So the only way to keep their jobs is to work with relentless speed. In other words, if they take a little extra time in packaging, they’ll be out of a job. That’s a nasty problem that Amazon’s management can fix. Quality, not speed, should be the highest priority. In the long run, Subscribe & Save will make more money if people come to trust that their items will arrive in good, or at least usable, condition.

.... I thought I had read all of Jane Austen’s fiction – more than once each. I have read or listened to Pride and Prejudice at least a dozen times in my life. I have watched all the BBC screen adaptations. There are no surprises left. Except that I had never heard of Austen’s novella Lady Susan, so I had no idea what to expect when it was adapted by writer-director Whit Stillman into the movie Love & Friendship (a good change; it sounds much more Austenish). Even if I had known about Lady Susan, I doubt I would have read it. When Austen started writing, she worked in the epistolary form – a story told through letters written by the principal characters. I have little patience with epistolaries, for exactly the reason that I am impatient with “found footage” movies – because the storytellers are rarely true to their form. Just as most found-footage movies contain many shots that the characters would never have filmed, and scenes that would never have happened with a camera rolling, so also most epistolaries do not sound like the kinds of letters the characters would actually write. If the characters are going to be sacrificed for the sake of the storyteller’s needs, why bother pretending? Just write the fiction –

and shoot the movie – in the regular way, and stop pretending that the characters created the narratives and scenes themselves. Jane Austen’s first draft of Sense and Sensibility was written as epistolary, and while I’m sure the letters were sizzling with wit, I’m glad she thought better of it and wrote the final draft as straight narrative. Lady Susan, however, she never even submitted for publication. Does that mean the short novel was bad, the author knew it, and we’re wasting our time paying attention to it? After all, Austen could have gone back and rewritten it in narrative form; she chose not to. Why? I’ll tell you why, because the answer is obvious as you watch the movie. The character of Lady Susan Vernon, played delightfully in the movie by Kate Beckinsale, is a moral monster. Even by our standards, she’s remarkably deceptive and manipulative, with no qualms at all about the price other people have to pay for her schemes to succeed. This is especially unconscionable when it comes to her teenage daughter, Frederica (Morfydd Clark), because Lady Susan is determined to marry her off in a way that is financially and socially advantageous

... to Lady Susan. In Jane Austen’s day, Lady Susan would have been scandalous – more scandalous than, say, Defoe’s Moll Flanders, because Lady Susan is of a much higher social class than Moll Flanders, so her moral failings fly in the face of the common idea of the superiority of the upper class. Behavior like hers would seem so indecorous, so monstrous, that readers would have been outraged. The normal mode for introducing a whiff of scandal into novels in that period was to make the character a victim of the machinations of other people – not to make her the maleficent evil-doer herself. And you may be assured: Jane Austen pulls out all the stops. There really is nothing that Lady Susan would not do. The novella subscribes to the morality of the day only thus far: Nothing indecent is actually shown (everyone’s clothes stay on; no one uses crude language), and Lady Susan does get a kind of comeuppance at the end – though, because she is so very good at seeming nice, few characters in the story would realize that she was hoist on her own petard. (Have you ever wondered what

(continued on page 40)

endorsements (continued from page 37)

Bruce Davis, of High Point, served as a Guilford County commissioner from 2002 to 2014 and has become what is called a perennial candidate. For some reason he runs in races he can’t win. He ran as an independent against state Sen. Gladys Robinson in 2010 where he was on the ballot twice, once running as a Democrat for reelection as a county commissioner and once as an independent running for the state Senate. The legislature has since passed a law closing that loophole that allowed Davis to run for two offices simultaneously. He then ran in the Democratic primary against Robinson in 2012, where he lost with only 28 percent of the vote. He also ran in the 6th Congressional District Democratic primary in 2014, where he lost to Laura Fjeld from Orange County. He challenged the results of that race in part because

he said that he did worse in precincts where he campaigned the most. The State Board of Elections didn’t think much of his challenge. Rev. Mazie Ferguson is another perennial candidate. She just lost a race in the March 15 Democratic primary for secretary of labor, where she promoted unions and a living wage for the state. Ferguson is the former head of the Pulpit Forum in Greensboro. She lost that primary and then filed a few days later to run in the 6th District Democratic primary. Kenneth Griffin lives and runs a business in Durham. Greensboro is the eastern-most portion of the 13th District and Durham is 50 miles east of Greensboro. Why anyone in Greensboro, Statesville or anyplace in between would vote for someone from Durham to represent them is a mystery, even though congressional representatives don’t have to live in the district they represent.

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

The Sound of the

beep

What follows has been transcribed from the answering machine on our comment line. We edit out what is required by the laws of the state, of good taste and of good sense. The limit on phone calls is one minute and each caller may make up to two calls per week. If you have something to say, call our comment line at 763-0479 and start talking at The Sound of the Beep. I wonder if the politically correct police are going to make the Aycock family change their name to something else. This is the most asinine thing I’ve ever seen. Next thing you know, they’ll want to change the name of Washington State and Washington, DC, because George owned slaves. Yeah, it’s pitiful. Anyway, good luck to you. We love your paper, every week, especially your articles. You seem to get into what you know you’re talking about, not like the fish wrap. And at the same time, I really enjoy your crossword puzzles. Tonight was a challenge. Good day.

%%% I just wanted to say that it’s good to see the political crooks and thieves are still alive and well in Greensboro on the City Council, and several of them are too lazy to get a full-time job. So, they just voted to give their selves a raise up there where they can sit on their behinds and do nothing and see how good they are. We need to vote all of them out of office and get somebody in there that will reduce taxes and cut their pay back to where it ought to be and let them work at a job like the rest of us do out here to make a living. They’re nothing but a bunch of crooks. Thank you.

%%% Jimmy Carter can thank Barack Hussein Obama that he, Carter, will no longer be the answer to a trivia question after he has departed this life.

%%% Yeah, Steely Dan Fan Man concerning this City Council plan to go up 200 percent on your vehicle registration fee for the city. Two hundred percent is entirely too much. I could see maybe 50 percent at the very most. You know, and that’s if you’re desperate. But 200 percent is absolutely gouging me. I’m tired of it. I’m on disability. I’m tired of people sticking their hands in my wallet. And soon it’s going to be no more Mr. Nice Guy. I’m going to start getting it back. You know, what they need to do is quit mismanaging money, such as throwing money at museums, handing out money to multiple family members who have broken the law and then get rewarded for it. What they ought to be doing is paying Chief Wray.

%%% Well, I was coming down Yanceyville as you come across Cone. Got up around Spry Street. Here come this guy on a dirt bike. No helmet, on the back wheel. About run over the car in the next lane. I don’t know where he’s at. Anyway, come on up where you turn left or go straight to get on Lee’s Chapel. He was in the right-hand lane in front of two lanes and turned left on Lee’s Chapel Road. Now, thank you, Police Department. I see how good you’re looking after our streets just like you always do. You’re on the job everywhere you find a McDonald’s or Biscuitville somewhere. You need to be out on the streets catching these fools before they kill somebody. Thanks to the chief of police, nobody does anything.

%%% You can be safe at the White House. Those poor people have got to protect themselves. Another thing, to make it possible for somebody to own a semi-automatic or full-automatic weapons is ridiculous. Unless there’s a civil war between us and Mexico, when the wall goes up, like I said before. We yelled at Gorbachov to take down that wall, and now we’re doing the same thing they did by putting one up. You ain’t going to

(continued on page 42)

40 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

uncle orson (continued from page 38)

“hoist on one’s own petard” actually means? The petard was an early version of the hand grenade – an explosive meant to be fused and then flung by hand. But fuses were unpredictable, so it happened rather too often that the person who lit the fuse, meaning to throw the petard into the midst of the enemy, was a bit too slow, or the petard was badly made. It therefore exploded in the wielder’s hand, or so soon after throwing it that he was tossed through the air by the force of the explosion that he set off. To be thus thrown is to be “hoist,” an old past tense meaning “lifted,” “tossed” or “blown up.” So the phrase means that someone was damaged by his own actions, by which he intended to harm others.) This is a first-rate British period piece, meaning that the actors are well trained in their craft and effortlessly bring off the manners of the age while infusing the dialogue with all the dry wit that Austen is known for. If anything, Whit Stillman’s script adds to Austen’s humor. For instance, at the movie’s opening, each character is introduced

with a brief label, consisting of a line that someone later in the film says about them. There are so many characters, related to each other in such complicated (to a modern American audience) ways, that without this guidance many moviegoers would soon be hopelessly lost. Do pay attention: There will be a test. Yet these introductory moments are also witty. (To fans of the Hangover movies, “Witty” means “funny in ways that invite the audience to think as well as laugh.” No, let me amend that: “to think in order to laugh.”) My wife and I found the movie delightful and funny all the way through – in part because nobody actually does anything visually appalling. All the indecencies are done by characters who never waver from the rules of good manners. Everyone is at great pains to seem respectable. The best thing in the story and the movie is the character of Sir James Martin, played brilliantly by Tom Bennett. It’s hard to steal

a movie away from the likes of Kate Beckinsale, Chloë Sevigny or Stephen Fry, but the script gave Tom Bennett every opportunity; he owns this movie by the sheer exuberant honesty of his performance. Sir James Martin is the man that Lady Susan is determined that her daughter Frederica must marry. He is a baronet – the lowest rank in the hereditary titled class – and, most important, he’s quite rich; for comparison, his fortune is twice as large as that of Charles Bingley in Pride and Prejudice. However, Frederica is desperate not to marry him. She is an avid reader, a self-educated woman who thrives on wise and well-informed conversation. And Sir James Martin is, to put it kindly, a bit of a fool. To put it more accurately, remove “a bit of” and you’re there. But his foolishness makes him one of the best of Austen’s creations: He manages to say things that other people would discreetly leave unsaid, like constantly talking about how close he is to allying himself with Lady Susan’s family, even though he is not engaged to either mother or daughter. He rattles on about subjects of which he knows nearly nothing, but freely admits his own ignorance.

So we cringe for him, because he embarrasses himself every time he opens his mouth. And yet he is so open-hearted and generous, so enthusiastic and humble and wellmeaning, that by the end of the movie it’s hard not to conclude that, fool though he may be, he is the best human being in the story. He has no malice and no ambition, except to be happily married to the Vernon mother or daughter (and he isn’t fussy about which one). It is not charming when a man persists in his courtship when it is obvious to everyone that the object of his offers of love is desperate to avoid him. And yet we remain charmed by this happily oafish man. When the film ends, Sir James Martin is in a situation far worse than he deserves; but his very obliviousness saves him from pain. He has no idea how badly things have turned out for him, so he remains blissfully happy. If you think you’re happy, then haven’t you achieved a happy ending, even if no one with any sense would envy you? You will not scream with laughter and roll in the aisles. This is not a farce or a satire. While Love & (continued on page 43)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

YOST Column

Yost Column

It’s Not What You Eat That Will Kill You ... by Scott D. Yost “Please tell the media, I did not get my SpaghettiOs, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know.” – Thomas Grasso, executed in Oklahoma on March 20, 1995 On Jan. 24, 1992, convicted murderer Ricky Ray Rector was given his last meal prior to lethal injection by the Arkansas State Penitentiary. Here’s what he’d requested: steak, fried chicken, cherry Kool-Aid and pecan pie. Thoughtful prison staff provided the meal; and Rector ate the steak, polished off the tasty fried chicken, washed it all down with a nice glass of cherry Kool-Aid and then said he was done. The guards, ready to whisk him away to his date with a lethal injection, pointed out to Rector that he hadn’t eaten the piece of pecan pie. Rector told them he realized that but said he was “saving it for later.” That may or may not have been a good plan on his part, but it was one

of the many interesting things I read in my quest to figure out what I should have as my last meal should the occasion arise. Now, trust me, I have no plans whatsoever of ending up on death row one day, but those people who had their last meals in prison probably didn’t think they would get caught either. Also, I do think, just as a general life rule of thumb, that it’s always a good idea to be prepared for all eventualities. One thing I found fascinating in all that research is that one favorite that comes up over and over as a final meal request for death row inmates is good old finger-licking Kentucky Fried Chicken, better known as KFC. It is an amazingly popular choice among people about to be executed. Man, if I were KFC I’d have a major ad campaign that went something like: “KFC – not just finger-licking good anymore – it’s drop-dead delicious.” Or, “Enjoy a big meal of Kentucky Fried Chicken – you’ll feel like you’ve died and gone to… well,

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gone somewhere.” (If you work for KFC and you are reading this, you can have the idea at no charge.) Three-time Oklahoma killer Clarence Ray Allen was one huge fan of KFC (white meat only in his case), and I even, no lie, read about prisoners as far away as Malaysia and Indonesia who requested and got Kentucky Fried Chicken before being put to death. John Wayne Gacy, the children’s party clown who had the remains of a couple dozen people in the crawl space of his house and who was put to death by lethal injection in Illinois at the age of 52, was another bigtime KFC fan. For his last meal, Gacy requested fried shrimp, a bucket of KFC (original recipe only) and fries, along with a pound of strawberries for desert. Now here’s the thing: Gacy, before getting arrested, was a manager of three KFC restaurants. So you’d think that that would be the absolute last thing he’d want in his final hours. You know how familiarity breeds contempt. But I think it really says a great deal about the deliciousness of

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KFC chicken that, even after working at the place for years, Gacy was still craving that fried chicken right before he was to be put to death. By the way, if you think it’s wrong to make fun of all those people and their last wishes, well, just keep in mind that they are guilty of terrible crimes with the exception of 4 percent of them. There were a lot of other interesting things I found out about last meals. For instance, in some states you get to invite another inmate to eat with you just like on Survivor when you get to pick who goes with you for the reward after winning a challenge. That is one of the nicer death row traditions, but I think if someone invited me to dine with them for their final meal, I would say thanks but no thanks because I would worry I might make an innocent but highly inappropriate remark during the dinner conversation that would make things awkward. It might be, “Oh wow, thanks for having me – this meal is to die for!” Or, even if you managed to avoid the real obvious ones, you might say something like, “Wow, that game seven in the NBA

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42 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

yost

(continued from page 41) playoffs tomorrow night looks like it will be a real barnburner, huh?” A lot of times when requests are difficult or too expensive, they’ll give you approximations of what you asked for. For instance, Robert Alton Harris wanted a large Domino’s pizza, but instead they went to the grocery store and bought him a frozen pizza – and it wasn’t even DiGiorno’s pizza so there might be a chance of him being fooled. The guards got him, I kid you not, a Tombstone frozen pizza, which I think was the guards’ idea of being funny and bringing a little levity to an otherwise dreary situation, but I wonder if Harris laughed or just looked at them angrily. (By the way, he also asked for and got a 21-piece bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.) In some states, they give you a price ceiling that you can’t go over. In Florida, you have a $40 limit on your last meal. Oklahoma gives you a cost cap of $15. In Louisiana, one time a prison warden who wanted to help a death row inmate out paid for a lobster dinner for the guy out of his own pocket. Kidnapper and murderer Víctor Feguer was just 28 when he was hung in Iowa. For his last meal, he requested only one olive with the pit in it. I read that he thought an olive tree would grow out of his grave, but I feel like he may not have been an expert in plant science. Timothy McVeigh, before he was put to death in Indiana by lethal injection at the age of 33, requested two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream for his last meal and got it, and Gerald Lee Mitchell, executed in

Texas in 2001, asked for and received a bag of assorted Jolly Rancher candies. North Carolina’s own Velma Barfield, aka the black widow, who got a lethal injection in 1984 also got what she asked for – a bag of Cheez Doodles and a 12-ounce can of CocaCola. Some inmates, by the way, when asked what they want for their last meal, just opt for the ordinary prison meal that everyone else is getting that night. I guess they do not want to be any trouble. My all-time favorite last meal story is that of Lawrence Russell Brewer, who was put to death in the great state of Texas in 2011. Before his execution, Brewer ordered a giant meal that included not one, but two, chicken fried steaks, a triple bacon cheeseburger, a large bowl of fried okra, one pound of barbecue, three fajitas, an entire meat lover’s pizza, a pint of ice cream and a big chunk of peanut butter fudge. They got every bit of it for him and gave it to him and he just sat there and refused to eat one bite of any of it. It was his way of saying, “Take that!” to the prison officials, and he really got the last laugh on all of them. On second thought, maybe they got the last laugh on him – but still, it was a pretty good trick. As you can imagine, Texas prison officials weren’t exactly happy about that little stunt and Texas prison authorities were so ticked off that they ended the 87-yearold tradition of giving special last meals to condemned inmates. In 2007, Phillip Workman, in

beep (continued from page 39) stop people from tunneling. They are going to try to come over here. They’re going to find all kind of crazy ways to do it. The wall is not going to stop everything. It won’t stop nothing. Wake up, America.

%%% A true hero is someone who can do their act of heroism and they go on about their business with a low profile, unrecognized and unpaid for what they’ve done. And most of the time they will deny what they have done. But they have completed their act of heroism and put other people before them. That

is a true hero. Not the people that we see today who pat their own self on the back and call themselves a hero. That is not a true hero. So, I wish everybody would just stop. It’s ridiculous. And most of the viewing public knows it’s just baloney.

%%% Since 1983, when I came to UNCG, I have been flying back and forth between the East Coast of the United States and London Heathrow or London Gatwick. And upon returning to the US last week, I had never been treated so abusively and rudely in 33 years of international travel. We

Tennessee, asked that a large vegetarian pizza be given to a homeless person instead of a last meal for himself. So he sounds like he was a really nice guy – you know, I mean, when he wasn’t killing people during the commission of armed robberies. The prison officials denied his request, and Workman refused to eat anything before he was put to death. But on the day of his execution, homeless shelters across Tennessee received tons of vegetarian pizzas from people all over the country in honor of his last wishes. Thomas J. Grasso, who was put to death in Oklahoma in 1995, had two dozen steamed mussels and the same number of steamed clams, a Burger King cheeseburger, a half-dozen barbecued spare ribs, two strawberry milkshakes, pumpkin pie and a can of spaghetti with meatballs, which, just as he requested, was served at room temperature. However, he issued a public statement complaining that he had asked for SpaghettiOs – not spaghetti, and he felt a need to alert the media. There is just no pleasing some people. So, what can we learn from all this about our last meals before we are executed? Well, first of all, don’t worry about the cost. In most states, there’s no law that states an upper limit and, even if there is, there’s no harm in asking. This is your last meal, so think big. Look at it this way: If you’re on death row that means that you have already cost your state hundreds of thousands – or even millions – of dollars, so another 75 or 100 bucks isn’t going to matter one way or the other in the grand scheme of things.

Also, don’t think about calories or carbs. Executions aren’t televised yet; so what if you look a little bloated. And remember, order a lot and, eat slooooooooow: The longer your meal lasts the longer you live. Dennis Wayne Bagwell, executed in Texas in 2005, took this to heart: He ordered a medium-rare steak with A.1., fried chicken (of course), BBQ ribs, bacon, french fries, onion rings, a plate of scrambled eggs and onions, fried potatoes, sliced tomatoes, a salad and also two hamburgers, some peach pie, tea, milk and coffee. He knew it was his last meal so he ordered a lot and I can promise you he ate it slow. So I would really eat slow and draw it out. If they try to hurry you up because your execution time is approaching, say: “Hey! Do you mind!? It’s my last meal on Earth for goodness’ sakes – could you please just let me enjoy it in peace. Jeeeze – You guys are unbelievable!” So what would I have? Well, KFC, of course. But I think I would go with extra crispy for a change and I would have both dark and white meat. And I would wisely follow that up with a bottomless bowl of pasta from Olive Garden so I could be the one who decided when my last meal was over. And a real Coke – not a Diet Coke – because I haven’t had a real coke in years and, from what I remember, they sure are tasty. For dessert, well I’d get the same thing you would, of course: One of every item on the entire Cinnabon menu, served piping hot just like at the mall. Oh, what the heck – make it two of everything on the menu.

arrived at the Atlanta airport and were barked at, shouted at and corralled like sheep by the TSA agents. It took 50 minutes to get through security and I almost missed my connecting flight to Greensboro. What a contrast to Heathrow, where they had many more people when I arrived there with my son, since there were flights from Munich and Dubai arriving at the same time. We were through security in about 20 minutes at Heathrow with courteous professional people. The TSA people are just jerks. Just sign me off as An Independent Thinker.

of Donald Trump. You, obviously, are both talented writers and very smart guys but have strongly differing views on this. And I think it would be constructive to see your views stated in a kind of debate forum. So, thanks. Bye.

%%% John, I think that it would be very instructive and beneficial for your readers to see a debate in the Rhino Times between you and Orson Scott Card regarding the merits or demerits

%%% Our City Council is once again a joke. It’s around noon Monday, and two men on a moped fall in the middle of an intersection on Randleman Road. Both men are so drunk they cannot stand up. The police officer responds and he has no backup available. I think the City Council should quit giving money away and give $750,000 to the Greensboro Police Department so they can hire enough police officers (continued on page 45)

uncle orson (continued from page 40)

Friendship will appeal to Oscar Wilde’s audience, it never crosses the line into absurdity the way Wilde regularly does. Instead, the audience in Austen’s day could very well believe that there might be a person – many people – as unscrupulously selfish as Lady Susan. And while they would laugh at Sir James Martin as readily as they laugh at Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice, they would not despise him, because in his foolishness he only wants others to be happy, and does not seek to trick or force them into complying with his will. The result is a comedy that makes you smarter about other people, that makes you think about how good manners can be a fortress in which bad people can remain concealed, that makes you realize that a person can be despised or laughed at by others and yet remain good and valuable. Love & Friendship is not medicinal, though it will be easier for audience members who are familiar with films set in this period to grasp what is going on. It is pure pleasure, for those prepared to enjoy it. It is the best movie of 2016 so far, in my opinion. After the abomination of Hello, My Name Is Doris, I needed a good movie for grownups to help me get that taste out of my mouth. Love & Friendship has a high opinion of the intelligence of its audience. It’s like attending a supper in the home of the wisest yet most genial of hosts. The conversation scintillates, the stories are memorable and you come away feeling a little bit wiser and happier.

.... It’ll be Father’s Day in a few minutes, and let’s face it, men are hard to shop for. Unless they tell you what they want, you’re probably going to guess wrong – on brand or model, even if not on the kind of item. But sometimes, if the item isn’t too expensive, it’s worth buying something the man would never ask for because he’s never heard of it, or because it would require him to change a habit or two. Which brings me to wallets. These are not quite as personal as a woman’s purse – any man who thinks he can buy his wife a purse without her being there is crazy – but there are things he expects his wallet to be able to hold.

Any man, well-padded or bony, gets weary of the backside pain that comes from sitting on his wallet – or the lower-back pain that comes from twisting his body so the wallet doesn’t give him a pain in the bum. If he wears a suit to work, there are lovely billfolds designed for the inside suitcoat pocket. Of course, if he takes his suitcoat off and hangs it up or lays it down, it’s not like that pocket is a safe. I started carrying my wallet in my front pants pocket 30 years ago, but wallets designed for the hip pocket rarely fit into the front pocket. It was always a fight to get it in and out. So I was thrilled when I first tried the Vermont Country Store’s front pocket wallet. It has a curve made of extra leather that allows it to fit snugly at the bottom of the pocket and not shift around. It’s copious enough to carry all the credit cards I need for daily use (I have a supplemental credit card case when I’m traveling, to make sure that if I max out one card I have a spare or two). It also has to carry the amount of cash I usually withdraw from the ATM at one time. Just Google Vermont Country Store or Front Pocket Wallet. You can get it in black or brown. I’ve carried mine for years, and it has proven its sturdiness and functionality. Best wallet I’ve ever owned. But that doesn’t mean my mind is closed. Somebody was touting the TriHold wallet on Facebook, so I looked it up and found that Amazon sold it. More to the point, they sold it to me. The TriHold is a three-panel wallet with a metal clasp that is meant to lock it down so it stays tightly folded in your pocket. It doesn’t have that extra curve of leather to hold it down at the bottom of your pocket. It slides in and out of your front pocket with ease – but in my weeks of using it, it never tried to make an unauthorized escape. It really does have a surprising amount of room for cards, and the money compartment is adequate. As long as you don’t carry a lot of cash – i.e., you withdraw only small amounts from the ATM each time, and the valet doesn’t give you 15 ones in change for a 20 – your wallet should remain at a manageable size. Mine didn’t. I still had to put a couple of cards in the cash section of the wallet, and the result was that the wallet was holding just a little too much.

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

This meant that when I closed the wallet, the clasp gripped so tightly that it was hard to pry open again. I was constantly having to work my fingers under the leather, because the edge of the clasp was not comfortable to work with. Eventually, that would result in weakening the corners of the wallet. Then came the day I withdrew too many bills from the ATM and got those 15 ones from the valet. At that point I couldn’t close the wallet at all. The metal clasp wouldn’t go over the metal part on the other side. The wallet stayed closed only because the tip of the clasp hooked onto leather, and that meant that every time I opened and closed it, I was damaging the wallet. Yesterday I decided a one-month trial was enough. The TriHold is very well designed and I recommend it highly – but not if you carry as much stuff in your wallet as I sometimes have to. Still, it’s worth a shot as a Father’s Day gift. You can be sure the wallet is of high enough quality that the man will probably give it a try. And if he doesn’t, well, he’ll know you offered

him something well-made. Just go to Amazon and look up TriHold Wallet. Or go to the Vermont Country Store online and look at the front-pocket wallet that I have used for years. It’s also markedly less expensive, if only because there are no metal parts. And while you’re at the Vermont Country Store, you might want to look at the Squeeze It Coin Purse. I first found this kind of coin purse while I was in college, and whenever I find them I buy several, because every time I pull it out and use it, other people openly admire it. That’s because the design is so convenient and it looks so cool that every other coin purse looks kind of tatty compared to it. It also works great, as long as you don’t overload it so badly that coins start leaking out into your pocket. So when friends admire it, I give them one of my extras at the first opportunity. It costs 10 bucks at the Vermont Country Store, and it comes in black and brown. It’s way better than loose change in your pocket. And if one of your young children gives it to Daddy, he will give it a try.

44 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

May Schmoozefest at Kickback Jackâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Photos by Elaine Hammer

passengers (continued from page 12)

Showfety said PTIA is attempting to draw more passengers by getting the word out about the convenience of using PTIA. The airport’s “Fly Easy” media campaign includes television, print and billboard ads that stress the ease and convenience of PTIA. Showfety also pointed to the recent enlargement of the team of volunteers known as the Airport Ambassadors. According to that group’s promotional literature, its stated goal is “to transform your traveling stress into southern-style comfort.” “We’ve tripled that in that past 36 months,” Showfety said of the team that gives freely or their time to enhance the traveler’s experience at PTIA. The volunteers do everything from occupying information booths to roaming the terminal and concourses looking for those who need various types of assistance. They also do things like hand out flowers to passengers on Valentines Day or provide small special treats for holiday travelers when things are most hectic and stressful. For contributing to the passenger experience at PTIA, the only thing they get out of it each year are a few airport-use perks and a nice luncheon where their service is honored. Showfety said those volunteers are a big asset. He pointed out that PTIA, unlike Charlotte, doesn’t receive funds from local governments. “We’re virtually self-sustaining,” he

said. “Our airport is not a municipal airport – Charlotte Douglas is. We are not subsidized by local governments – Charlotte-Douglas is.” A decade ago, the airport’s passenger traffic had over a million passengers – 1,109,100 in 2006. Airport officials would love to see the numbers back over a million for a start. Charter passengers at PTIA have fallen by almost half in the last five years. In 2015, there were 2,117 charter passengers for PTIA compared to 4,041 five years earlier. In 2008, that number was 5,734 and, in 2007, over 7,000 charter passengers used PTIA. The economic collapse of 2008 that helped drive consolidation in the airline industry also brought down the number of charter flights. The holy grail of addressing the passenger problem is getting more airlines to serve PTIA. That would attract passengers and help drive ticket prices down, but, as mergers in the industry continue, there are fewer and fewer airlines to attempt to even try to attract. PTIA Executive Director Kevin Baker said airport staff has been focused on the problem, but he added that airline mergers and other financial decisions made by carriers have been a problem. “The number of available airlines for us to pursues is shrinking,” he said. “Unfortunately, markets like ours have been hurt by consolidation in the industry,” Baker added. “As the hubs

beep (continued from page 42) to take care of two drunks on Randleman Road. Thank you.

%%% A judge dismissed the case against the police officer in Baltimore. And the people are waiting outside, hollering: “no justice, no peace.” If I had a family member or real good friend who was in the police force in Baltimore, I would advise him to seek other employment. That place is a mess, and it’s being run by people that’s a mess. And it’s never going to be straightened up. It’s a sad thing as big a city as Baltimore and the way it used to be and how it is now. And nobody but just a very few of us can see that.

%%%

Regarding an article that was written by one Joseph J. Horton, a professor of psychology at Grove City College and the working group coordinator for Marriage and Family with the Center for Vision and Values. He’s also a researcher on Positive Youth Development. He has titled his article, “Which Bathroom Did Klinger Use?” from the MASH program of years ago. And it is excerpted in the middle, one’s mental experience does not determine truth. It is possible to have powerful and persistent feelings that are objectively false. And he rejects the demand for bathrooms that are unisex or

(continued on page 46)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | RHINO TIMES decline, we lose services.” He said mergers result largely from airlines looking to cut costs. “The way airlines do that is to eliminate hubs,” he said. He said that hurts airports such as PTIA. “The airlines serve their hubs and that’s it,” Baker said. According to Baker, this problem is by no means just a local one. “It’s a problem for airports nationwide,” he said, adding that cities such as Pittsburgh, Memphis and Cincinnati have also been hit hard by airline mergers. He said there are some different models, such as Allegiant Air, which hits vacation spots such as Las Vegas and Disney attractions and resort areas. The more of any type of flights would also be a plus. “Competition helps lowers fares,” he said. He said he and other airport staff have been aggressive in courting what prospects there are and that those efforts take many forms, including prearranged industry “speed-dating meetings” where PTIA officials meet with representatives of carriers in an attempt to convince them to serve this

area. “We do that all the time,” Baker said. Though the numbers have been decreasing at PTIA in recent years, the number of fliers on US-based air carriers has been going up. Melanie Hinton, a spokesperson for Airlines for America, an industry trade group that tracks industry markers and advocates for air travel, stated that, over the past five years, air traffic overall has been on a constant upward trend. The number of passengers that have flown US airlines between the years was 731 million in 2011, 737 million in 2012, 743 million in 2013, 762 million in 2014 and 798 million 2015. “The number of passengers has increased year over year because air travel remains one of the best consumer bargains out there,” she wrote. Hinton also stated that real fares, including ancillary services, remain 10 percent below 2000 levels. She said that, in recent years, air travel has not been the realm of the well off, as some people presume. “The majority of people who flew in 2015 (55 percent) had household incomes of $75,000 or less,” Hinton wrote.

46 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

Letters SPEAKING OF BUSINESS EXPERIENCE DEAR EDITOR,

While you may be correct in your recent article that there are no “fulltime” business people on council at this time, I believe your implied portrayal of no business knowledge on our current council is incorrect and discredits the years of business experience many on council have brought to their elected position. Several on our current council have either owned businesses or have worked for large companies throughout their careers. Budgeting, inventory management, hiring/firing personnel, quality control, purchasing and all of the duties required in prior positions has (sic) brought a wealth of experience and expertise to our city council. All of the attributes gained in these business careers brings (sic) a vast array of business acumen from

LETTERS To The Editor

TO THE EDITOR very small companies to large ones. Adding up years of experience on this council comes close to 100 years of actual business experience. Rather than being criticized for not “currently” being in the business world, the wisdom brought by many on this council should be recognized and appreciated.

Marikay Abuzuaiter At-large city councilmember

MORE IMPORTANT THAN CONGRESS DEAR EDITOR,

As you know, there’s a special primary election on June 7 (early voting already started) for North Carolina’s US House candidates. However, there’s a very important election on the same ballot that affects our state Supreme Court.

beep (continued from page 45) everybody, transgender, female, whatever. This article is by Joseph Horton, a professor of psychology at Grove City College in Pennsylvania.

%%% Yes, I’d like to say that so-called bill, whatever, bathroom bill, is really hurting North Carolina. But in the long run it’s hurting poor people. And it’s also going to hurt black people more than anything else, because a lot of people need the money in service. And this bill kills all the jobs and stuff in North Carolina. I think McCrory has really lost his mind. He ain’t nothing but a terrible governor as far as I’m concerned. But other than that, this HB2 is really hurting the poor people. It ain’t hurting the gays. It’s hurting the poor people and black people generally. That’s all I got to say. They need to check themselves on that. Why do the poor got to pay the price? I don’t get it. But other than that, HB2 is hurting the poor and blacks more than the others. So, peace.

%%% I was watching Hannity on Fox News one night last week, and Sean Hannity mentioned that according to a recent Labor Department report, there are now approximately 95 million Americans of working age out of the labor force. This doesn’t include, according to Hannity, the unknown number of people who have simply, quote, given up, end of quote, looking for work. Folks, to put it in perspective, that’s almost a third of the nation’s total population. Obama, what happened to those shovel-ready jobs you promised? What was that? Speak up.

%%% Transgender bathrooms are so stupid. What stands behind such measures? This is why Obama is supporting them. It’s the powerful influence of the LGBT lobby on politicians and public policy. All they want is not fairness but pushing their agenda to eventually ensure that no difference will eventually exist between males and females. Never mind that this can damage very vulnerable people

There are four candidates on the ballot for the NC Supreme Court. Two of the four will advance to the general election in November. This race is “nonpartisan” in that the candidates are not listed as Republican or Democrat. (However, all the candidates “align” politically/ideologically with either the Republicans or Democrats.) Robert H. (Bob) Edmunds is the only conservative running – the other three are liberal and will align with the Democrats. Edmunds is currently on the NC Supreme Court and is part of a narrow 4-to-3 conservative majority. If the Democrats can flip the NC Supreme Court to 4-to-3 liberal, not only will they stop any new Republican policies/initiatives (which have been improving our state’s economy the last three to four years), but they’ll also likely try to undo much of what has been successfully accomplished by the GOP in our state.

It’s absolutely critical that Bob Edmunds win the primary and be reelected in November. Please vote for Justice Edmunds and tell your family and friends to do the same. If he loses and we lose the NC Supreme Court, our state’s growing economy will come to a screeching halt. Thank you, and may God bless our state and our dear nation.

in the process. No one can, indeed, reasonably argue that seeing a male, transgender or not, erupting into a female bathroom, or changing room, will not create an overwhelming feeling of insecurity among girls and women. And, then, there is the risk of abusers taking advantage of the policy to walk in with the intent to molest females. It’s all about politics. It’s not at all about common sense.

Donald Trump will get on that and start playing that tip of where the man said it’s compared to the wait at Disney World, he can win this election. There are a tremendous amount of veterans that cannot get waited on. If he can get them behind him, he can win.

%%% Hi. Your Rhino Shorts article stating that Page opened in 1959. My wife was in the first full three-year class at Page, graduated in 1961. She did attend 10th grade there, which would have been 1958. Thank you. Have a great day.

%%% Editor’s Note: Thanks. I found both years listed as the first year. I guess I picked the wrong one.

%%% On Fox News, May 24, they’re reporting the head at the VA said the wait lines at the VA are similar to the wait lines at Disney World. And it just shows you that they don’t really care whether they wait on the veterans or not. Barack Hussein Obama two years ago said he was going to straighten out the VA. If

Larry Holmquist

SHELTER DOESN’T BELONG IN EAST DEAR EDITOR,

There are times when right is right and wrong is wrong, and the location of the new animal shelter is wrong. The east of Greensboro needs jobs, and the shelter will not bring them. I am a big animal lover but common

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%%% Mr. Hammer, in Under the Hammer on May 19 you were right on target. Turn airport security over to the airlines. Contrast a few thousand near-minimum wage workers that are mostly new hires trained by the government who don’t get fired for a 95 percent failure rate, contrast that with the employees of an airline with multi-million dollar airplanes and a planeload of people with families who can sue for failure to perform. Who in their right mind would think the government workers would do a better job? I bet it would save money, too.

%%% I was just watching The O’Reilly Factor. And I hope the fool we got for chief of police has watched what Bill O’Reilly said about 50 percent of more white people are shot than black people. He needs to watch

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letters (continued from previous page) sense has to take over on picking a location for the shelter. The best location is one close to High Point and Greensboro. I will have to say a location near the airport would be better, but land cost might be high. The rush to build a shelter might be its downfall, as when you speed up, you mess up. The fact is if we learned anything over the years, we learned that elected officials are a few french fries short of a happy meal, so they will botch it up.

Sal Leone

VOTER FRAUD EXISTS DEAR EDITOR,

When the requirement to produce ID to vote was passed, opponents screamed it was unnecessary because there was no voter fraud. Really? “CBS2 Investigation Uncovers Votes Being Cast From Grave Year After Year” (May 23, 2016 by David Goldstein) The article states that in Southern California, 265 dead people came out of their graves to vote. In one case, a Mr. Cenekner, who died in 2003, voted in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2010. And, of those, 86 voted Republican and 146 voted Democrat. (I’m shocked, shocked!) Another is a woman that voted in 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014 but had died in 2006. The Los Angeles County Registrar confirms they have signed vote-bymail envelopes from her. But that can’t be. According to the all-knowing, all caring liberals, there is no voter fraud. It’s a conservative conspiracy to disenfranchise certain peoples’ votes. I personally know of at least one person long deceased that is still on the voter registration rolls in Guilford County. I wonder how many times that person has voted since being buried. Who knows how many others there are. Then there are the situations where you have precincts where after the votes are counted they have 102 percent or 104 percent voter turnout. (Wait, what? Must be that Common Core math.) In at least one reported case the vote was 100 percent Democrat. Don’t believe me? Look it up. How about those cases where Republican and conservative poll watchers and officials were run out of the polling places until a judge ordered their return. Who knows what went on during that time? The liberals/progressives/socialists

are having fits about the voter ID because now they can’t stuff the electronic ballot box. They’ll continue to bus in people that can legally vote but have diminished capacity in order to “help” them exercise their duty to vote. They’ll no longer be able to bring in those who cannot legally vote or that vote multiple times. Or at least they’ll have to work harder at cheating. There is a very subtle war taking place. It’s the war for the soul of this country. A war to destroy the American way of life as we have known it. To paraphrase Animal Farm, all the barnyard animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. And they are the ones that know what’s best for the rest of us. Go Galt and go vote.

Alan Marshall

HATE CRIME DOESN’T COVER EVERYONE DEAR EDITOR,

The state government of Louisiana has passed a “Blue Lives Matter” law that makes it a hate crime to target police officers and firefighters. I thought that hate crimes were related to race, gender and religion, not government employment. I think that it should be a hate crime for a police officer, or any government employee, to target any unarmed innocent person.

Chuck Mann

BOOM OR BUST TIME DEAR EDITOR,

For a non-drinker, Trump’s persona could fit right in with the barroom crowd. Yet he still comes through as a prudently conservative populist with a progressive agenda. He also comes through as a breath of fresh air when compared to former political talk-points that we might compare to brainwashing. And yes, we’d have to be brainwashed into not believing we have become the home of a double standard when we can’t legally lie to Congress (isn’t it a felony?) but it’s just politics as usual when politicians lie to us. A change is needed and unless the forces of truth and order prevail, the forces of disorder or lies and half-truths will brainwash us into believing things like we are the home of the “can’t do folks” who must forever live on debt. In this regard, we have now reached the point where we must boom or bust

and Trump may offer us our best hope to boom. But first, we must re-adapt our personas towards being cando peoples who still have compassion for those who can’t. That’s what made America great.

Ray Hylton

MADNESS OF MANY DEAR EDITOR,

This whole HB2 mess is a “bridge too far” for the LGBT community. Note that this is not about unfortunate souls with physiological difficulties, for whom we should do whatever is possible to save them from discomfort or embarrassment (not as a constitutional issue, but as simple good manners). This is about people who imagine themselves to be a gender that they clearly are not and is giving the 14th Amendment “equal protection under the law” to the delusional. You have heard, I am sure, that the definition of a progressive is someone who thinks that Caitlyn Jenner is a woman. Wikipedia tells us that, in psychiatry, this is classified as folie à deux, (“French for ‘a madness shared

by two’), or shared psychosis,” and “a psychiatric syndrome in which symptoms of a delusional belief and hallucinations are transmitted from one individual to another. The same syndrome shared by more than two people may be called … folie à plusieurs (‘madness of many’)” – or the platform of the Democratic Party. Whether the guy who goes in to take a shower with the girls is “honestly” delusional or just wanting to take advantage of a self-proclaimed delusion is of no importance to the young ladies around them who might well take offense to the loss of their cherished privacy. And you just know that sooner or later some freshly pubescent 14-yearold guy is going to give in to his Porky’s fantasy, and his buddies’ doubledog-dare, and wander around in the girls’ shower room – to the shrieks and screams of the ladies and to the frustration of the gym teacher who can’t do a darn thing about it unless he or she wants to get sued in federal court.

Anonymous

Send to letters@rhinotimes.com or P.O. Box 9023, Greensboro 27429

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press releases, but in Sander’s case he’s in trouble because he believed Hillary Clinton’s press releases. No doubt, if Sanders had known that the “damn emails” would be more of an issue in California than they were in New Hampshire, he would not have thrown out such a useful issue when his campaign was just starting to catch fire. Imagine if Sanders were talking about Hillary Clinton’s email problems in every speech, and if he forced Hillary Clinton to talk about them more in the debates. The more Hillary Clinton talks about her emails, the more trouble she gets in because she lies every time she’s asked a question about them. Some big lies, some little lies, but all lies. You’d better believe that if the super delegates don’t desert Hillary Clinton, and Obama allows her to get

the nomination, that Donald Trump is going to talk about the emails every chance he gets. Trump might also ask Hillary Clinton to explain her strategy on trading cattle futures, since she made a profit of over $100,000 in less than a year and then, for some strange reason, never traded cattle futures again. If she had lost $100,000 in a year, which is a much more likely scenario for a novice futures trader, it would make sense to abandon a losing investment strategy. But if you can make a 10,000 percent profit in a year, why in the world would you quit? You could dabble in the market and double your money. If she could take a $1,000 and turn it into $100,000 in a year, if she had just stayed in the market and used the same strategy, and had the same

beep (continued from page 46) TV. This is ridiculous. All these people, these Black Lives Matter folks, interrupted one show on there, started hitting on people. He needs to watch TV. It’s coming to North Carolina. They’ve ruined North Carolina. They’re ruining Greensboro. He needs to be done away with. We need somebody that will take care of us. I don’t care what color they are. These Black Lives Matter – white lives matter, too. And you probably won’t print this, but I hope you do.

%%% It won’t take very much longer before somebody gets sexually assaulted in a women’s bathroom. People that don’t agree with the law can go to the bathroom at home and the ones that agree with it go to the bathroom at home, everybody can stay out of public bathrooms. If you’re gay, you can go to the bathroom at home. I’m straight. I would be glad to run in the woods and pee. And guess what? The only thing you’ve got to worry about then is the bears and the snakes. At least you don’t have to worry about another human being snake. Thank you.

%%% I want to let everybody know about a good little scam the Kernersville Police Department is pulling now.

There is a law that was originally written, if you were in the left-hand lane, to get over for the emergency, police and fire vehicles to get by. Now, not known to a lot of people, if you are in the right lane when you pass a cop car sitting on the side of the road, even if it doesn’t have an individual pulled over, apparently, the cops are now writing tickets in Kernersville for you doing this. My son actually got a ticket last month from an officer from the Kernersville Police Department. I, myself, work in enforcement, and he has a camera system in his vehicle that is set up mainly because of his driving record. And, basically, so I can see what he does if there is anything ever questioned.

%%% I read an article regarding the county budget. It mentioned that over $800,000 was spent to a temp agency this fiscal year by DSS. When you calculate that along with the money paid in overtime, as well as rehires, it’s still safe to say a total of a million dollars was spent. And, yet, DSS has overdue cases in food stamps and Medicaid according to that article. Guilford County is number one on the list for overdue cases, with Forsyth County in second. I’m trying to understand, as a taxpayer, why Guilford hires so many workers

success, she could have made $10 million in two years; and in three years she would have had $1 billion. And to think she made that kind of money part time with an initial investment of $1,000. You wonder why she goes out to give a speech for $200,000 when she could make more sitting at home in her bathrobe trading cattle futures. Trump knows quite a bit about investing. It will be surprising if he doesn’t ask Hillary Clinton for some advice. Maybe he’ll offer to go into business with her. Trump could put up the cash and Hillary Clinton could invest the money and they could split the profit. With Trump’s money and Hillary Clinton’s vast knowledge of the cattle futures market, they could become the two riches people in the world in no time. The speech Obama gave at Hiroshima was not as bad as some people feared. He didn’t outright from Forsyth County, including Joe Raymond. If Forsyth workers are having issues with overdue food stamps and Medicaid cases, why bring them here? Changes need to be made. The current plan, apparently, is not working.

%%% Workers are brought here from Forsyth County, and they got promoted and placed over workers that have longevity on the job, as well as knowledge of program policy. So, like I said, there needs to be a different plan in place because this isn’t working, whereas we have spent $1 million and we still are at the same place that we started. Thank you.

%%% I wonder why we can’t get the Council meetings and things like that on antenna TV. It don’t seem right. It just seems like that would be one of the main places they’d be, you know, so that everybody could see it. Because not everybody has got cable. And seems like it’s pretty simple to be on antenna TV. You know, one of the local channels could take it up.

%%% I’m calling in regards to the person that called the Beep about political correctness. Let me inform you, whoever called this in, that I am the very – do very much call me an American, and a proud American at that, but yet I’m against political correctness. And what you need to understand is that political correctness is just, to me, trying

apologize, but, as he likes to do, he ignored history and asked the world to rewrite history. He talked about the reasons for war: “scarcity of grain or hunger for gold; compelled by nationalist fervor or religious zeal.” But he doesn’t mention the reason the US became involved in World War II. The reason is that we were attacked by the Japanese. Pearl Harbor cannot be compared to Hiroshima or Nagasaki. At Pearl Harbor, the Japanese attacked a neutral nation that was not at war with any of the countries involved in the conflict. Until Dec. 7, 1941, the US had stayed out of the war raging in Europe and Asia. Japan brought us into that war with the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor. Once the US was attacked, we responded with the full force and might of our military. Japan used every weapon at its disposal, including kamikaze fighters – (continued on next page) to suppress people, especially Christians, from expressing their view of the truth. So, for you to sit there and say that I cannot call myself – that I don’t deserve to call myself an American because I’m not politically correct, well, I’m just here to tell you that I don’t know where you’re getting this from, but I think that’s just a bunch of baloney. Because I’m very much a proud American, and I claim to be an American, but I’m against political correctness. Bye-bye.

%%% For quite a few years I’ve been very complimentary of the Greensboro Parks and Recreation friends of trails. Normally, you park in front of the trailhead, get out of the car, walk two to three steps, and you’re on the trail. They have now changed the parking to the other side of the street about 100 yards back towards Greensboro. This necessitates crossing Church Street coming and going. Recently, a trail runner was killed crossing here. Several articles said it was a dangerous crossing. So now we have to do it twice. Can someone explain this? It seems sometimes two plus two doesn’t always equal four.

%%% Nice to see a bunch of city councilmembers can give themselves a 60 percent raise. I’d like to be able to do that myself. They actually give them a 60 percent

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something that was brutally effective in the first attacks because suicide bombers were not something that had been experienced in modern warfare. Japan did not hold back in fear that too many Americans would die, as Obama implied the US should have done. During the war, Japan even attempted to bomb the mainland US, but largely failed. The idea that the US possessed a weapon that would bring an early end to the war and save the lives of perhaps more than a million American soldiers and sailors and not use it is historically absurd. If Japan had possessed nuclear weapons during WW II, there is no doubt that Japan would have used them. Perhaps Obama doesn’t understand the concept of winning a war, but in WWII, US planes didn’t fly over Europe and Japan just to sightsee, which is what Obama has the US planes in Syria and Iraq doing today. In WWII the planes were sent to bomb targets. The US bombed factories, transportation infrastructure, ports and, in some cases, obliterated cities with firestorms before ever dropping the atomic bombs. The very fact that it took two atomic bombs, two Japanese cities completely annihilated, is proof that the Japanese were not going to surrender simply because there was no way they could win. By the end of the war the US had better planes, better ships and better armaments of every kind than the Japanese. No one was calling for the US to use less effective technology because using our superior equipment was unfair. And perhaps Obama is unaware of how the Japanese treated American prisoners of war. In violation of all international protocols, the Japanese starved, shot and decapitated American prisoners of war. Dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese, but it also saved millions of Japanese lives by bringing the war to earlier end than was otherwise possible. The US and Russia have a tough relationship right now, but one way to improve that relationship would be to let the Russians help us out of a jam. There is a big question about Hillary Clinton’s emails on her private server. We know for a fact she didn’t turn over all her work-related emails, and not even Bill Clinton could possibly believe that his wife sent or

received 30,000 emails about yoga, her daughters wedding and her mother’s funeral. But the answer to the whole mess may lie in those 30,000 emails she had erased from her computer. The Russians have those emails, so why doesn’t President Obama just call President Vladimir Putin up and say, “Look I know we have our differences, but you could really help me out of jam here. Could you send me all the Hillary Clinton emails you have?” Who knows, Putin might do it. Those in favor of more gun control laws might want to take a look at Chicago, which has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country. Over Memorial Day weekend, 66 people were shot and six were killed. In 2015, over 500 gun homicides were committed in Chicago, so many that the police didn’t investigate most of them. Perhaps Chicago should try less gun control and see how that works. It doesn’t appear it could be much worse. Trump’s slogan is “Make America Great Again.” And Hillary Clinton’s is something like, “It’s My Turn,” “I Didn’t Do It,” “What Emails?” or “I Miss Air Force One.” The official Hillary Clinton campaign slogan is almost as bad: “Hillary for America.” It’s about as inspiring as the candidate itself. Remember when she launched her campaign and rode in a bulletproof, custom, tricked-out black mini-van and then, Hillary Clinton herself, walked into a Chipotle’s and ordered a meal without any help from an aide or anything? It really showed that she was one with the people, didn’t it? But how long did that last? Where is that van these days and what happened to Hillary Clinton being just one of the people? It didn’t take her long to get back to the world of private jets and limousines. Trump, of course, flies around the country in a private jet, but it is his own jet that he bought with money he made, not money that people gave him. At least with Trump the media is willing to attack him outright, but I think the more subtle attacks are more damaging. For instance, in an article about Trump’s wealth, the reporter writes that he talked to “Trump and fellow multimillionaires.”

It is true that Trump is a multimillionaire; it is also true that Trump is a multi-thousandaire and a multi-dozenaire. Normally when terms like that are used, it is the highest amount of money the person has that is used to describe them. You never hear Bill Gates or Warren Buffett referred to as multimillionaires, though they certainly are. They have thousands of millions of dollars. Hillary Clinton is also a multimillionaire. I wonder if she’s one of the ones the reporter talked to, or maybe they talked to Bill Clinton, another multimillionaire who no doubt by the mainstream media would be considered a neutral source since he isn’t running for anything. The mainstream media keep trying to make a big issue out of the fact that Trump, according to some accounting measures, may be worth a couple of billion dollars less than he claims. No doubt it is absolutely true. Trump may be worth $8 billion or $6 billion or $10 billion; does it really make that much difference? When you are considering that much money, there are a host of different factors to consider. Whether you use the tax value of his properties or their actual value on the open market might account for a billion or two.

The point is that he has been an extremely successful businessman and has made billions of dollars. By the way, when is the mainstream media going to write about the “Energizer,” the woman who shows up at the Clintons’ house in Chappaqua every time Bill Clinton is there alone? According to the Secret Service agents, the protocols are broken for this particular guest. She isn’t approached or stopped by the Secret Service. Why on earth would a woman be coming to see Bill Clinton only when his wife was gone? No doubt she is his financial advisor. But inquiring minds want to know if Hillary Clinton is elected president, will this woman receive the same preferential treatment at the White House? British newspapers write at length about Bill Clinton’s activities, but American papers choose not to, just as American newspapers refused to believe there was anything to the Monica Lewinsky rumors until Lewinsky produced the infamous blue dress – and just as the American mainstream media don’t appear to know that Bill Clinton was the only elected president ever impeached and 50 senators voted to convict him.

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and voting for partial-birth abortions, any kind of abortions for that matter?

%%%

(continued from page 48) raise without consulting their bosses. Where would business be if everybody did that? We, as taxpayers, are their bosses and should have been in some kind of referendum or some other way of approving a raise like that. But it just goes to show, all politicians are crooks. Thank you.

%%% As a follow up to my previous call on the 60 percent raise that the City Council gave themselves, I think the people of Greensboro should ban together and make sure this bond referendum never passes. If the City Council wants a bond referendum like that, they should pay for it out of their own raises.

%%% I see here on the news where the scum that killed the beautiful schoolteacher only gets 19 years. So, that’s all that young woman’s life was worth, 19 years? There is no justice in this country anymore.

%%%

I would like for those newscasters to get off talking about Donald Trump not showing his tax papers. Well, the newscaster didn’t make Obama show his birth certificate. So why should Trump show his tax return? And another thing, I hope y’all saw that castle that Obama is planning on moving into. Well, I thought he would be more at ease to go to Iran or Cuba or one of those countries over there since he don’t like the United States. He don’t like the people in the US. He’s done everything he can to turn each one of us against the other.

%%% Well, I see that in today’s, Saturday’s edition of the News & Record, another liberal fool has crept out of the woodwork, and he’s talking about Trump’s Christianity. How about talking about partial-birth abortions, and all the non-Christian things that Ms. Hillary Clinton stands for, and all of her ilk, and all the liberal people? They call themselves Christians. What kind of Christian could they be

This is a message to the city councilmembers. You gave yourself a 60 percent pay raise. I’m a healthcare provider, and a first responder. I can’t beg Cone Health or any of my other employers to give me any more than a 3 percent pay raise. How in the world councilmembers believe they are entitled to a 60 percent pay raise, I have no idea. But I can tell you this. I do pay attention to the Rhino Times. I read your magazine and your paper every single week, and I do vote. And I will vote every single one of those councilmembers out. I don’t care who opposes them, I’ll vote for them for a change. How dare you get a 60 percent raise when I as a healthcare provider can’t get any more than 3 percent out of anyone of my employers? I think it’s deplorable, and I will vote every single one of you out of office.

%%% Our wonderful president, Barack Hussein Obama, and habitualliar Hillary Rodham Clinton have

two distinct, similar redeeming qualities. They are both a national disgrace and a national embarrassment.

%%% Isn’t life strange? I never met one veteran who enlisted to fight for socialism. If Muslims can pray on Madison Avenue and the subway areas in Toronto, why are Christians banned from praying in public and erecting religious displays on their holy holidays? What happened to our National Day of Prayer? Muslims are allowed to block off Madison Avenue in New York City, pray in the middle of the street. And it’s a monthly ritual. Tell me again whose country this is. It is said that 86 percent of Americans and Canadians believe in God. Therefore, I have a very hard time understanding why there is such a problem of the US having In God We Trust on money, and having God in the Pledge of Allegiance, or the Lord’s Prayer said in our schools and public meetings. I believe it’s time we stand up for what we believe. Never grow a wishbone where a backbone ought to be. Thank you.

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

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by John Hammer

Donald Trump now has gone over the magic number. He has 1,238 pledged delegates, which is one more than enough to win on the first ballot, and he’s going to pick up a bunch more on June 7. It’s also 1,238 delegates more than the political pundits said he would get when he started his campaign. The highest-ranking Republican elected official in the country continues to refuse to endorse him. If House Speaker Paul Ryan doesn’t endorse Trump that means he is in favor of Hillary Clinton or whoever the Democrats choose to nominate, but those are the only two choices, Trump or the Democrat. If Ryan doesn’t endorse Trump he should be removed as speaker. We have a two party system in the US. Some folks don’t like it but it’s been around since the days of our founding fathers. The closest a third-party candidate has ever come to getting elected was Teddy Roosevelt, who had been elected running as a Republican and then decided to start his own party, and even he lost. There is no Teddy Roosevelt out there. But even if a third party challenger is found, Ryan is a Republican. He is speaker because the Republicans in the House voted for him to be speaker. If he doesn’t want to be a Republican then he needs to change his party registration. The speaker of the House under our form of government doesn’t get to pick the party’s nominee. Ryan might wish it were so, but that’s not how it works. Ryan, like every other voter, can choose to support who he wants, but if he can’t support the candidate that millions of Republicans have voted for to be their candidate, maybe he doesn’t belong in the Republican Party anymore. Before Trump had the delegates he needed to win the Republican nomination, Ryan was free to support anyone he wanted. He could still be supporting Jeb Bush, hoping that some miracle would happen. But now Ryan has to face the fact that Trump has won the Republican nomination fair and

square, by going out and convincing more Republicans than anyone else to go to the polls and vote for him. It’s how political parties work. There were millions of Republicans who were not supporters of Mitt Romney before he got the Republican nomination, but after he was the nominee, Republicans decided that as flawed as Romney was he would be better than President Barack Hussein Obama and supported Romney and Ryan. Today the shoe is on the other foot and Ryan is playing some game that only helps the Democrats. The longer this refusal to back the presumptive Republican nominee goes on, the better it is for the Democrats. Maybe in his heart Ryan believes that Hillary Clinton would be a better president than Trump. If that is the case then Ryan should change his party registration and jump on the Hillary Clinton bandwagon. I’m sure they’d make room for him. If not then he needs to swallow his considerable pride and support the Republican nominee. As the Hillary Clinton email scandal has gotten worse, it has shifted more power to President Obama, and now he holds all the cards. The inspector general’s report that Hillary Clinton knew the dangers of using her homebrew server for State Department business proves that once again Hillary Clinton has been lying about the use of her personal email for classified information. Hillary Clinton continues to say that none of the information on the server was marked classified at the time. But the information is not classified because it is marked, it is marked because it is classified. Just because someone took the classified markings off a document doesn’t declassify the document. Hillary Clinton knows this but she is betting that the public doesn’t. It’s similar to the price tag falling off an item in the store. The item isn’t free just because there is no price tag on it, and if you walk out of the store with it claiming that it is free, you are likely to be arrested. Republicans may have been upset when a delegate to the Republican National Convention said it’s the delegates that pick the nominee, not the voters, but Democrats should be

even more upset because under the current conditions it’s Obama who gets to pick the Democratic nominee, not the voters and not the delegates. All it takes is one phone call from Obama to Attorney General Loretta Lynch telling her to indict Hillary Clinton and her race for the White House is over. Even a Clinton can’t run for president while under an indictment for committing multiple felonies. The FBI has more than enough evidence to indict Hillary Clinton, and if Obama decides that Vice President Joe Biden has a better chance of beating Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton, Obama will make that phone call in a heartbeat. There is no love lost between the Clintons and the Obamas. President Obama is not a forget and forgive kind of guy, and his wife even less so. I think the problem is Sen. Bernie Sanders. If Obama allows Hillary Clinton to be indicted before the convention then Sanders has the best shot at becoming the nominee. Obama might be able to use all the power of his office to get Biden the nomination, but at that point the Sanders people would go home and you’d never get them to vote in November, or they would vote but they would vote for Trump. If Hillary Clinton gets the nomination and is then indicted, Biden can be dropped in as a compromise candidate to unify the party. Sanders will have had his chance and lost. Biden would still lose support since a lot of Sanders supporters would insist that it was all rigged, but it would be cleaner than going to the convention and

convincing a majority of delegates that a man who didn’t run in a single primary should be the nominee. I think Obama planned to drop Biden in long before now because Sanders was supposed to go home after New Hampshire. If Hillary Clinton continues on her downward spiral and starts losing to Trump by a significant margin according to the polls, Obama will have all the cover he needs. Then he unleashes the Justice Department and Hillary Clinton is off the ticket. Obama can always pardon her before he leaves office. Or he could promise to pardon her before he leaves office if she drops out of the race and then conveniently forget to sign the papers before Jan. 20. If the whole thing plays out like that and Hillary Clinton is indicted, my bet would be that Obama wouldn’t pardon her until he was leaving the White House on his way to the inauguration. It could make for great theater. But Obama wants his policies to continue for another four years, and in the end I don’t think there is anything he won’t do to try and keep Donald Trump out of the White House. Sanders made a huge, and what may turn out to be a fatal, mistake early in the campaign when he said, “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.” Everyone knows that you’re in trouble if you start believing your own (continued on page 32)

52 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 2, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com