By John Hood Raleigh, NC – North Carolina’s state government began its 2020-21 fiscal year with $1.5 billion in cash left over from last year plus another $1.8 billion in rainy-day funds and other earmarked reserves. Since then, the state…
By John Hood Raleigh, NC – Marxism is one of the most catastrophic ideas in history. Tyrants and butchers inspired by the noxious notions of Karl Marx — including such successors as Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot —…
By John Hood Raleigh, NC – If you’ve lived in North Carolina for even a few years, you’ve probably formed an opinion about whether statues and monuments honoring Confederate leaders and soldiers ought to remain in or near courthouses, town…
by John Hood Raleigh, NC – For inveterate optimists, the past several months have been excruciating. A global pandemic has produced great suffering and death. A protest movement that began with righteous anger about the death of George Floyd has…
by John Hood Raleigh, NC – If you are among the minority of North Carolinians who haven’t supported the expansion of parental choice in education over the past two decades — in the form of charter schools, open enrollment among…
by John Hood Raleigh, NC – Conventional wisdom has it that progressives champion urbanity and conservatives disdain it. There’s some truth to that. Progressives are far more likely than conservatives to prefer walkable, high-density communities over auto-dependent, detached-dwelling neighborhoods. Urban…
by John Hood Raleigh, NC – North Carolina employers shed 616,000 jobs in March and April, according to the latest establishment survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s a decline of 13% in just two months. Our labor-market collapse…
by John Hood Raleigh, NC – Over the first two months of the coronavirus crisis, our state’s labor-market cratered. The number of employed North Carolinians dropped by 820,000, or 17%. Only 56.3% of working-aged residents were either employed or actively…
by D.G. Martin Chapel Hill, NC – What can we do about House Bill 2? Polls show North Carolinians divided about the new law. Answers to polling questions depend upon how the questions are asked. Most North Carolinians, even supporters…
By John Hood Raleigh, NC – In nearly three decades of writing a syndicated column on North Carolina politics and government, I’ve always received reader response. Back in the day, I’d get an occasional phone call or personal letter, but…