US/NC

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Revision as of 14:34, 7 August 2008 by Woozle (talk | contribs) (→‎Overview: transfer tax vs. raised valuations)
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countries: United States: North Carolina

Overview

This page is for issues local to the state of North Carolina in the United States.

Pages

Notes

For all the pro-real-estate people who complain bitterly about the proposed transfer tax: where were you when they raised the property valuations?? That tax hits the people who actually live here, rather than people who are moving in or out of the area. The latter group are already prepared to deal with possibly taking a financial hit as they move from one area to a possibly-more-expensive one on their way up the corporate ladder. --Woozle 10:34, 7 August 2008 (EDT)

Active Issues

Stupid Rule for Charter Schools

(To be researched) If you are a charter school in NC, your funding is based entirely (or mostly?) on how many students show up on the very first day of school. The only exception is if a student is actually in the hospital. Even if a student has to be out of town for a vacation planned months and months earlier, they still have to show up for the first day of class for at least three hours, or else they do not count towards the school's enrollment -- and the school is forced by circumstances to give away that student's spot to the next person in line who can be there. (What's more, as long as the student has shown up on the first day, s/he can be absent for months afterward without affecting the school's funding. It's not, then, a matter of having high standards; the rule is simply arbitrary in the extreme.)

The regular public schools, however, have a twenty day window in which students may show up in order to be counted towards the school's funding.

It seems obvious that this rule is unfairly biased against charter schools. It only inconveniences a very few people, but the conflict can be massive when it does -- and can end up hurting both the child and the school, depending on what ultimately happens.

Past Issues

Limits to Municipal Internet

House Bill 1587, aka "The Local Gov't Fair Competition Act" aka the bill to prevent local government from competing "unfairly" with the local internet monopolies (the people who name these things obviously have the same sense of irony as the real-estate developers). This issue appears to be dead for the moment, as the bill has gone to committee – but don't be surprised if it appears again in another form.

Quibbles

Religious Requirement

The NC State Constitution, unlike the US Constitution, makes some very firm statements about God:

  • The preamble: "We, the people of the State of North Carolina, grateful to Almighty God, the Sovereign Ruler of Nations, for the preservation of the American Union and the existence of our civil, political and religious liberties, and acknowledging our dependence upon Him for the continuance of those blessings to us and our posterity,..." (Article I)
  • Religious liberty: "All persons have a natural and inalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences, and no human authority shall, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience." (Article I, Section 13) This makes no allowance for those who do not choose to worship a monotheistic God and, as a definition of "religious liberty", sounds rather like Henry Ford's idea of choice: "You can have any color you like, so long as it's black." (in reference to the Ford Model T)
  • Disqualifications for office: "The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God." (Article VI Section 8) It's not clear whether accepting the being of Almighty God as a fictional character is adequate (has this ever been tried in court?).

Links

Reference

Filed Links

  1. redirect template:links/smw

Projects

  • 2007 The NC Home Sales Tax: It's a Bad Idea
    • This appears to be a site created by the NC real estate industry. The tax was not on "equity" but on the sale of homes, paid by the seller. It's not clear how this is different from an impact fee, but the industry has certainly done its best to get rid of impact fees wherever possible (Durham recently did away with them, 2006?) in spite of the obvious need for impact fees to pay for new infrastructure (utilities, schools, roads...).

Articles

  • 2007-06-06 Cities fight bill to limit broadband: "House Bill 1587, "The Local Government Fair Competition Act," is supported by the telecommunications and cable industries, which say cities have unfair advantages—they don't pay taxes and can subsidize a money-losing Internet business with revenue from the city budget. The bill sets out a long list of strict financial and political requirements should a government get into the broadband business. But the N.C. League of Municipalities and a growing number of cities oppose the measure, saying it would effectively make it impossible for local governments to provide Internet service in rural and low-income areas where private industry has decided not to."
  • 2007-04-18 A ferry ride to an Orwellian future? by Peter Eichenberger: a nostalgic field trip turns into some unpleasant discoveries about the penal industry in NC: the River's Correction center run by GEO Group, formerly a subsidiary of Wackenhut; mentions Blackwater USA.
  • 2006-08-16 The Vanishing Voter by Bob Geary, The Independent: gerrymandering and other systematic political corruption in NC government

News

  • 2007-08-05 Campus research hits budget jackpot: "North Carolina has long been generous in its financial support of universities, and this year is no different. But another thing stands out in the new state budget approved by the legislature: big bucks for research. .. The centerpiece is a cancer research fund at UNC-Chapel Hill -- $25 million in the coming year, growing to $50 million a year starting in 2009."
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