Education is the lottery winner Imagine if a company came to Robeson County and promised to donate all of its profits to a good cause. Then, the company produced sales of $124 million and donated all of its $46.9 million in profits to help education programs in the county.
That’s exactly what the Education Lottery has done for Robeson County in its first six years. By many measures the Education Lottery has been a winner for Robeson County.
First, those choosing to play...
Our impotence on immigration Congress is boring. It can’t even make new false promises.
On border security, it keeps making the same assurances. The Gang of Eight immigration bill, which could well be the signature legislative accomplishment of President Barack Obama’s second term, travels in the well-worn ruts of past immigration promises. The Gang of Eight is offering this basic deal: “We will pretend to enforce the law, if you pretend to believe us.”
The Gang of E...
Small victories in health care Little victories in curbing health care costs can add up. In truth, they seem little only next to the titanic $2.6 trillion Americans spend a year on health care. So let us salute them.
Case in point, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (Medpac) proposes ending a ridiculously expensive practice: Medicare paying hospital outpatient departments vastly more than it does doctors providing the same routine service in their offices.
Here a...
Three steps to creating new jobs Here in Eastern North Carolina, our economy is showing some positive signs: Housing starts and sales are improving and unemployment rates are declining. However, we all know there is still a long way to go to get our region, state, and country moving again. That’s why there are three key things that I am laser focused on to help our communities create jobs and our citizens get those jobs.
— Come to the North Carolina Business and Economic D...
Strong defense critical to security Creating a strong system for defense both at home and abroad is the key to the United States’ ability to continue acting as a defender of freedom. The past decade has taught us that many national security threats no longer come from traditional nations, but rather from determined groups of extremists who desire to wreak havoc on the American dream. The War on Terror is an ongoing battle against evil, and in order to be effective on this battl...
US must stop subsidizing disaster The New York Times is pleased with Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 438-page, $20 billion plan to protect New York from the effects of future hurricanes. It notes benignly that the cost is probably an underestimate but agrees with the mayor, “Whether you believe climate change is real or not is beside the point; the bottom line is we can’t run the risk.”
Really? Imagine the argument: “Whether you believe zombies are real or not is beside the point...
There is no ‘need’ in economics One of the most common arguments for allowing more immigration is that there is a “need” for foreign workers to do “jobs that Americans won’t do,” especially in agriculture.
One of my most vivid memories of the late Armen Alchian, an internationally renowned economist at UCLA, involved a lunch at which one of the younger members of the economics department got up to go get some more coffee. Being a considerate sort, the young man asked, “Do...
The truth about Medicaid growth RALEIGH — During the past year, North Carolinians have heard many things about Obamacare, Medicaid, and health care reform that turned out to be untrue. For example:
— North Carolinians were told that regardless of whether the state set up its own Obamacare exchange or allowed the federal government to do so, state government would have to fund the exchange’s operating costs. This claim was false.
— They were told that unless North Caroli...
Obama hasn’t earned our trust It would be nice to write a column in praise of President Obama for his vigorous conduct of the war on terror — to praise his willingness to look for “dots” to connect amid all the electronic noise of the communications web. It would be pleasantly nonpartisan to observe that some conservatives are being hypocritical — denouncing Obama for surveillance of millions of Americans while they were content to permit President Bush to do similar thin...
Obama no longer second guessing Before Barack Obama became president, he reveled in the irresponsibility of his powerlessness. He could denounce Bush administration counterterrorism initiatives from a glorious position of civil-libertarian purity and posit the need to strike a perfect balance “between privacy and security.”
Then he got elected president, and the mere posturing had to end. He had to grow up. Invested with responsibility for keeping the country safe and, no...
Paving paradise for parking lot Anti-government protests in Turkey have produced a social movement like no other. The lit match was not the death of a heroic dissident, a corrupt election, high unemployment or the other usual-suspect grievances. It was the government’s plan to replace precious park space in downtown Istanbul with a shopping mall and replica of army barracks from the Ottoman era.
The discontent also reflects growing cultural and political tensions. The dem...
Fresh ideas needed in Washington On Thursday, President Obama visited the city of Mooresville for his “Middle Class Jobs & Opportunity Tour.” While I believe there is no better place than right here in our North Carolina backyard to see first-hand the need for a thriving middle class, the president’s plan for economic growth runs contrary to its end goal.
In order to empower our hardworking citizens and create jobs, we must decentralize power and decision-making, and unlea...
Obama, meet the real Mr. Lincoln BY RICH LOWRY
When Barack Obama announced his presidential campaign back in February 2007, he did it in front of the old Springfield, Ill., Statehouse in a speech full of references to Abraham Lincoln.
He has clothed himself in the mantle of our 16th president in ways large and small throughout his presidency. This is nothing new. Progressives have been after Lincoln since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. By capturing the legacy of Lincoln...
Conservatives miss mark on Sebelius If I were the parent of a child who might be kept alive — if only for a few more years — by a lung transplant, I too would move Heaven and Earth to get it done. That the parents of 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan have made her an Internet and cable news celebrity in a desperate effort to get her on the adult list for a lung transplant is completely understandable. No one with a particle of human sympathy can fail to be moved by the family’s situa...
Texas governor poaching for jobs What you are now hearing across the land is a collective whine. Blue-state Democrats are upset that Texas Gov. Rick Perry dares come and play in their sandboxes, and worse, threatens to “poach” jobs from their states.
The website Politico reports that Perry’s attempts to lure jobs to Texas are “infuriating to prominent Democrats around the country.” Gov. Jerry Brown of California — a state that is Perry’s foremost target — has dismissed Per...
