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Gary Pearce posted on March 04, 2013 11:21
A TAPster says this legislature is like a 15-year-old boy whose parents leave him home alone for the weekend.
If a couple of friends come over and they drink a six-pack, he probably gets away with it.
If he invites the whole high school to a drunken bash that wrecks the house, wakes up the neighbors and attracts the police, he probably never gets trusted with the keys again.
This legislature is headed down the latter path.
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Carter Wrenn posted on March 01, 2013 17:06
It’s a fault of human nature: When you spend your own money you look at it one way but when you spend someone else’s money it’s a different story.
Once, years ago, I served on a church-school board with a half dozen tight-fisted, hard-eyed businessmen who could squeeze a dollar out of a turnip. But whenever we’d start discussing raises for principals or teachers those tight fisted businessmen would turn to soft-hearted marshmallows.
Now in government no one spends their own money. And in state government, sometimes, they don’t even spend state government’s money – they spend Washington’s money. The State Medicaid Department is an example: It spends billions of dollars that come down from Washington each year.
Angie Sligh who heads the Department’s massive computer system that processes Medicaid claims has a tough job and a decade ago, when the department set out to replace its old computers, it got tougher. The conversion fell flat on its face. The state had to go back to the drawing board and start over. Then, a few years, later Mrs. Sligh found herself in another tough spot: She had to go over to the General Assembly and explain to a committee of irate legislators why the department’s new $250 million dollar computer system was $200 million dollars over budget and two years behind schedule. During the hearing, one irate legislator asked Mrs. Sligh how she’d rate her job performance and she explained why she’d give herself an ‘A’ – the legislators were skeptical but her bosses in the Perdue Administration agreed. The state auditor reports over the last three years they paid her $237,000 for working overtime and, just before Governor Perdue left office, gave her a 25% raise.
Now the department says the new computer system will be up and running by July 1st but the newspapers have reported another odd fact: The state’s new computer system runs on a thirty-year-old technology called COBOL.
It’s a classic example of how government works: Would someone spend $450 million of their own money to build a state-of-the-art computer system that runs on technology that was invented before the Internet?
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Gary Pearce posted on March 01, 2013 10:24
What did we learn during the Republican legislature’s “Education Week”? That North Carolina ranks 48th in education spending.
Legislative leaders bragged that this was the first time all school superintendents were invited to tell the legislature their concerns. The superintendents promptly warned against taking more money from the public schools and giving it to private schools. Which the legislature is going to do anyway.
What will the quintessential swing voter – a moderate woman and mother living in the suburbs of North Raleigh – think?
She doesn’t like Governor McCrory raising his Cabinet’s salaries while cutting assistance for people who can’t find jobs. She doesn’t like raising taxes on working people at the bottom while cutting taxes for people at the top. She doesn’t like blocking half a million people from getting Medicaid and health care.
Now she sees the public schools at risk.
Rep. John Blust, R-Guilford, warned his party about hubris Thursday, although he was talking about another bill – the Great Boards and Commissions Power Grab.
Blust said: “I don’t like this idea, 'Well, we have the power, let’s go ahead and do it.’ Just because we have power we need to be judicious with it. I wish we would be more careful with it. The people have the right to yank us in two years and put someone else in."
The question is whether Democrats have the will and the wherewithal to exploit this rush to the right.
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Gary Pearce posted on February 28, 2013 10:49
Now that the Case of the Not-Blueprint Memo has been solved, Democrats and progressives can move on to important issues like what Republicans are doing on education, Medicaid, unemployment assistance, tax reform and … hold on, what’s that?
Never mind. Apparently, we will move on to the new state Democratic chairman owing almost $290,000 in unpaid taxes and penalties.
Here’s some advice to Randy Voller: The best thing you can do for your party, state and country is resign, go back to work and pay off your taxes.
It’s admirable that you owned up to the problem and are paying off what you owe. But it won’t wash to say: "That's why I feel that as party chair I have a real good insight into what a lot of folks are dealing with here in North Carolina."
No, Mister Chairman, most folks in North Carolina don’t owe $290,000 in unpaid taxes and penalties.
Please go. There are more important things to talk about.
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Carter Wrenn posted on February 27, 2013 12:01
Two years ago, Republicans controlled the County Commissioners and the School Board and were happy.
Then Democrats won the next School Board election – so they were happy and the Republican County Commissioners were unhappy.
Next the Republican Commissioners decided to redraw the Democratic School Board members’ Districts to get them out of office – which made the Democrats unhappy.
Then the Republican County Commissioners hired a lobbyist to lobby the General Assembly to pass their plan and the Democratic School Board members hired a lobbyist to stop them. Between them, the two boards spent $60,000 on lobbyists – which made taxpayers unhappy.
Next the two boards met to try to stop fighting long enough to agree to pass a $1 billion bond referendum. That made the Chamber of Commerce happy – until, in the middle of the meeting, a School Board member said the Republican Commissioners had ‘disrespected’ the School Board. Then Republican Commissioner Tony Gurley responded, I’m getting sick and tired of having this person whispering words like calling me a jerk into my ear as I’m trying to speak. And School Board member Susan Evans said, I didn’t say that. You told me 'tough luck' or something else.
Then they adjourned.
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Gary Pearce posted on February 27, 2013 08:15
Being mean is not a formula for success in politics, and Governor McCrory may learn that lesson the hard way.
Hold on, you say. What about Jesse Helms? He made a 30-year career out of being mean and picking on politically weak victims.
Glad you asked. Here’s the difference: What works for a Senator doesn’t work for a Governor.
With Helms, people thought: “There are 99 SOBs in the Senate. Let’s send them a real SOB.” After all, nothing really gets done in the Senate.
But voters know that a Governor makes decisions that can help – or hurt – real people.
Like not extending Medicaid to 500,000 people who don’t have health insurance – and might not get life-saving health care.
Like cutting unemployment assistance to people who can’t find a job and may have trouble providing for their families, while raising your Cabinet secretaries’ pay.
Like stigmatizing immigrants on license plates and making it hard for them to get an education for their children.
Now, the Governor is a likeable, affable fellow. But he needs to consider how politically vulnerable he might become if he starts looking like Jesse Helms with a smile – especially among moderate Independents.
Of course, this assumes those voters know what the Governor is doing. That’s the Democrats’ responsibility.
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Carter Wrenn posted on February 26, 2013 15:22
Back in 1980, Senator Helms’ political organization had won elections in 1976 and 1978. And after Reagan won, we figured the conservative millennium had dawned and we’d mastered the art of politics. Next election we lost five races.
Back in 1980, Jim Hunt had built the most powerful political machine ever seen in North Carolina and had never lost an election. He lost for the first time in 1984.
In 1980, when he was 32 years old, Bill Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas – the youngest Governor in America. Two years later, after he lost the next election, he joked he was now the youngest ex-governor in America.
Hubris – thinking you’re smarter than you are – is a deadly vice.
Republicans in North Carolina have now won two straight elections. They worked hard and won the legislature in 2010 then kept it and elected a Republican Governor in 2012 – and they wouldn’t be human if they didn’t hear the genie of pride whispering in their ears.
But has a new Republican era dawned in North Carolina?
The polls don’t seem to say so. There’re still more Democrats than Republicans. And voters don’t see eye to eye with Republican legislation on Unemployment Reform, the Medicaid Expansion, or Tax Reform.
There’s no doubt it can be a good thing to pass an unpopular bill. But it’s a mistake to tell yourself voters agree with you when they don’t. And it’s an even bigger mistake (I know, I made it in 1982) to assume the good times will roll on and on – in politics that’s when the Good Lord throws you a curveball and you land on your backside in the dust, eyes wide open to a new kind of wisdom that comes with humility.
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Gary Pearce posted on February 26, 2013 10:28
Why do congressional Republicans keep jumping off the cliff – and taking the country with them? Don’t they see the political trap that President Obama has sprung on them?
You could enjoy what they’re doing to themselves politically if you didn’t hate what they’re doing to the country economically.
Here’s just part of the sequestration toll in North Carolina, according to theCharlotte Observer and News & Observer: “Hundreds of North Carolina teachers would lose their jobs, many families across the state would no longer get help with preschool or day care for their children, and 22,000 civilians who work for the military in the state would face pay cuts.”
Nationally, unemployment will go up. Economic growth will go down. The recovery from recession will be slowed.
Worst of all, lines at airports will get longer and slower. Now you’re talking a real crisis.
Republicans have convinced themselves – again – that their strategy is a winner. They are blinded by ideology. They hate government so much they thinks everybody hates it. They’re already forgotten how Obama won an election they were certain he would lose.
So Obama just goes up to bat every day and hits another one out the park on them.
One of two things is certain to happen at this rate: Republicans will eventually wake up and change, or they will get their brains beat in at the ballot box, and it won’t matter.
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Carter Wrenn posted on February 26, 2013 09:51
President Obama’s in full campaign mode with his eyes fixed on taking control of the House of Representatives next election. He’s put his campaign to work targeting Republican Congressmen and he’s telling voters because of the Sequester 7,450 children in Florida won’t receive vaccinations, 800 victims of domestic violence in North Carolina won’t receive care, and 1,200 teachers in California will lose their jobs.
Now the Washington Republicans could argue Obama’s wrong – the cuts aren’t that bad. Or that the tax increases Obama wants will do more harm to the economy than the cuts.
But they’re not doing either. Instead they’re agreeing with Obama that the cuts are terrible – then they add that the terrible cuts are all Obama’s fault – that it’s the Obamaquester.
Obama’s answer to that is to say – reasonably – that he hopes Republicans will help him avoid children losing vaccinations by passing a few tax increases on the rich and Republicans say, again, the terrible cuts are all Obama’s fault.
It’s a dead end.
I don’t understand why the Republicans don’t make a list of $85 billion in wasteful spending – like the government’s free cell phone giveaways – and put it in front of Obama and say, If you want to spare unvaccinated children in Florida – let’s cut this program.
That sure sounds better than Republicans saying, Sure the Sequester is terrible but we won’t raise taxes to stop it because it’s all your fault.
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Gary Pearce posted on February 25, 2013 10:46
Kim Genardo of NBC-17 is following a well-trod path from capital reporter to Governor’s communications director. Most every governor hires a capital reporter to tame the savages. I made that switch from the N&O to then-Lt. Governor Hunt in January 1976 – 37 years ago! (As I recall, I was about 13 years old.)
Two issues arise here – one past and one prospective. First, the past: Was she talking to the Governor about the job when, as the N&O noted Saturday, “she did a one-on-one interview with McCrory for WNCN 10 days ago”? If she was, she shouldn’t have done the interview. It puts her coverage in question.
Second, looking ahead: Which master will she serve – Governor or media?
It’s a tricky task. Some Governors think that, since you were one of them, you should have some kind of mojo that insures positive media coverage. But some journalists think you’ve sold out and gone over to the dark side.
Some hacks-turned-flacks turn into media scourges. They block reporters’ access to the great man, yell and scream at reporters who write tough stories and thereby poison the relationship.
I made my share of mistakes, but learned one big lesson: Your job is, in fact, to serve two masters. Yes, you work for the Governor, but your paycheck comes from the taxpayers of North Carolina and you have a unique responsibility to serve the public.
So you have to respect the role journalists play in getting information to the public, even if your boss and the people around him get mad. You have to help both sides: help the governor tell his story and help the reporters write their stories.
Fortunately, I had a boss who understood the role of the media, liked to read newspapers and watch the news and – most of all – didn’t hold a grudge. Oh, he got mad about stories. But he vented his anger with me, not them, and he was willing to talk to the reporter again. After all, there will be another paper and another broadcast tomorrow.
Governor Hunt also found that reporters’ questions alerted him to problems his own people wouldn’t tell him about. Never in history has a gubernatorial appointee volunteered: “Governor, you know that assignment you gave us? Well, we have made a total hash of it.”
So good luck, Kim. All you need is a cool head, a thick skin and a sense of humor.
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Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
The Charlotte Observer says: “Carter Wrenn and Gary Pearce don’t see eye-to-eye on many issues. But they both love North Carolina and know its politics inside and out.”
Carter is a Republican.
Gary is a Democrat.
They met in 1984, during the epic U.S. Senate battle between Jesse Helms and Jim Hunt. Carter worked for Helms and Gary, for Hunt.
Years later, they became friends. They even worked together on some nonpolitical clients.
They enjoy talking about politics. So they started this blog in 2005.
They’re still talking. And they invite you to join the conversation.
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