Proposed Principles for Job Creation through Tax and Spending Reform Raleigh – The Interim Joint Finance Committee convenes today to continue its consideration of proposals to reform North Carolina’s tax structure. Republican members of the House and Senate Finance Committees released their outline for tax reform proposals to provide renewed vitality to job creation. The […]

Dell Incentives Repayment Could Have Been Assured By Stam Amendment Raleigh – Representative Paul Stam (R-Wake) offered an amendment to the 2004 legislation which authorized a massive tax incentives package for Dell, Inc. This amendment would have removed any ambiguity about repayment, with interest, of all incentives paid to the computer manufacturing firm. The amendment […]

NC Senate Fails to Consider Important Ethics Legislation During the 2009 Session I was a primary co-sponsor of three bipartisan bills aimed at reforming our State ethics laws. House Bill 944, “Disclosure by Appointees,” sponsored by Reps. Glazier (D-Cumberland), Ross (D-Wake), Stam (R-Wake) and Tillis (R-Mecklenburg), requires disclosure of campaign contribution activity by those appointed […]

How The Democrats Raised Your Taxes Just Because They Could Raleigh – A recent report by the State Controller provided an accounting for the total spending by North Carolina for the 2008-2009 fiscal years.  In a surprising revelation, the “gap” between the expenditures last year and the anticipated revenues for this year, without tax increases, […]

HB 4: Good Faith Exception/Exclusionary Rule  (Stam) Judiciary I: 2/12/09 HB 65: Students Under 16 May Attend Comm. College (Tolson, Stam, McLawhorn, Wiley) Ch. SL 2009-46: 6/1/09 HB 104: Clarify Legislative Confidentiality (Glazier, Lucas, Stam, McGee) Presented to the Governor: 8/11/09 HB 162: Elec. Record Interrogation/B1, B2, C Fellony (Glazier, Blue, Ross, Stam) Judiciary II: […]

This is a report on the 2009 Legislative Session. Here is a list of all the bills of which I was a primary sponsor. You can click on the link and read the latest version and discover what happened to each bill. These bills range from Medicaid financing, child testimony, redistricting, school choice, property rights […]

Budget Conferees Refused to Eliminate Golden Parachutes The practice of the University of North Carolina to pay large salaries to administrators who resign to return to teaching positions survived the budget knife. According to the News and Observer, this policy has cost NC taxpayers more than $8 million over the past five years. The House […]

Prohibitions of Abusive Condemnations Sidetracked by Two Parliamentary Maneuvers Raleigh – There is no doubt the public is overwhelmingly opposed to abusive condemnations. HB 1268, providing a referendum on a constitutional amendment to protect private property rights from abusive condemnation was sponsored by a large bipartisan majority of the House – 52 Republicans and 31 […]

Budget Raises Taxes During Recession and Cuts Per Pupil Education Funding Raleigh – Governor Bev Perdue has consistently pledged to North Carolina citizens she will not sign a budget that raises taxes on working people or cuts funding for education.  The budget passed yesterday by the General Assembly does both. As a candidate and as […]

Democrats Refuse to Cut Spending, Balance Budget on Families, Small Business Raleigh, N.C. – Despite the fact that North Carolina has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation and economists regularly say that higher taxes slow job growth, Governor Beverly Perdue and legislative Democrats have failed to cut state spending and instead decided […]

Raleigh, N.C. – According to news reports, Governor Beverly Perdue told reporters yesterday that she does not care which combination of tax increases the Democratic Legislative leaders agree on as Democrats continue closed door negotiations about the state budget.  Governor Perdue also reportedly contends that the state is missing out on $5 million a day […]

On July 15, 2009 61 House Democrats voted for the “NC Racial Justice Act” SB461.  Federal and State law already prohibit racial discrimination in imposing death sentence for first degree murder (and any crime).  This bill goes far beyond that by allowing use of statistics in a particular county or district to prove that since […]

More Taxes in Store for Everyone  The Governor and Democratic leadership of the Senate and House still have not drafted a balanced budget — a full month overdue.  The drama being played between Governor Perdue and the Democrats in the Legislature is pointing to ineptitude by those in charge to deal with the real cause […]

To the Fuquay Varina Independent Dear Editor, The Wake County Board of Education brings unnecessary grief on itself by its annual reassignment exercise. This year’s plan would move 25,486 students to another school over the next three years. Parents are understandably upset at the inconvenience and the unfortunate outcomes that result for their children. This […]