RALEIGH — North Carolina politics can be exhausting. The past few weeks have brought us wrangling over redistricting and constitutional amendments, conflicts between Gov. Roy Cooper and Republican lawmakers over disaster relief and a gas-pipeline fund, and a mob of protesters toppling the Silent Sam statue at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Means justify results in politics
John Hood is chairman of the John Locke Foundation and appears on the talk show “NC SPIN.” You can follow him @JohnHoodNC.
RALEIGH — When natural disasters or other emergencies hit our state, North Carolinians respond in droves — and I’m not just referring to the c…
RALEIGH — Do political movements ever really accomplish anything? The English writer G.K. Chesterton had his doubts. “The whole modern world h…
Many are saying that the November 6 elections are all about Trump, a referendum either affirming or refuting his leadership. Our president cas…
RALEIGH — How should we respond to the urban-rural divide? The question has legions of politicians, scholars, journalists, and businesses scra…
RALEIGH — There has always been a robust political debate between advocates of free trade and advocates of manipulating the terms of trade to …
RALEIGH — As dysfunctional as Congress has become, it does manage to enact some useful bills. One of them, the Evidence-Based Policymaking Act…
RALEIGH — The average public-school district in the United States enrolls about 3,700 students, according to a recent Governing magazine analy…
RALEIGH — Milton Friedman once observed that “nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” To be sure, spending bills or regula…
RALEIGH — The single most important issue during every legislative session is the approval or revision of North Carolina’s state budget. For t…
RALEIGH — If you own it, you control it. That’s what it means to enjoy a property right, in a nutshell. It is a right safeguarded by North Car…
RALEIGH — Wealthy North Carolinians pay a higher share of their incomes in taxes than do middle-income North Carolinians, who in turn have a h…
RALEIGH — My wife is angry at the government. No surprise there, I suppose — we do have a great deal in common.
RALEIGH — As elementary and secondary schools open their doors across North Carolina for the 2018-19 academic year, the cumulative effects of …
RALEIGH — According to a recent Gallup poll, 57 percent of Democratic voters view socialism positively, more than the 47 percent who view capi…
RALEIGH — North Carolina’s two most-populous counties, Mecklenburg and Wake, are home to about 21 percent of the state’s population and 28 per…
RALEIGH — If I told you that North Carolina had one of America’s top-ranked systems of public education, there are at least three ways you cou…
RALEIGH — After decades of debate and litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court has settled a contentious matter: governments will now be authorized…
RALEIGH — Whether North Carolina pays its public schoolteachers at a level close or equal to the national average is one of the most-debated i…
John Hood of the John Locke Foundation recently wrote an opinion piece for the Tribune; its headline was “Freedom is growth strategy.” He then…
RALEIGH — When pollsters ask voters to list the issues they care about most, economic concerns usually rank high on the list — even when unemp…
RALEIGH — When explaining modern American conservatism to students, both young and not-so-young, I mix my methods. There are tables and charts…
