NC Policy Watch

  The rapid development of artificial intelligence has the potential to spur amazing advances in human society that are definitely worth pursuing. That said, AI also has the potential to do dreadful harm that we must guard against. As one of the nation's tech leaders, OpenAI's Sam Hartman, explained recently, for all of AI's amazing […]

  Twenty years ago, investigative reporter Barry Levine started covering a wealthy socialite named Jeffrey Epstein. Five years ago, after he was convicted of sex crimes and died in jail, Levine published an acclaimed book on Epstein. And last week, as the controversy surrounding mountains of FBI data and evidence about Epstein slowly consumed the […]

We're now six months into the second Trump administration and recent weeks, in particular, have been filled all kinds momentous and often disturbing news from Washington. Topping the list, of course, is the massive new budget reconciliation package – what supporters dubbed the “one, big, beautiful bill” that the president signed into law on July […]

  One of the most disturbing hallmarks of the Trump administration has been its relentless effort to defund public education – an effort that hit a new low earlier this month when Trump's Department of Education announced suddenly and without warning that it would be freezing billions of dollars in essential funds – funds that […]

  Like the rest of the nation, North Carolina faces some enormous policy challenges these days. Thanks to sustained disinvestments in an array of core public services, our state is fast becoming coarser, less healthy and more divided. Unfortunately, Republican legislative leaders seem unconcerned. Rather than working with Governor Josh Stein to tackle our numerous […]

  Over the last 87 years – particularly during the 20th Century – few innovations in the American economy have done more to lift up average people than the minimum wage. As it was first conceived and applied, the federal minimum wage law assured that a person who worked full-time was paid enough to support […]

  There was always something that didn't quite add up when American conservatives complained about federal budget deficits. Despite their supposed commitment to fiscal discipline, no factor has played a larger role in soaring deficits than Republican tax cuts enacted under presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Donald Trump. Indeed, during the administration of […]

  When state lawmakers first opened the door to school vouchers in North Carolina, they billed them as quote “opportunity scholarships,” and assured us that their only goal was to help low-income kids escape failing public schools. Today, more than a decade later, it's clearer than ever that that explanation was simply part of a […]

  North Carolina Republican lawmakers' mad rush to slash income taxes on corporation and the wealthy in recent years has produced many disastrous impacts. See, for example, our threadbare and crumbling public schools. But there's another big and negative impact: the effect on property taxes. Thanks to fast rising home prices, there's a growing need […]

  It's an article of faith in many conservative circles that the Trump administration's tough anti-immigrant policies will free up jobs for U.S. born workers. New research from Economic Policy Institute senior economist Ben Zipperer, however, demonstrates conclusively that the opposite is the case. Zipperer's calculations actually show that the net impact of mass deportation […]

  The North Carolina General Assembly has gone home for the month of July, and perhaps – depending on some of the political machinations between House and Senate Republican leaders – the rest of the summer. But that doesn't mean there's a lot to point to in the way of major accomplishments. Not only have […]

  After almost 12 years, it's familiar by now, but sadly, the pattern in which Senator Thom Tillis raises hopes that he'll act with courage and then backs down at the last minute continues to repeat itself in maddening fashion. The latest incident: Tillis's utterly inexcusable vote last week to endorse President Trump's nomination of […]

  There are probably plenty of days in which North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson wishes his job duties were similar to those of past AG's – prosecuting criminals, helping consumers, targeting corruption. Unfortunately, thanks to the relentless illegal acts of the Trump administration, he's quickly come to have another top job priority – defending […]

  It's an article of faith on the political far right that the Trump administration's mass immigrant deportation policies will be a boon to U.S. born workers. A new report from economists at the Economic Policy Institute, however, finds the opposite to be true and that the net impact of mass deportation on employment – […]

  The next time someone tries tell you that the North Carolinians with Medicaid health insurance are lazy slackers who participate in a wasteful program that warrants the massive bloodletting President Trump just approved, tell them talk to an actual frightened person who depends on the program. Someone like Maddie Wertenberg. She's a Wake County […]

  At a time in which our nation continues to experience the regular horror of school shootings, it's understandable that everyone grasps for ideas – anything – that seems like it might prevent or reduce the terrifying carnage. The gruesome notion of a disturbed killer gunning down innocent children is enough to make anyone wish […]

The new state fiscal year started July 1, and the state legislature is on vacation for most of the month, but that doesn't mean we have a new state budget. Thanks to big disagreements between NC House and Senate Republicans, the state is listing along on its old budget and several major decisions – most […]

  Despite their failure to agree on a new state budget, North Carolina lawmakers are taking most of the month of July – the first month of the new fiscal year – off. Not surprisingly, this is not a situation that's sitting particularly well with a lot of state employees as they wrestle with another […]

  North Carolinians received another powerful reminder recently that their state's electoral politics are never boring, when Republican U.S. Senator Thom Tillis suddenly announced he will not seek reelection next year. The announcement has set off a flurry of activity in which it has sometimes seemed that more politicians are considering entering the 2026 Senate […]

  It's no secret that bipartisanship is in short supply these days in state politics and that fact makes it especially tragic, as has happened recently at the state legislature, when opportunities for finding common ground are casually and cynically trashed. See, for example, an important bill designed to prevent people from being victimized by […]

  Early childhood education. Across much of the rest of the world, free, public early childhood education is a basic right. At a time in which it's necessary for almost all parents to work in order to make ends meet, these nations have long recognized that there's no good reason to hold off on providing […]

  North Carolina got yet another frightening wake-up call this week about global warming when a modest tropical depression suddenly exploded over the state. Chantal dumped up to 10 inches of rain in some areas, causing widespread flooding and massive damage. And while it's true that there's nothing new about bad weather, it's also true […]

  President Donald Trump may have only the faintest idea of what's in the massive budget bill he signed into law last Friday, but sadly, the contents and the destructive impacts they'll have are no mystery to the nation's already beleaguered charities. Last week, North Carolina food banks sent out an urgent alert explaining that […]

  When North Carolinians elected Gov. Josh Stein last fall by a wide margin over former Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, they made clear they wanted to put a check on GOP lawmakers' ambitions to take the state down extreme right-wing paths. And in recent days, to his great credit, Stein has validated the trust that […]

  North Carolina was rocked by a political earthquake this past week when its senior U.S. Senator, Republican Thom Tillis, broke with President Donald Trump and then announced that he will not seek reelection in 2026. Tillis's announcement – which came on the heels of his decision to oppose Trump's hugely controversial omnibus budget bill […]

Among the flurry of bills approved by the General Assembly during the last week of June was an extremely controversial proposal that would make big changes to state energy policy, entitled the “Power Bill Reduction Act.” The bill would repeal a bipartisan 2021 law that committed our state to reducing greenhouse gas emissions 70 percent […]

  A new report prepared by the Durham-based Southern Coalition for Social Justice and the national public policy nonprofit D?mos finds more than 1.5 million North Carolinians are eligible to vote but aren't doing so. The report is entitled “North Carolina's Missing Voters,” and it finds that these nonvoters — nearly 20% of the state's […]

  Among the many remarkable news reports that emanated from Washington last week as Congress put the finishing touches on President Trump's massive budget bill, one was truly shocking. The day before its final passage, Trump told a group of Republican lawmakers that the bill should not touch Medicaid if the GOP hoped to win […]

Today is Independence Day – the holiday on which Americans celebrate the birth of our nation as a free country that's untethered to any monarch or supreme ruler. This year's holiday seems especially important to lift up at a time in which President Trump continues to trash guardrail after guardrail in an unprecedented bid to […]

  A study released this week by researchers at NC State University highlights the destructive impact that a bill sent to Gov. Stein by the General Assembly last week will have on electric ratepayers. The bill, which bears the inaccurate and misleading title “Power Bill Reduction Act,” would repeal a bipartisan 2021 law that committed […]

  President Trump's massive budget bill moved one step closer to passage yesterday when the U.S. Senate approved it 51-50 over the objection of North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis. If it becomes law, the bill will have devastating impacts in our state. Among other things, more than half-a-million people will likely lose their Medicaid health […]

  It's a sad commentary on the power of the right-wing misinformation machine in modern America that simple and enormously positive concepts like diversity, equity and inclusion have been twisted so that some perceive them in a negative light. What's next on the hit list? Words like love, tolerance and common ground? Tragically, however, as […]

A new state fiscal year commences July 1, but North Carolina will not have a new state budget to greet it. Plagued by major differences over issues like tax policy and pay for teachers and state employees, House and Senate Republicans were unable to reach agreement before commencing their summer break and so the state […]

  Conservative culture war legislation has been front and center of late at the North Carolina legislature, with GOP lawmakers advancing, among other things, bills to limit the rights of transgender people, promote censorship in our schools, ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs in state government, and force local law enforcement offices to devote limited […]

  The attacks on trans people at the North Carolina legislature are clearly part of a coordinated national campaign from the political right that has also impacted a number of other institutions. This week marks the end of Pride Month and it's clear that the anti-LGBTQ movement led by the Trump administration has managed to […]

  In recent years, North Carolina Republican lawmakers have perfected the practice of rigging elections through partisan gerrymandering. The situation has gotten so bad that they don't even pretend anymore. They not only openly rig districts to disenfranchise voters who don't vote Republican, they openly admit and brag about it. And now, in a bill […]

  Tax policy can be maddeningly complex and confusing. Indeed, keeping it that way is one tool the super-rich use to avoid paying their fair share. As Alexandra Sirota of the nonpartisan North Carolina Budget and Tax Center recently observed, however, it doesn't have to be that way. As she notes, there's a simple and […]

  It's not that often that floor debates in the North Carolina legislature shed much light on important subjects. One impressive exception to this rule took place this week, however, when Durham Democratic Senator Sophia Chitlik addressed a bill that would ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in state government. In her remarks, Chitlik pointed […]

  There are many things that have changed for the better in North Carolina prisons over the last century. That said, it's also true that North Carolina summers have always been miserably hot and that commercial air conditioning was first introduced nearly a century ago — facts that render the lack of air conditioning in […]

  A new report from researchers at the national Commonwealth Fund finds that North Carolina has made enormous strides in assuring that people receive the right health care at the right time and are able to avoid hospital stays and emergency room visits by receiving timely care. The percentage of North Carolina adults who reported […]

In 2025, few societal phenomena pose a greater or more immediate threat to the mental and physical wellbeing of Americans than gun violence. Gun violence is now, quite shamefully, the leading cause of death for children and youth in our country. And when this sobering fact is combined with the ongoing rise in political violence […]

  “A new report from the state Department of Public Instruction confirms what school voucher opponents have been saying: universal voucher programs are a wasteful giveaway to disproportionately wealthy families who have already enrolled their children in private schools.” That's the opening sentence from a recent essay authored by North Carolina Justice Center senior policy […]

  For the past two decades, no single individual has played a more prominent or important role in championing the rights and wellbeing of average working people in North Carolina than MaryBe McMillan. McMillan, who grew up in Hickory, served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the North Carolina AFL-CIO from 2005 to 2017, at which point […]

  Bipartisanship is in precious short supply these days in politics and that makes it especially tragic when elected officials waste rare opportunities to advance it. Unfortunately, that's what's happening in the North Carolina Senate. In its original form, House Bil 805 was a commonsense proposal to crack down on the sexual exploitation of women […]

  It's summer beach season again. Over the coming months, millions of visitors will flock to the North and South Carolina coastlines and fuel a tourism-based economy that's critically important to both states. Unfortunately, powerful forces could soon jeopardize this amazing natural and economic resource by opening it to offshore oil and gas drilling. Thankfully, […]

These are passionately divided times in our country. And at such a moment, it's imperative that all Americans – and especially our elected leaders – disavow violence or even the appearance of endorsing it. And it's in light of this that Wake County State Rep. Julie von Haefen was clearly in error recently for briefly […]

  One of the most disturbing developments of the second Trump administration has been the President's clear effort to encourage U.S. military service members to endorse his political views and exhibit loyalty to him personally. This pattern was on display last week at Fort Bragg where Trump inappropriately sought to engage the troops in booing […]

  The first months of North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein's administration have been marked by a striking lack of hostility and conflict. To his credit, Stein has worked diligently to build bridges and find common ground with Republicans – both in Raleigh and Washington. He's yet to veto a bill. Unfortunately, this move toward the […]

  Gerrymandering: it refuses to go away. Despite widespread and growing public awareness and outrage, North Carolina Republican lawmakers continue to use it to rig our state's elections by drawing districts guaranteed to give themselves large majorities and dilute the power of Black voters. Fortunately, voting rights advocates and good government groups are refusing to […]

  One of the more remarkable facts about some of the policies that state and federal lawmakers adopt for public benefit programs these days is that they're based not on facts or data, or the money and lives saved, but on gut feelings about the worthiness of the people who would be helped. Nowhere is […]

  One of the most vexing societal problems of the modern, social media-driven era is the ongoing crisis in youth mental health. The latest data on the number of children who suffer from depression and other symptoms – and who even contemplate or attempt suicide – are staggering. Happily, a small ray of light in […]