What needs to be done

So what is it that needs doing in North Carolina?

We need to turn our state right side up. Anyone who doesn’t realize that North Carolina is in a mess hasn’t been paying attention. In the present situation, the objective of conservative legislators has to be more than merely slowing, more even than stopping the rising tide of out-of-control government: We must roll it back all the way into the limits set for it by the Constitution, then double-lock the cage, and feed it only enough to keep it alive and healthy and doing its proper job.

That means making “Mayberry” increase and Raleigh decrease. Raleigh has its uses, but Mayberry (whatever its real name) is where we, the people, really live, and work, and have to suffer the consequences of misdirected, expensive, and irresponsible government policies. I want government to be small so that people can be great.

What’s going to get done – with your help.

There are three issues that that are on peoples’ minds– especially here in the West: jobs, jobs, and jobs. Just about everything that needs to be set right is tied in with and related to that concern.

Right now, North Carolina is the sick man of the Southeast, and for the last decade and more, the majority party in Raleigh has clearly demonstrated that they lack the imagination, the ability, and the desire to do what is necessary to change this.

On their watch, taxes and spending have risen in excess of the growth of our population, and given our population increase, that is no small matter, because it has created a climate which discourages business immigration and native startups, and so reduces opportunity for employment.

We need a change of course so we can transform our state and our region into a “Freedom Zone” where the growth of jobs will be propelled by a commonsense economic vision involving taxes that are both low and fair and by a major reduction of the interference from Raleigh with local government, private business, and personal liberties.

The most pressing need for our people is decent employment for all who want it. Nationwide, businesses are fleeing high-tax states for lower-tax states and taking jobs with them. This is a trend from which we can benefit instead of suffer. To attract these jobs and businesses to North Carolina – and to keep those we have – we need a program of reform that will be far more attractive than any program of temporary tax abatements.

We need a House-full of people (actually, two houses and a governor’s mansion full) who recognize that, whatever route it took to get there, every single dollar that goes into the State Treasury comes from the pocket of an individual taxpayer and that therefore each taxpayer needs to be treated with the respect that his labor deserves and provided with a clear accounting of how, where, for what, and upon whom every one of those dollars is spent.

We need total tax reform, including the rapid abolition and replacement of both individual and corporate income taxes and a sweeping reform of the current taxes on real and personal property which make people who have the deeds and titles to their property tenants on their own land.

The income taxes and most other state taxes should be replaced by a consumption tax (with a “prebate”) modeled on the FairTax proposal for replacing the current Federal tax code. Simply put, if you spend over and above the level needed for your basic necessities, you pay the tax. If you don’t spend, you don’t pay the tax. And the state reimburses you for the tax paid to supply necessities.

We need to reduce the size, cost, and reach of state government: State government spending must be reduced and restricted to the support of those services that are genuinely essential to the health and well-being of the people. All we’ve got from the current majority in the Legislature is hand-wringing and accounting tricks that hide the fact that state spending is still on the rise.

We need to grant more local control to local government: That governs best which governs least; that governs most cost-effectively which governs locally. Raleigh should be involved in local affairs only to the extent that counties and municipalities are genuinely unable to deal with them. Our state system is over-centralized, and I want to work with local governments on ways to change that, even if that means major changes to our state’s Constitution.

We need better protection for private property rights: I will support efforts to restrict the state’s eminent domain powers and to protect unincorporated neighborhoods from forced annexation by tax-hungry municipalities.

We need to assert our State Sovereignty under the United States Constitution: No part of the Bill of Rights is a dead letter unless people lack the courage to defend it. Therefore, I support recent attempts in this state to reassert, against a longstanding pattern of federal encroachment and state acquiescence, the rights of the states and people of North Carolina under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.   I fully support efforts to protect our citizens from unconstitutional federal mandates to force them to purchase health insurance.

We need further protection of our Firearms Rights: I support the enactment of a “Castle Doctrine” and all other reasonable efforts to reinforce the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens and I will oppose any effort to further restrict those rights.

We need election reform: We need to have objective means – such as photo identification – to assure that only qualified voters are voting, that voters have timely knowledge of who is paying for campaigns, and that political speech in this state is not restricted.

We also need to remove obstacles for unaffiliated persons who wish to run for public office. In my opinion, if a candidate can pay the filing fee, he should be able to be on the ballot. We should trust the electoral process to weed out the field.  I am grateful to have received the endorsement of - and an A+ rating from - North Carolinians for Free and Proper Elections (NCFPE).

We need vacancy reform: We need to abolish the current system in which vacancies in elected offices are filled by the bosses of the party to which the last occupant belonged. If someone was elected by all the people, his place needs to be filled by all the people. Protests against this based on the cost of elections are attempting to put a price tag on self-government.

We need term limits: I support amending the state Constitution to place a limit on the number of terms all legislators may serve, requiring retiring officeholders to sit out a couple of election cycles before standing for election to another state position, and limiting the judges in all the state’s courts to a single long term.

We need genuine reform in education: Contrary to much popular misunderstanding, the primary purpose of education in a republic is not the formation of good citizens; it is the formation of good character. Persons of sound character inevitably make good citizens.

So long as the state is involved in education, it must always be remembered that the fundamental responsibility for the education of the young resides with their parents, and no state program that over-rides this principle is ever acceptable.

Local boards of education should have the most control over their public schools. Private and home education should have maximum freedom from state interference. The Department of Public Instruction needs to be in truth as well as in rhetoric the servant, not the master, of all students, their parents, and their teachers.

I support a complete repeal of the existing cap on public charter schools.

I will seek to overturn the recent replacement of an abstinence-based sex education curriculum with a demonstrably less effective “comprehensive” program.  Such decisions rightfully belong to parents and to the elected local boards of education, not to legislators, education bureaucrats, Planned Parenthood, special-rights lobbyists, and the National Education Association.

We need to rein in unelected bureaucracies: Any state agency with police powers – such as the Department of Social Services and the Department of Health – should be required to operate under the same constitutional constraints as any other law enforcement group. Citizens interacting with them should be accorded every due process protection to which they are entitled under the federal and state constitutions.

In particular, North Carolina needs to become the 45th state which imposes civil and criminal penalties for the filing of false reports with the Departments of Social Services and other regulatory agencies.

We need to let the people vote on the Defense of Marriage Amendment: I believe that the people of this state are entitled to the opportunity to vote on a Defense of Marriage Amendment to the state Constitution – a belief evidently not shared by the leadership in the General Assembly, which has repeatedly blocked efforts to allow the people to choose. Our state has the unwelcome distinction of being the only state in the Southeast to have refused to allow its voters decide this important question – which is just one more example of the current majority party’s drive to turn us from North Carolina into East California.