Tag: Unemployment

The Guv gets at least a couple things right

February 22, 2013 at 3:16 pmCategory:Uncategorized

by

Pat McCrory 5Well, it’s a start.

As reported byUnder the Dome Gov. McCrory told MSNBC that he was worried about federal sequestration and that many Republicans come across as too “negative” and “strident.”  These comments — particularly the first one — contrast sharply with yesterday’s statement from Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger’s office that efforts by advocates to call attention to the threat of sequestration were “a publicity stunt.”

Unfortunately, McCrory also used the interview to defend his decidedly negative and strident position on unemployment insurance — which he helped shred by signing disastrous legislation earlier this week — and his plan to block Medicaid expansion (an idea that’s now being embraced by more and more Republican governors around the country).  

 

 

Not like Ike: Pat McCrory cementing national reputation as Tea Partier

February 19, 2013 at 4:29 pmCategory:Uncategorized

by

Pat McCrory 4Governor McCrory likes to think and talk about himself as an “Eisenhower Republican.” 

Now, given the Guv’s obviously superficial understanding of state and (presumably) national government, in his mind, this may simply mean that he wants to return our state to the the 1950′s.

We know for certain that it doesn’t mean he’s going to start lambasting the military industrial complex like Ike did or support a hike in income taxes (American marginal income tax rates peaked during the Eisenhower administration).

Presumably, however, what McCrory is trying to convey Read More…

Guv tries to talk moderate but govern from the far right

February 19, 2013 at 9:41 amCategory:Uncategorized

by

Rob Christensen of Raleigh’s News & Observer has an interesting column today in which he points out that North Carolina’s new governor is still “undefined” after last night’s State of the State address/chat/ad lib sound bite recitation.

“The State of the State speech – where governors usually lay out their programs – did not provide much of a clue to whether we are going to get Mayor Pat or Conservative McCrory.

McCrory said little Monday night that he had not previously said – promising to focus on improving the economy, education and government efficiency. He described himself as an “Eisenhower Republican,” which most people take to mean a moderate – although in this case he used it in the context of long-term road building.”

Unfortunately, McCrory’s actions are speaking much louder and clearer than his muddled public pronouncements. This morning, for instance, the Governor will sign a disastrous bill dictated in secret by business lobbyists that will roll back decades of modest progress in the state’s most important anti-poverty/middle class preservation program — unemployment insurance.

And in keeping with the Governor’s desire to keep having it both ways (i.e. to preserve the illusion that he is somehow an “Eisenhower Republican” while governing like a Newt Gingrich Republican) he will sign the bill in his office without any public ceremony. Actually, it’s a fitting finale for this execrable legislation — a secret, behind-closed-doors signing for a measure that was developed behind closed doors, passed without opportunity for meaningful public comment and whisked through the General Assembly in record time.

A loud chorus calls for a veto

February 15, 2013 at 8:54 amCategory:Uncategorized

by

Pat McCrory 5Up until now, it’s mostly been talk. Now, Pat McCrory has to act and North Carolinians will soon learn what kind of new governor they have: A rational moderate who, as he often did as Mayor of Charlotte,  puts families above campaign contributions and extremist ideology or a far right tool of the state’s business lobby in the ilk of Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Florida’s Rick Scott.

Yesterday, the General Assembly sent the Governor a bill that devastates North Carolina’s unemployment insurance system and now he has 10 days to decide what to do with it.  A loud and compelling chorus has made it eminently clear why he should veto it.

On Wednesday, dozens of nonprofit advocacy groups representing people in need begged the Governor to think twice. In their letter they noted that: Read More…

Prosperity Watch: Too many workers, too few jobs, big implications for UI reform

February 13, 2013 at 3:57 pmCategory:NC Budget and Tax Center

by

As the latest issue of Prosperity Watch explains, the fundamental challenge facing the state’s labor market is the absence of enough available job openings to make a meaningful dent in the state’s jobs deficit and to bring down the state’s persistently high unemployment rate. This reality has tremendous implications for the state’s unemployed workers if the benefits cuts contained in the recently-passed unemployment insurance reform bill are enacted.  See the latest issue of Prosperity Watch for details.