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There’s a lot of speculation around the state regarding how long the impact of the coronavirus pandemic will last in North Carolina. Weeks? Months? The betting line here is 10 years. That’s how long it will be before the next Census. The Census, mandated by the U.S. Constitution, strives to count every individual in the country. The data is used to determine political representation and determines redistricting at the federal, state and local levels. It is also used to determine the distribution of more than $675 billion in annual funding, or more than $4 trillion over the course of the decade the data will be used. The 2020 Census is underway, and North Carolina isn’t doing so well when it comes to self-response rates. As for March 28, the national response rate for the Census stood at 30.2 percent. North Carolina checked in at 27.7 percent. But some counties fell far, far below that number. In the western part of the state, Jackson County is a picturesque locale encircled by the Blue Ridge Parkway, Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Blue Ridge escarpment. It’s home to Western Carolina University, Southwestern Community College and a wealthy retirement community in Cashiers at the south end. The response rate there was 11.9 percent. If that doesn’t pick up, it’s going to cost the county in federal funding for schools, public safety, seniors services, food assistance, you name it. The calculation for the county is that the Census count will deliver $1,600 in federal funding for each person counted, or $16,000 over the next decade. The response rates will pack a punch on a county that’s going to need help getting back on its feet – like every city, county and state in the country in a post-coronavirus world – if they don’t improve. Likely many mostly rural counties, Jackson faces some challenges with internet access in the rugged terrain of the southern Appalachians. The Census rollout has also been walloped by COVID-19. The public library had geared up to offer internet access for those who couldn’t access the form at home, but closed as a health precaution. Other community partners that stepped up also have had to step back. Another complicating factor comes with the thousands of students at WCU caught off guard by the shuttering of the institution after they’d departed for spring break. “In general, students in colleges and universities temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 virus will still be counted as part of this process. Even if they are home on Census day, April 1, they should be counted according to the residence criteria which states they should be counted where they live and sleep most of the time. We are asking schools to contact their students and remind them to respond. “Per the Census Bureau’s residence criteria, in most cases students living away from home at school should be counted at school, even if they are temporarily elsewhere due to the COVID-19 pandemic.” North Carolina needs to get its response rate up. There are no do-overs. Once it’s completed, we live with the results for the next decade. Next time you’re able to venture out, take a moment to slow down and think about the impact of tax dollars on your life and the lives of those you love. How are the roads? What’s the state of public transportation for those who need it? Are services for seniors readily accessible? How about child care? Census returns mean a lot to seniors, a lot to students and to young children. We can’t stress the latter enough, and children up to the age of 4 are at a higher risk of being undercounted. During the 2010 Census the Census Bureau estimated 25,000 young children weren’t counted in North Carolina, the eight-highest undercount in the nation. Should that happen again, that translates to $400 million off the table over a decade that should have been dedicated to a vulnerable population. If people don’t get counted, it’s not like money is being saved. The tax dollars work their way up the pipeline to be reallocated. What goes up, contrary to the saying, doesn’t always come down. Stand up and be counted. If not for yourself, for your loved ones and neighbors

It sometimes seems that when politicians of different political persuasions talk about the economy, and many other issues, they are like the old parable of the blind men and the elephant. The blind men know nothing of elephants. Each touches a different part of the elephant’s body and explains what an elephant is like based on his experience. Their explanations are so wildly different that they suspect each other of lying and come to blows. We’re all inclined to believe we know the truth based on our subjective experience which, despite our best efforts, is limited. That makes it extremely difficult for those of us who don’t have time to spend hours climbing all over a smelly pachyderm to grasp how we should approach the powerful animal. And, of course, there are plenty of politicians who shade the truth to their advantage, intentionally tell partial truths and/or downright lies. Take for instance President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech. In his version of the U.S. economy, “jobs are booming, incomes soaring (and) poverty is plummeting… I am thrilled to report to you tonight that our economy is the best it has ever been,” the president said. Then there’s Democratic presidential contender Sen. Bernie Sanders’ version. “This is the richest country on Earth and we have 40 million in poverty, 34 million with no health insurance and half our people living paycheck to paycheck,” he wrote on Twitter. What are North Carolina voters to make of this? Well, according to the North Carolina Justice Center, a non-profit that advocates for economic justice, while the stock market has doubled in value since 2010 when we began to recover from the Great Recession, wages for working North Carolinians have hardly budged. The Justice Center reports that the hourly wage in November 2019 was about $4.70 higher than in 2010, but inflation has wiped out virtually all of the increase. The center reports that throughout most of the 2000s, up until the Great Recession, well more than 60 percent of North Carolinians reported having a job. And while employment prospects have improved since the worst of the recession, recent labor market figures showed only 59.3 percent of North Carolinians had a job. The president said “real median household income is now at the highest level ever recorded.” But the Justice Center reports that median household income in North Carolina at the end of this decade still hasn’t reached year 2000 levels, despite recent growth. (Some of that growth has been driven by a tight labor market, and some can be attributed to raises in the minimum wage at state and local levels. The federal minimum wage hasn’t budged in a decade.) To the point of Trump’s market claims, according to a CNN Business analysis of how stocks performed under recent presidents, during the same first 763 trading days of their presidencies, stocks grew 42 percent under President Bill Clinton (the same as Trump), 45 percent under President George H.W. Bush, and 64 percent under President Barack Obama. In reality, the stock market growth under all these presidents, including President Trump, had more to do with when during the economic cycle they took office, than it did from any of their own actions or policies. That said, trade policies, regulation, monetary policy, taxes and government spending all affect the economy. But the president has only indirect control of most of these areas, as President Trump has learned. Then there are factors over which the president has no control, such as technological innovation and weather related disasters, that can impact the economy. Monetary policy is the realm of the Federal Reserve, and while the president nominates, the Senate must approve Federal Reserve governors who serve 14-year terms, meaning few presidents get to appoint an entire board. The president shares most of the power he has over the economy with Congress, where the federal budget, trade policies and laws from which regulatory policy flows must be approved. So, as we look to the coming elections, we need to take sweeping claims and soundbites about the economy with a grain of salt, no matter the candidate responsible for them. More importantly, we need to evaluate the economic proposals of our state candidates for the Senate and the House of Representatives, along with those of candidates for president. The economy, like so many other issues, is far more complicated than any politician can fit into a soundbite. Trump’s approach to improving it has been tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation and renegotiating trade policies. Sanders, who represents the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party, advocates higher taxes on the rich to fund social programs, a $15 federal minimum wage, and greater worker rights. More moderate Democratic candidates, like Pete Buttigieg, argue that investments in education, infrastructure and health would pay for themselves and stimulate the economy. Which of these approaches would actually do more to benefit average Americans? That’s the question we Americans will decide in November. As we make that decision, we should bear in mind that our system of government was designed to bring diverse approaches to the table in order to capture a more comprehensive picture of the whole and to allow for respectful debate and compromise. We should reject politicians for whom self-interest takes priority over public service, those who make grandiose promises they cannot achieve alone, those for whom “compromise” is a dirty word, and those who have gotten sucked into a culture of acrimony and negativism. It’s time we remembered that governing is a collaborative process. Before it’s too late.

There’s all kind of new out there. New state Senate and House districts for some; New U.S. congressional districts; New voting machines; New voter ID requirements; A new, and considerably earlier, primary date. Take out your pencils, kids, because this is all going to be on the test. The first step for voters should be to figure out where they are after all the map redrawing. Go to the North Carolina Board of Elections Website Voter Lookup page, punch in your name and county, and you’ll see your congressional district, state Senate district, state House district, judicial, municipal and school districts. You’ll also see if you’re registration is active, a wise thing to check. Some of the congressional districts were redrawn dramatically; there’s a consensus that the old maps, which gave Republicans a 10-3 advantage in the congressional delegation, will likely shift to an 8-5 GOP advantage. Two districts, the 2nd and 6th, were redrawn to effectively freeze out GOP incumbents George Holding and Mark Walker. The second went from a +13 GOP seat to +19 Democratic. (These numbers reflect partisan leanings ranked against the county as a whole). The sixth shifted from R+16 to D+18. Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight site, which crunches data and analytics from topics ranging from politics to sports, says that even with the new maps, the state is still unbalanced. As of Dec. 7, 2019, unaffiliated voters were the most numerous in the state, with nearly 2.5 million Tar Heels making that choice. There were 2.23 million Democratic Party registrations and 2.04 million Republicans. Despite those numbers, FiveThirtyEight notes the GOP would take 8 of 13 congressional seats in a GOP wave year with the new maps, and also 8 of 13 in a neutral year – and in a Democratic wave year as well. It’s estimated it would take a Blue tsunami – +13 Democratic nationally – for a majority of the state’s congressional seats to turn Democratic. Back to matters at hand: Your local board of elections can tell you what kind of ID you’ll need. Oh, and you’d better get on this, because instead of a May primary, North Carolina has moved its primary back to March 3. OK. Now that you’ve figured out where you are and what races you can vote for, now you have to figure out who your picks are. This sounds straightforward, but in North Carolina, it being North Carolina and all, there’s a bit of a twist. We use a semi-closed primary, which generally means if you’re a registered party member – Constitution, Democratic, Green, Libertarian or Republican – you can only vote in your party’s primary. No crossing the line to try to pick off someone in another party you don’t like. If you’re unaffiliated, you can pick one of those party ballots. Looking at who has registered to run for U.S. president in North Carolina, you currently have a choice of 15 Democrats if you choose that ballot, one Green Party and one Republican Party choice, two Constitution candidates, and 16 Libertarian candidates. If you’re unaffiliated and want to jump into one of the crowded races, you’ll have to research the individual candidates. Just by way of example check out Vermin Love Supreme, who’s one of the 16 Libertarian candidates. Defining characteristics: Commonly wears a boot on his head; carries a large toothbrush. Platform: Mandatory tooth brushing by rule of law. Educational outreach: In past, has campaigned on zombie apocalypse awareness. Social/economic policy: Promises a free pony to Americans. In short, tough but fair. Sure, critics say Vermin may be in the pocket of Big Pony. But if he’s elected they’ll be saying that with a stunning, bright smile. Joviality aside, voters need to get to work. We’re on the clock for 2020.

As the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in mid-November about whether President Trump can end the policy of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the court’s five conservative justices signaled their inclination toward allowing the president to do so. We’re hearing a lot these days about the rule of law. And that’s a good thing. We all need a reminder that no matter how much any elected official appeals to us, no matter how charismatic, no matter how much faith we have in that individual’s intelligence, integrity or chutzpah, our Constitution requires that person to govern according to the rule of law. Contemplating the rule of law might help those of us who are appalled at the prospect that our country might deport more than 660,000 young men and women, whose plight is no fault of their own, understand where to direct our fury. As North Carolinians, it matters because our state has the seventh largest population of DACA recipients. It isn’t just these young people who will suffer if they lose their DACA status. According to an analysis by The Center for American Progress, North Carolina is home to 24,480 DACA recipients who pay $134.8 million in federal taxes and $81.7 million in state and local taxes. Their spending power is $702.5 million. They own homes, they pay rent, they work in every sector of the economy. (Contrary to President Trump’s tweet that many are criminals, no one with a criminal record qualifies for DACA status.) Moreover, North Carolina is home to 11,600 American-citizen children of DACA recipients. How did we get to this place? Under U.S. immigration law, anyone in the country without proper documentation encounters great difficulty pursuing an education beyond high school or finding work. They live in the shadows, vulnerable to exploitation and in constant fear of being deported. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals provides undocumented young people who were brought into the country unlawfully as children a two-year renewable deferral from deportation and the right to work or attend school during that time. It does not grant them a path to citizenship. Polls show that seventy-two percent of Americans oppose the deportation of these young people. But Republicans have consistently blocked legislation to address their plight and a polarized Congress seems unable to find any workable compromise to solve the dysfunctional immigration system that created it. In exasperation, President Barack Obama signed an executive order establishing DACA, even though he himself admitted that he couldn’t “just bypass Congress and change the (immigration) law myself. … That’s not how a democracy works.” In another instance, he said, “I’m not the emperor … My job is to execute laws that are passed. And Congress right now has not changed what I consider to be a broken immigration system.” As Obama understood, the authority to make law resides with Congress. The authority to enforce it resides with the executive. That authority to execute the law did allow him to establish priorities for enforcing it. But it could be argued that he went beyond that. Instead of simply declaring they wouldn’t be a priority for deportation, he gave them legal status, which allows them to obtain driver’s licenses, work and pursue higher education, something the immigration law doesn’t do. Many authorities on the Constitution would argue that he overstepped his enforcement authority, actually undermining the law he was supposed to be enforcing. More to the point, if he had the authority to interpret the immigration law so liberally, his successor has the authority to take a different view. So, the first question before the Supreme Court is whether the court itself has the authority to intervene in what is, by Constitutional mandate, the authority of the executive branch to enforce the laws of the land. Should the court determine that it has the authority to review Trump’s decision to wind down the program, the administration argues that dismantling it brings enforcement back into compliance with federal immigration law which makes no exception for those brought into the country unlawfully as children. No matter how sympathetic one is to the plight of young people who have lived in the United States for almost their entire lives, most of whom can’t even remember the countries where they were born, and no matter how much they contribute to their communities or to the economies of the states where they live, it seems highly unlikely the court will block Trump from dismantling DACA. But it is not the court, or even Trump, where the primary responsibility for this despicable state of affairs lies. It lies with Congress, with the men and women we’ve elected to serve us who care more about playing to their bases than they do about reaching across the aisle to find workable compromises to solve the nation’s problems. It is at Congress that we should direct our anger and frustration, and it is to Congress that we should look for a solution. We in North Carolina, and the people of California, Texas, Illinois, New York, Florida, Arizona and other states whose economies have grown and prospered thanks to immigrant labor, and whose states benefit from the talent and dedication of these young DACA recipients, should flood the offices of our U.S. representatives and senators with demands that they do the honorable thing. That would be to pass a law granting DACA recipients’ permanent residency and a path to citizenship before the Supreme Court hands down its decision next June. Trump has said he will sign such a bill. Let’s find out.

It is no secret that women are underrepresented in American politics. We have never had a female president of the United States and women make up just 24 percent of Congress, 18 percent of America’s governors and 26 percent of state legislatures. And those who may think that local offices are the solution have thus far seen those hopes unrealized as women make up just 21 percent of mayors and comprise similar proportions of county commissions. While these data may leave little hope for even the most optimistic, the 2018 election suggested that maybe there was a silver lining for those who seek a more representative government. Running on the backs of the “blue wave” of 2018, women inched up in the representational calculus—adding 256 state legislative seats and 28 congressional seats over the previous year. Scholars, as they are want to do, debate the causes of this wave, but all recognize that the historic representation of female candidates was a function not only of voting behavior, but of supply. Simply put, more women were elected to office because more women ran for office. The question remains whether 2018’s “year of the woman” will inspire more women to run for office in the future. If we accept (and the scholarly literature as well as common sense would suggest that we should) that more women in office is a good thing for democracy, then regardless of partisanship, we should want to see more women running for office in 2019. Now I know what you may be thinking—2019 isn’t an election year. And to some degree, that’s true. This is not an “on-cycle” election year, but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t electing anyone in 2019. In fact, there are 564 people running for a variety of offices in Western North Carolina, including mayor, city council, county soil and water commission, and county boards of education. Whoever wins these elections, they will make a bevy of decisions that affect our utilities, schools, roads, and lands. Unfortunately, the list of declared candidates in WNC doesn’t suggest much change from the past in terms of the potential for more equal gender representation in our region. Slightly more than one-fifth of candidates running for office in 2019 from WNC are women—similar to the current distribution of female representation in local government. When it comes to executive offices in local government in WNC, the numbers are even worse—less than 17 percent of people running for mayor in WNC in 2019 are women. While this rather average number of women running for office doesn’t bode well for an increase in female representation in our region, it doesn’t mean that we won’t see any change. Local elections in off-years such as 2019 have notoriously low turnout. That means that it’s a lot easier to sway the results of an election than it would be in a presidential or on-cycle election where turnout is expected to be high. A concerted effort to elect more women at the local level could therefore stand a greater chance of success in 2019 than it might in 2020. Stacking the farm-team of future politicians with more female representation can only increase the possibility that today’s local representation will be followed by tomorrow’s greater representation at higher offices. So, you are searching for a more representative government, there’s no better time to start than 2019. Christopher Cooper is the Robert Lee Madison Distinguished Professor and head of the Department of Political Science and Public Affairs at Western Carolina University.

In just a few generations the industrial revolution, along with the freedom and entrepreneurial spirit that grew out of the American Revolution, spawned what can only be described as an avalanche of new and wonderful things. Better farm equipment, time-saving appliances, automobiles, telephones, televisions, La-Z-Boy recliners, plastic in all its many forms, countless electronic devices. The list is endless. These amazing devices make life more convenient and, in many ways, easier for people around the world, and their production has been the major driver of the U.S. and other economies since before Henry Ford figured out how to mass produce cars. But here’s a hard fact. There’s a disastrous fallout from this wondrous era. You can see it in the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating garbage dump two times the size of Texas that floats between Hawaii and California. You can see it in mounds caught behind downed limbs in rivers. You can see it littering beaches, in unregulated heaps in cities around the world, in the bellies of dead whales. You can see it in the junked cars and piles of plastic toys and broken furniture in a host of North Carolina yards. What you can’t see is the microscopic bits of plastic falling to the ground when it rains. That’s right. A federal research report published in July, based on analysis of 300 rainwater samples collected in 2017 at six urban sites in the Denver and Boulder areas in Colorado, found microscopic fragments of green, blue, purple, red and silver plastic. There are no federal regulations to prevent this type of pollution and the implications for the health of the environment or of its human and other animal inhabitants are unknown. The amount of solid waste generated by consumerism, the big driver of our economy, is unsustainable not only because it pollutes the environment, but because it is an inexcusable waste of natural resources. The amount of metal in rusting cars sitting in front yards and junkyards in North Carolina alone would build an untold number of battleships. It’s no use blaming people for not recycling or for just tossing things instead of properly disposing of them. Even those responsible consumers who put their garbage on the street for pickup or haul it to the nearest convenience center contribute to the high cost of building and maintaining costly landfills that are increasingly hard to site. And now that China will no longer take much of our recycling, many municipalities are just throwing it away. There needs to be a fundamental shift in how we view consumerism and real consequences for heedless consumerism. Former President Jimmy Carter once said, “In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but (what) one owns. But we’ve discovered that only things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. “ Most studies of what makes people happy indicate that spending time with those they love, meaningful work and a positive attitude are at the top of the list. Religious belief, giving to others, gratitude, forgiveness, personal freedom and health are also high on the list. That suggests that excessive consumerism and the debt, overwork and isolation that often results would be counterproductive to health and happiness. Yet, Americans are constantly enticed by advertisements that imply a new car, a bigger house, or the latest, greatest gadget are the ticket to a blissful life. Measuring wealth in relationships, job satisfaction and the ability to maintain healthy attitudes and always balancing that against the need for things is tough in such a cultural environment, but it’s a shift worth striving for. Government at every level can help to encourage such a shift by creating tax breaks and other incentives for companies to become circular, as the furniture company Ikea has announced it plans to do by 2030. The company’s goal is to design every product it makes to be reused, repaired, upgraded, and ultimately recycled. Local governments can begin charging for garbage and recycling the way they charge for water use. Those who throw away more, pay more. Unofficial garbage dumps on private property also need to be regulated because they pose a public health problem. Rather than being punitive, government should offer incentives to help people who would otherwise be unable to clean up or remove such piles of garbage. Coming to terms with the unsustainable use of resources and the enormous impact of unbridled consumerism on the state, national and world environment poses one of the most complex and daunting challenges of our time. It was an unintended consequence of inventive and entrepreneurial forces that led to a better quality of life for many. Ikea’s decision to become a circular company hints that those same forces are waking up to the need to meet this challenge. All of us should do what we can to promote government policy that encourages and supports such initiatives.

With the peak months for hurricane activity upon us (August through October), government forecasters in charge of predicting hurricane activity have elevated the chances of an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season to 45% (up from 30% from the outlook issued in May). This means we may see 10-17 named storms, 5-9 hurricanes and 2-4 major hurricanes. With blue tarps still whipping in the breeze on roofs across New Hanover County, this is not good news for those not yet recovered from last year’s record-breaking Hurricane Florence. On Sept. 10, 2018 as the storm gained strength in the Atlantic with winds of 140 miles per hour, the National Weather Service predicted the storm soon would make landfall near Wilmington in New Hanover County, North Carolina’s most populous coastal county with 232,274 residents. Under a voluntary evacuation order and at the urging of local officials and the governor, thousands fled inland. But many others stayed put to ride out the storm. Florence eventually made landfall at Wrightsville Beach at 7:15 a.m. on Sept. 14 gusting to 105 mph. When the storm pushed into nearby Wilmington, a massive tree crashed through the roof of the one-story brick home of Lesha and Adam Johnson. Firefighters from the station less than a mile away struggled for hours during the storm to reach the family inside and were able to save Adam, 48. But Lesha, 41 , and their 8-month-old son, also named Adam, died. Lesha owned her own business, was attending college, and had worked at the Wilmington Housing Authority as a director of property management. The family had stocked up as they prepared to ride out the storm. The home wasn’t in a flood zone. Adam, a janitor, said they felt they would be safe, especially since public officials had stressed the primary danger from the hurricane would be storm flooding and had not placed Wilmington under a mandatory evacuation order. The Johnsons had all the information and made a reasoned decision to remain in their home during the storm. Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo, who repeatedly urged people to leave, explained that the city had never been under a mandatory evacuation order. Discussions with the county, the governor and federal officials concluded that the rest of the state could not handle a mass exodus from its largest coastal county. “I just don’t think there were enough resources inside the state, as well as fuel, to be able to handle it,” he told the Port City Daily. We have to ask, why this was the case when the governor of our neighboring state to the south was able to order the mandatory evacuation of 1 million people living on its coast in one sweep? “We know the evacuation order I’m issuing will be inconvenient,” S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster said. “But we’re not going to gamble with the lives of the people of South Carolina. Not a one.” Why could North Carolina not make a coordinated mandatory evacuation of its coastal population with the same efficient decisiveness? Gov. Roy Cooper declared a mandatory evacuation of the state’s barrier islands for Florence, but otherwise North Carolina primarily relied on local governments to make evacuation declarations. Is this the best approach? This is a question worth asking. As our climate changes due to global warming, we are likely to see increasingly intense storms. Warmer oceans mean bigger, wetter and slower hurricanes may become the norm. On Sept. 16 after two days of relentless wind and rainfall, floodwaters blocked all roads in and cut off New Hanover from the rest of the world. Food, water an d fuel became scarce for those who did not evacuate. The county had lost power. Many structures were damaged from the relentless wind and 27 inches of rain that battered the county. Flood waters rose in roads, homes and businesses. Wilmington’s storied live oaks and long-leaf pines downed power lines and blocked the streets. Shelters were at capacity and short on supplies. After the storm, the city’s sidewalks told the tale: Water-logged carpet, sheet rock and household goods joined the mountains of stacked tree trunks and limbs on virtually every street. New Hanover County spent the next three months clearing 3 million cubic yards of vegetative debris. Today, digital billboards across Wilmington implore the local citizenry to be prepared for the next big one. Plan. Be prepared with an emergency readiness kit. Tick all those boxes on the hurricane readiness checklist. Some 42 people died in North Carolina from Florence. The state suffered $22 billion in property damage. State and local officials have scratched their collective heads in the months since Florence and vowed they will do better next time to protect life and property. Securing homes and businesses to better withstand the next storm and upgrading roads to resist rising waters must take place. While the damage from Florence in New Hanover was significant had the hurricane come ashore at 140 mph, many more lives would have been lost and the damage would have been unfathomable. Already into the 2019 hurricane season, the sense of urgency is clear. While the population is urged to act before the next storm, the wheels of government must move quickly and with courage.

If you live south of Asheville, it’s smart to check your mapping software before making a trip to the city. Checking ahead can save you from scrambling for alternate routes or, worse, sitting in a traffic slow-down on Interstate 26 while a 30-minute trip turns into one that takes an hour or more. Roads around the Western North Carolina hub haven’t kept up with population growth, as is the case with other parts of the state. Between 2010 and 2019, North Carolina grew by 9.65 percent, according to U.S. Census estimates, making it one of the fastest-growing states in the U.S. In June 2018, Gov. Roy Cooper signed into law the Build NC Bond Act to help expedite highway projects. The bonds will come into play if the DOT maintains a strong project delivery pace and needs additional funds. Something, at least, is being done to catch up with road needs. But growth is impacting every aspect of the North Carolina’s infrastructure. Cooper and state lawmakers face other urgent needs including managing storm water flooding, planning for sea level rise along the state’s coast and upgrading the state’s dams and bridges. But perhaps the most urgent is providing adequate school facilities to educate its young people. North Carolina schools face an $8 billion backlog in school facilities needed by fiscal year 2020-2021, according to a report from the North Carolina Justice Center. It’s a backlog that, according to the report, is a self-inflicted wound caused by rounds of tax cuts passed by the General Assembly since 2013. Those cuts have reduced state revenues by $3.6 billion a year. “This rash of tax cuts has dramatically undermined our ability to deliver needed services for North Carolina’s growing population,” the report, published in March 2019 says. Before the Great Recession, school construction was supplemented by state government using a portion of corporate income tax and by lottery revenue. Since that time, corporate tax cuts and diversion of lottery income to other purposes has diminished state support for school construction by hundreds of millions of dollars. Charlotte teacher Justin Parmenter wrote about some of the situations that have resulted in his blog “Notes from the Chalkboard” in May 2018. One Mecklenburg teacher taught in a trailer infested with ants living inside its walls. She and her students suffered bites. “Classes with so many children that some have to sit on the floor. Other classes taking place in closets. Blind students who can’t get books in Braille. … Teachers forced to stop class to attend to special medical needs because there’s no nurse on duty. Welcome to public schools in North Carolina,” Parmenter wrote in the post. The American Society of Civil Engineers periodically grades the nation’s infrastructure and that of each state. North Carolina’s infrastructure was last graded in 2013, at which time the state’s schools received a “C.” The report card noted that “over 58% of North Carolina schools will require renovations in the next 5 years….” The ASCE projected those renovation costs at $8 billion. But the legislature did not increase funding to meet those needs. Instead, it took funds off the table by slicing the corporate tax rate from 6.9 percent in 2013 to 2.5 percent in 2019. North Carolina’s education infrastructure continues to fall behind as lawmakers choose corporate tax cuts over educating the workforce on which those very corporations will depend in years to come. One of the most basic functions of government is to provide an infrastructure that allows people, the human capital that supports the economy, to realize their full potential. The infrastructure should facilitate the creation of jobs and the education and safety of the workforce. Without roads that move traffic, schools that educate a future workforce, wastewater and storm water systems that prevent flooding and keep water clean, not only are people at risk of dying unnecessarily, business that brings prosperity will go elsewhere. A safe, effective and efficient infrastructure underpins a thriving economy and a thriving economy provides the wealth to support the infrastructure on which it depends, but if that wealth is diverted to other ends, the infrastructure begins to fail and the economy it supports will eventually suffer as well. In June, Gov. Cooper vetoed a state budget for the fiscal year that began July 1. That budget failed to include a bond initiative asked for by the governor and passed by the House that would have provided a secure and sustained source of revenue to fund school capital needs. The governor’s compromise proposal includes the bond initiative, albeit at $3.5 billion instead of the original $3.9 billion request. If legislators want to keep North Carolina competitive, they will accept the compromise proposal and phase out the corporate tax cuts they’ve implemented to pay the debt service rather than robbing other areas of the state budget and undermining other critical needs.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has introduced legislation, SB 790, that would give North Carolina land to South Carolina’s Catawba Indian Nation for an off-reservation casino. At first glance, as they’re not making land anymore, the idea of giving away part of our state doesn’t strike us as a very good idea. After further scrutiny, this idea looks even worse. Some background: The Catawba say they have ancestral homelands in South and North Carolina. The tribe gained federal recognition in 1941. They terminated their tribal status in 1959 and received individual landholdings in 1962. The tribe reconsidered the termination, was recognized by the state of South Carolina in 1973 and regained federal recognition in 1993 in exchange for dropping claims to land around the York County, S.C., area. The tribe received $50 million. The agreement included a “service area” in six North Carolina counties where Catawbas live that made them eligible for the same federal benefits as Catawba on the South Carolina reservation. Much of this seems like dry history, but it’s important viewed through the lens of SB 790. The 1993 settlement is the thin reed proponents are trying to hang a casino on. North Carolina already has two casinos, in Murphy and Cherokee, operated by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI). The operations have been good community partners, are large employers and have been an economic lifesaver for counties such as Swain. Eighty-seven percent of land in Swain is in federal ownership. (Forty percent of the Smoky Mountains National Park lies within its boundaries.) While the park draws healthy tourism business, the ownership issue means outside of tourism there’s little economic opportunity. Enter Harrah’s Cherokee Casino. In 1995, before Harrah’s opened, the Swain unemployment rate was 18 percent. Now it’s around 5 percent. Beyond the jobs, the Eastern Band has been a responsible steward of gaming profits, launching efforts to fight the opioid epidemic, revive spoken Cherokee – which was in danger of dying off – and myriad health and education initiatives. It’s been a good deal. Graham’s legislation would effectively turn back the clock on that good deal. There’s a finite amount of gamers, and Cherokee draws patrons from large population centers like Charlotte, Columbia and Greenville. With the proposed casino near King’s Mountain, they’d have a much shorter drive. The effect on the Eastern Band, Harrah’s and the oasis of jobs created in far Western North Carolina, historically and economically stressed region, would likely be akin to a series of plant closings. Self-inflicted closings created by Sen. Graham’s bill. Well, at least North Carolina’s U.S. Senators are rising to the fight. Right? Not exactly. Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis , both Republicans, are cosponsors of Graham’s bill. Here’s a fun bit of history: In 2003 Tillis served as North Carolina House Speaker. That year he and more than 100 House legislators signed a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell asking her to block a proposal for a casino complex. It appears Mr. Tillis has evolved on the issue. Needless to say the EBCI isn’t happy with these developments. For one, Tillis was nominated to challenge D emocratic Sen. Kay Hagan for a Senate seat in 2014 at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort, whe re the state GOP was holding its convention, so this doesn’t seem to be much in the way of a “thank you.’’ Beyond that, the Cherokee seem to have history, precedent and the law firmly on their side. “The proposed casino off of I-85 in Cleveland County,’’ the tribe said in a statement, “would encroach upon Cherokee aboriginal territory – territory ceded by the Cherokee by treaty, and territory recognized as Cherokee territory by the U.S. Indian Claims Commission. The Catawba have no valid aboriginal or historical claim to Cleveland County.” How about the law and precedent? North Carolina has signed a compact with the Cherokee that allows casino gaming. South Carolina has no such agreement. Instead of working to change South Carolina law, the p lan now is, heck, just take part of North Carolina. SB 790 does that and OKs a casino by doing an end-run around a very great deal of law and precedent. How unprecedented? Well … How many times has land for a tribe been designated outside the Bureau of Indian Affairs process? Zero. How many times in U.S. history has legislation been passed that would take away the right of a state’s governor to concur with or oppose a Department of Interior recommendation regarding a new casino? Zero. For that matter, how many times has Congress enacted legislation to authorize an off-reservation casino? Zero. On May 1 the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs held a hearing on SB 790, a news item completely lost in the noise of the Mueller/Barr affairs. EBCI Principal Chief Richard Sneed did notice and issued a statement that read in part, “Today’s hearing on Senate Bill 790 to give North Carolina land to the Catawba Indian Nation of South Carolina for an off-reservation casino reaffirms our concerns about this bill. Congress has never authorized an off-reservation casino by legislation, for good reason. “The bill circumvents the federal processes that give local stakeholders – the State Senate, the Governor, community members, and interested North and South Carolinians – a voice in whether to move forward with the casino,’’ Sneed continued. “Rather than hear from interested parties, this bill silences those voices and replaces the process with backroom political dealing.” We’re not sure why Burr and Tillis would be onboard with this. In the case of Graham, it’s interesting to recall that Wallace Cheves formed Sky Boat LLC in 2009 to help develop Catawba gaming. Cheves was a co-chair of Graham’s most recent presidential effort in South Carolina. Small world.

North Carolina is known as a cradle of innovation, and for good reason. We have top-notch research facilities, a smart, dedicated workforce, and we take great pride when our cities are named to “Top Most Innovative Places in the U.S.” lists, as Raleigh was just last month. But Raleigh made another list this year, one with much less distinction: “Most Expensive U.S. Cities for Prescription Drugs.” It’s great that our best and brightest are pursuing the next generation of cures. But if no one can afford them, what’s the point? And if Congress approves the newly negotiated U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in its current form, the problem could be made even worse. Ten percent of all healthcare spending is on prescription drugs, which amounts to a staggering $328.6 billion per year. This number has been increasing steadily since 1980. Seniors, who take more medications than younger people, bear the brunt of these rising costs, even though many of us live on fixed incomes and are unable to afford such dramatic increases. You can’t squeeze blood from a stone. Too many retirees are being forced to choose between filling their prescriptions and paying other bills. Provisions in the new NAFTA could drive up costs for American patients by reducing competition within the pharmaceutical industry. The Alliance for Retired Americans, representing 4.4 million retirees across the United States, recently sent a letter, along with AARP and others, to American trade negotiators, noting that the new agreement, if left as-is, “will keep drug prices high in the United States, to the detriment of our nation’s patients, job creators, workers, and taxpayers.” News reports have noted that drug makers are among the biggest winners of the whole agreement. The letter also expressed concern over restrictions on biosimilars, which are more affordable versions of expensive biologic drugs that are made available after their patents expire. Some of the most commonly prescribed and most expensive biologic drugs treat conditions that affect seniors more than any other group of Americans, including rheumatoid arthritis and degenerative vision loss. Competition between equally effective drugs is one of the only things that has proven to drive down costs and spending over time. Limiting it, especially through a trade agreement negotiated with foreign governments instead of elected U.S. officials, would hurt patients who rely on these medications. The new trade deal must still be approved by Congress. There is time to improve and keep medicines from becoming even more unaffordable for older Americans. Congressman David Price helped to negotiate a deal with the Bush Administration in 2007, which led to the eventual passage of trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, Peru and South Korea. A key part of the changes was language that expanded access to medicines. Members of our congressional delegation, many of whom have continuously worked to improve access to healthcare for North Carolinians, should be strong advocates for improving this new agreement, for the sake of their constituents of all ages. It’s not too late to fix this. We need fair, effective leadership to keep the Trump Administration from raising drug prices on Americans through the new USMCA, and it needs to happen quickly. Ann Young is a UFCW Retiree and board member of the North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans.

The big takeaway from the long-anticipated release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller report might be that it contained very little in regard to breaking news. What it did contain is confirmation that the reporting surround President Trump and the Russia scandal was not “fake news’’ but was in fact on solid ground. Much of the news surrounding the report was in how it was released. Attorney General William Barr took it upon himself to render judgements regarding the report that don’t stand up to what the report actually contains. That shouldn’t be surprising, as Trump had lamented he needed his own Roy Cohn, a fixer. In Barr he has found it. Probably the best analogy to Barr’s spin on the report came from Andy Borowitz of The New Yorker in a satirical piece titled “William Barr Reads ‘Moby Dick,’ Finds No Evidence of Whales.’’ Chris Wallace of Fox News said, “The Attorney General seemed almost to be acting as the counselor for the defense, the counselor for the president, rather than the Attorney General, talking about his motives, his emotions. … Really, as I say, making a case for the president.” What Barr did was give the Trump spin machine a head start they put to good use, declaring the president cleared and spiking the football. That spin hasn’t held up in ensuing days. It’s true that Mueller did not file charges against the president. It’s also true that, to use a double negative, he did not find him not guilty. Mueller followed Justice Department guidelines that state a sitting president can’t be indicted. He spelled out quite clearly that if he hadn’t found evidence of crimes that would normally bring charges he would’ve said so. “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice,” Mueller wrote, “we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.” History is not going to treat William Barr well. He gave the White House access to a report investigating the president but denied such access to Congress. He took it upon himself to make the call on criminal obstruction, something Mueller never requested. He said the White House had cooperated fully with an investigation the president has publicly attacked more than 1,100 times, according to the New York Times, and repeatedly tried to shut down. The president fired the FBI chief leading an investigation into him, James Comey, and tried to get Mueller fired. His team had contacts with Russians that they should’ve been running to the FBI to report but instead at the very least welcomed their help. Against all the background noise regarding the report, it’s important to Americans to remember we are in uncharted waters, that this administration is, to put it mildly, not normal. Many people took Comey’s firing over that “Rush-er’’ thing with a grain of salt. What many don’t realize is that it marked only the second time in American history that a U.S. president dismissed the bureau’s head; the first was when Bill Clinton tossed William Sessions in 1993 after the DOJ issued a 161-page report detailing Sessions’ numerous ethical lapses. Barr found that normal. It isn’t. Barr isn’t the only one who looks bad after the report’s release. Sadly, Richard Burr, North Carolina’s senior U.S. Senator, may well have been sliding information to the White House regarding the ongoing FBI investigation. Burr had seemed like a square dealer in the Russia probe, so it’s disheartening to think he might be more of a Mark Meadows, who has gone so far around the bend in defending Trump he can see himself coming from the other direction. Expect to hear a lot of questions about that in coming days. So where do we go from here? Our guess is a rocky road lies ahead, and that our institutions, including the Fourth Estate, will continue to be tested. Robert Mueller didn’t put the next step in the hands of William Barr. He put it in the hands of Congress, saying it is up to that body, indeed its constitutional responsibility, to pursue conclusions DOJ guidelines prevented him from pursuing. There’s a lot of talk about what Democrats, who hold the House majority, should do. Most of that talk is hot air about political strategy and potential impacts on the 2020 election. Some of that talk is important, some of it is simply designed to fill a 24-hour news cycle with noise. But in our view “What are the Democrats going to do’’ is the wrong question. What are congressional Republicans going to do? The Mueller report isn’t a get-out-of-jail free card for them. They’re supposed to be representatives of the all the American people, not just the one who happens to be president. They should at least be paying mild interest to the fact that our Republic was attacked and an election was manipulated. If a Richard Burr or a Patrick McHenry came out and said yes, I believe Donald Trump obstructed justice, or that we at least need to take the voluminous evidence of doing so seriously, that would change the conversation, don’t you think? The ball is in the GOP’s court. Will they play or will they pass? Stay tuned.

North Carolina’s estimated $16 billion in federal funding is at stake in the 2020 census, which will take place just one year from now. Counting everyone, from the state’s youngest to our oldest, will ensure we bring the most federal money back to our communities to fund vital programs. This also means that North Carolina will have the appropriate representation in Congress, since U.S. House seats are allocated according to decennial census data. However, an accurate census will depend on convincing parents of very young Latinos to complete a census form. According to a report from NC Child and NALEO Educational Fund, “The Statewide Implications of Undercounting Latino Children,” there is a higher percentage of young Latino children in hard-to-count populations: Children under 5 Racial and ethnic minorities Linguistic minorities Low-income families Migrant families Failure to accomplish a complete and accurate census in 2020 will hurt all North Carolinians, but especially children. According to the report, an undercount would hurt the estimated 300 federal programs that rely on data derived from the decennial census. About $9.2 billion of the state’s $16 billion in federal funds is determined through the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, which will be based in part on the 2020 census and will determine how much we receive to administer these major programs that support children and families: Medical Assistance Program (Medicaid) State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Title IV-E Foster Care Title IV-E Adoption Assistance Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) While Medicaid also supports adults, two-thirds of its enrollees in North Carolina are children. To demonstrate what’s at stake for the general population, the report’s authors calculated that after the 2010 census, for every 1% of residents undercounted, North Carolina lost $94 million. This means a loss of general funding to Medicare Part B payments, and highway planning and construction for example. While Latinos make up about 10% of the state’s population, they account for about 18% of the children under 5. Nationwide in the 2010 census, the “undercount” rate for young Latino children was nearly double that of young children overall. An estimated 25,000 young children in North Carolina were missed that year; a third were Latino. This time around, that number will be higher because the young Latino population has grown in North Carolina. In 1999, they made up 7.3% of children under 5; by 2017 that number was estimated at 17.8%, or 108,376. They accounted for 40% of North Carolina’s children in poverty under 5. Very young Latinos are most likely to live in hard-to-count census tracts with a high proportion of renter and multi-unit buildings. Units may include multiple families and multiple generations living in subdivided rental units and shared households, including garages, where the adults are most likely to be poor and have difficulty speaking or understanding English. While participants will be able to respond by mail, phone or enumerator, emphasis will be placed on completing the form online. This further complicates participation for people living in poverty with limited internet access and poor English skills. Consequently, residents may avoid filling out a census form due to the perceived complexity. Also, Census Bureau research indicates that Latinos are more likely than others to believe that the purpose of the census is to collect information about adults, but not children. Finally, while most Latinos in North Carolina are U.S.-born (59%), there remains many other Latinos who may not trust a U.S. government questionnaire with their personal information, particularly if the census contains a citizenship status question. While the courts have yet to determine whether or not citizenship data will be collected, the fear of deportation remains an issue in census participation. Decreased federal funding for the 2020 census resulted in reduction in the number of field offices and staffing for communication and partnership activities in the Latino community, plus cuts in field tests, particularly in Puerto Rico. This could contribute to an inaccurate count of young Latino children. NC Child and the NALEO Educational Fund recommend the federal government fully fund the 2020 census and North Carolina appropriate $1 million for an aggressive, multi-pronged outreach plan. This means promoting Census participation through Complete Count Committees that would increase awareness among parents of young Latinos through a variety of trusted community sources carrying the same message in a “surround sound” approach, whether it be from businesses, health care providers, schools, day care providers or other community organizations. Other states have taken this important step. It’s not too late for North Carolina to do the same.