I thought NC was ranked high in terms of financial soundness

12/6/2012 4:57:35 PM

High Unemployment

12/6/2012 5:56:34 PM

What's the metric for "financial soundness" ?

12/7/2012 8:22:39 AM

Bond rating for one...

12/7/2012 1:48:51 PM

I remember reading here or on another message board a list of various metrics that showed that NC was one of the better states financially, but I have no idea how to even start to find it now. Bond rating was one of them, but I can't remember the rest (hence my made-up term). My comment was open-ended because I was hoping that someone who knew could clarify.

12/7/2012 2:07:40 PM

$135 million cut from the UNC system in the next year in McCrory's budget released today

3/20/2013 11:36:41 AM

http://www.wral.com/mccrory-rolls-out-first-spending-plan/12246090/

This juxtaposition in the article was golden:

Quote :

"He also makes some big cuts to state programs, including cutting more than $135 million from the University of North Carolina system over the next year. Community colleges would see a much smaller cut. McCrory does not propose any new debt and would have a $139 million surplus at the end of the year."

hmmm. . . .. . . .



Overall, you gotta admit this could have been a LOT worse. Well, maybe I should wait for his tax plan before I brush it off.

We will also have to wait and see how the NCGA tinkers with what Pat! has asked for. They seem to be much more extreme than him, and could make the situation much worse.



also LOL at the 1% pay raise, I'm sure Pat! is really congratulating himself on that.

3/20/2013 12:06:38 PM

don't know why but I chuckled at

Quote :

"•$642,000 for an ocelot habitat at the North Carolina Zoo"

3/20/2013 12:24:05 PM

Quote :

"McCrory also said he would like to freeze tuition for in-state students at UNC campuses. Tuition will go up on out-of-state students"

This is good, right?

3/20/2013 12:32:16 PM

Why doesent he cut funding to Alcohol Law Enforcement.

Those fuckers do not provide education or support infrastructure! They actually hinder both.

3/20/2013 1:03:13 PM

There are more cuts that could have been made (like ALE^), but from what I see, it's not too bad. 1% CoLA for state employees is pathetic, but it's still 1% more than I'm getting from the USG

3/20/2013 1:26:30 PM

Can someone tell me why early voting is so important? I understand the reason behind it and I fully support making it available to those who need it, but it seems that most of the problems could be resolved if people who don't need to vote early would just wait for the official election day to vote. I think I knew about three people who needed to early vote back in November and 300 who just wanted to do it so they could smugly post about it on Facebook. It is hard for me to be sympathetic about long lines when most of the people that I knew could have just waited until the actual day the whole rest of the fucking country votes.

Not trying to sound like a dick...What am I missing about it? Is the problem with the early voting sites, or is the problem a result of increased volume from people insisting on a special privilege that they don't need?

3/20/2013 1:28:52 PM

Quote :

" I think I knew about three people who needed to early vote back in November and 300 who just wanted to do it so they could smugly post about it on Facebook."

sounds about right.

3/20/2013 1:50:48 PM

^^ it keeps wait times down on election day, there is no reason people should have to wait for hours and hours to vote.

look at wait times in FL where they cut back early voting and precincts, some people wait all day in line. This is by design, its biased against certain demographics.

[Edited on March 20, 2013 at 2:51 PM. Reason : republicans want to limit voting for a reason]

3/20/2013 2:49:08 PM

The republicans want to turn NC in to Florida.

3/20/2013 2:49:42 PM

Solution: no early voting -- election day is a government holiday.

but I don't think that would do enough to keep minorities from voting as republicans would like.

[Edited on March 20, 2013 at 4:00 PM. Reason : .]

3/20/2013 4:00:02 PM

For the Nov 2012 election Wake County for instance, voted 260,000 people early and 200,000 on election day. Imagine how long the lines would be if there was no early voting and the precincts were expected to handle over twice as many voters as usual on election day. That's just asking for bad publicity. Not to mention a lot of the precincts in fire stations and smaller buildings aren't made to handle those types of numbers all at once. Finally voters either do not understand the concept of voting in their home precinct as we are to do on election day, or they often just feel it is more convenient to vote out of precinct (via provisional ballot) on election day. When they do that they may not receive the correct ballot style because precincts only receives the ballots applicable to that precinct. Early voting remedies this by having all ballot styles available so you can vote from any part of the county and always receive the proper ballot.

For Nov 2012, Wake County had 16 Early voting sites open for nearly 3 weeks, and then 200 precincts open on election day. I think EV is superior, but our current system relies on a healthy balance of both voting methods.

http://www.wakegov.com/elections/data/Past%20Election%20Results/2012-11-06%20-%20General%20Election/20121106Summary.htm

[Edited on March 20, 2013 at 5:00 PM. Reason : .]

3/20/2013 4:56:34 PM

Florida Man waits 7 hours to vote.

https://twitter.com/_FloridaMan

3/27/2013 11:10:36 AM