Mike Easley

Under the Dome reports on Mike Easley's dismay about the Tall Ships Tempest in a Teapot. I find his comments disingenuous. There's no question he was invited to attend the event, despite that fact that Mr. Mike wouldn't do this sort of economic development glad handing under any circumstance. Easley typically declines to meet with other business and political leaders, which is one reason I think he can hardly wait to back to private life. What I don't like is all the public hand-wringing he's doing after the fact, now that this has become a cause celebre of the government-hating right.

Asheville Citizen-Times: "Gov. Mike Easley today proposed an $18.9 billion budget for the next fiscal year that would use a historic surplus for 8 percent teacher raises, a quarter-penny decrease in the sales tax and nearly $90 million to accelerate mental health reform."

Ah, fiscal sanity. Can you dig it?

Show me one Republican who's going to stand against raising teacher's pay and cutting taxes? I love this proposal.

Also, as a mental health professional, it's a relief to see that the governor gets it on mental health reform. The current reform is underfunding area programs and cutting services that no one else performs.

I don't always agree with Mike Easley, but I find it hard to argue with the basic proposition that one job of the top executive is to provide leadership for the common good. In this case, Easley wants to freeze North Carolina's automatic gas tax increases ("Nobody ever anticipated that Washington would let gas prices get this high") and look elsewhere for some of the funds to maintain roads. We'll see what the General Assembly has to say when when they get back into town on Tuesday, but it's good to see Easley getting out front on this issue.

(Cross-posted at the new Appalachian Voices blog)

Don't always agree with Governor Easley. Not always impressed with him. But he has been kicking ass on the environment, first with his opposition to the sale of the National Forests. Now this.

There is an offshore drilling moratorium for the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts that isn't set to expire until 2012. However, there are some special interests in Virginia that want to see that overturned much sooner. Like...now.

Jerry Conner has responded to the Governor's letter setting a time for Mr. Conner's clemency hearing.

"Mr. Conner will not petition for clemency, nor will we appear on his behalf at a clemency hearing until a DNA test is conducted and the results are returned. We trust that as Governor you share our interest in ensuring access to all available information in order to make a fair and informed decision about clemency."

In addition to his objection of the sale of our national forests, Easley has filed with the USDA for some of our forest to be classified as roadless and thus protected against industrial activity. There is a great post on this issue at the North Carolina Conservation Network.

Update: Check the comments to see where Lance beat me to the story. Also, check out our Take Action! center advertised on the right.

Governor Easley filed a petition with the US Secretary of Agriculture to protect the roadless areas in the National Forests within our borders and to protest the Forest Service's plan to sell off National Forest lands to benefit rural schools out west (story). Consider clicking this link to email the Gov. with a word of thanks.

Easley came into office five years ago facing large state defeicits. Now it looks like he will acheive a budget surplus for the third straight year. (article here).

While numbers still are being finalized, the General Assembly's fiscal researchers said the state has collected $213.7 million more than the $9.8 billion needed so far for the spending year which began last July and ends in June. After the first three months of the fiscal year, the state reported $71 million more in collections than projected.

Despite some criticism of Easley on this blog, everyone once in a while he reminds us that is good to have a Democrat that cares about people as governor. This time it is the anouncement of a program to allow individuals with incomes up to $50,000 to file their state income tax return free online. From WXII:

Gov. Mike Easley announced that, for the first time, many North Carolina taxpayers will be able to file their state tax returns electronically at no cost.

He cited Free E-File, a partnership between the Department of Revenue and two online tax filing companies. People previously had to purchase their own software and pay a related online filing fee.

We finally found one type of person North Carolina does not like to execute: the mentally retarded. The legislature prevented the execution of the retarded in 2001 and defined retardation as scoring below 70 on an IQ test and showing poor life skills before the age of 18. This has saved 12 individuals from the death penalty, including Elton McLaughlin recently. From the Myrtle Beach Online:

A Bladen County man convicted of killing three people was removed from North Carolina's death row after a federal judge ruled that an IQ test given to him in the 1960s was valid.

Mike Easley will be faced with another appeal for clemency this month. Granting clemency would change the death penalty faced by the prisoner to life in prison. Given his past record, he may not stay up late at night pondering this one.

The case involves 43-year-old Perrie Dyon Simpson. Simpson admitted to the 1984 murder of a 92-year-old retired preacher. The plea for clemency stems not from any circumstance of the crime, but from the childhood of Simpson. Simpson was an orphan that lived in over 20 foster homes as a child. His attorneys feel that this upbringing should mitigate his sentence.

Sorry if this becomes a bit rantish, but why the hell is there this much noise over 2.8 cents? For those of you that do not read North Carolina newspapers, websites, or watch local news, the gas tax is set to increase 2.8 cents a gallon on the 1st. This change is due to the fact that part of the gas tax in this state is pegged as a percentage of the cost of gas in the trailing 6 months. Since prices were higher these last six months, the tax is going up.

Since that time, there has been a push by some legislators to call a special session to cap the tax. And many news outlets have picked up on the story. The most recent one is the Jacksonville Daily News. And their estimate of the total cost of the tax to family over a year: $15.

For only the second time in state history the NC Academy of Trial Lawyers is intervening to seek clemency for a prisoner on death row. As I have chronicled here, there are three individuals schedule to be executed in the next month and all three have received calls for clemency for their own families and the families of the victims, which happen to be the same in all three cases.

McHone was convicted for a string of petty crimes prior to the murder. Then he was convicted of shooting his mother and father because they would not give him money to pay off restitution that he owed on a previous criminal conviction. He is sentenced to be executed on Friday.

I know we were praising Gov. Mike in this space just yesterday for his efforts to raise teacher pay, but it's seriously groan inducing to hear him selling the shoddy state of labor in NC.

Site Selection magazine named North Carolina the state with the Top Business Climate for 2005, reclaiming the top spot from Texas, which unseated North Carolina's three-year claim to first place from 2001 through 2003.

"We can do everything they can do about 25 percent cheaper in terms of labor capital expenditures and land acquisition," North Carolina Governor Michael Easley told Site Selection.

North Carolina tops Texas for best business climate - 2005-11-02

The great paradox of North Carolina is that during the same that Republicans have been dominating elections for federal office, statewide offices have been controlled overwhelming by the Democrats. That is why in North Carolina we can do this:

Under Easley’s plan, teachers in North Carolina will continue to receive salary increases over the next few years, until their pay is at the national average by the 2008-09 fiscal year. Over each of the next three years, the governor and the legislature has committed a five-percent annual salary increase.

The comparison of the state plan to the No Child Left Behind Act shows the different philosophies of the parties in control. The Democrats do something to attract better teachers by paying them a reasonable salary. Better teachers directly benefit students in the classroom.