It’s about freedom and ownership of your choices…
More Choice in Education
Let’s take a broad look at what’s working in all NC schools, determine why it’s working, and use that to make sure all schools are using the methods, tools, and techniques needed to prepare students for today’s workforce. In the NC Senate, I want to help students, parents, and educational leaders across the state by:
- Lifting the cap on charter schools, giving parents and educators freedom to develop schools that better meet the educational needs of the community. With a per-student budget focused on the people and programs that work best, we can improve the educational experience for everyone.
- Revisiting the role and reputation of vocational training, allowing vocational programs, from agriculture to engineering, to be a respected alternate approach to college-prep academics in the evaluation of a student’s middle and high school performance.
- Putting all the options on the table for ways parents can provide the education they want for their kids. This includes options that would allow them to move their money from the public system to a free-market school.
More Choice in Managing Municipal Growth
Wake County is one of several parts of NC that are growing faster than ever. It’s exciting when businesses and communities grow and boost the local economy. Municipalities, though, are overwhelmed with handling the growth, and, under pressure, they’re often looking for fast ways to raise money rather than to careful long-term planning and budgeting.
One of those fast fixes is forced annexation of the property around the municipality. North Carolina annexation laws are designed to promote the growth of municipal government, but they have almost no respect to the landowners’ right to choose whether he’s part of the town. The North Carolina League of Municipalities (NCLM) has a strong voice in the state and a lot of support in the General Assembly, arguing that annexation, even forced, is a reasonable and necessary way fund municipal growth.
Grassroots organizations like the StopNCAnnexation Coalition and the North Carolina Chapter of FreedomWorks North Carolina have worked hard to give homeowners and landowners in NC a non-partisan voice that’s equally as strong as the NCLM. I want to join the current cross-partisan efforts in the General Assembly (including SB 494) to shape legislation that will offer true reform to NC’s annexation laws.
In the NC Senate, I will consider the following list of true reform measures from NC FreedomWorks as my checklist when working on any legislation:
- The municipality must provide meaningful services: prohibit municipalities from annexing an area unless there’s a clear need for water/sewer, police, and fire services and the municipality can provide that service.
- County commissioners must review and approve any forced annexations.
- The property owners in the area to be annexed must have a say by a simple majority vote.
- The municipality, not the annexed citizens, must be financially responsible for building the water/sewer infrastructure necessary to support those citizens.
More Choice in Medical Treatments, including Marijuana
As a Libertarian, I oppose all drug prohibition because the results of the prohibition have proven as bad or worse than the actual effects of the drugs themselves. Foremost, though, is the prohibition of Cannabis based on a lot of bad information that has since proven false. Marijuana prohibition needs to end: we should allow our economy to build a thriving industrial hemp industry and to provide an effective non-addictive drug as a legal medical treatment, especially for chronic pain.
House Bill 1380, also known as the “North Carolina Medical Marijuana Act,” is just the beginning of legislation against this senseless prohibition. H.B. 1380 will allow for medical marijuana use in North Carolina without fear of prosecution. In the N.C. Senate, I will support and even co-sponsor legislation such as H.B. 1380 so that those who need marijuana’s benefits the most can have legal access to this legitimate medical treatment.
More Choice of Jobs in NC
In recent years, the North Carolina government has offered incentives for selected businesses to set up shop in the state, while continuing to keep taxes high for established businesses struggling to meet their operating costs. As a result, instead of helping industrial growth and employment levels, the NC government has set the state up for repeated disappointment.
In the NC Senate, I will work to significantly reduce business taxes to lower the barriers of entry for businesses who want to come to the state. I will also fight to eliminate the tax incentives which the government currently offers to executives in an attempt to control what businesses live or die in NC. These changes will invite more businesses to come to NC, and make it easier for existing businesses to thrive. The result will be a greater number and wider choice of real, lasting jobs across the state.
More Choice in What Our Kids Will Have to Pay
Money buys choices. North Carolina’s debt continues to rise, year after year. The debt represents old choices made by generations past, some good and some bad, for which they did not have the money. The more we continue to stay in debt, the less money and fewer choices we leave for later generations.
In the NC Senate, I will be tough on the state budget and fight for a goal to have a budget surplus each year, applied only to the debt, until that debt is paid off. If we can start fresh each year, without the burden of past debt, we can truly make meaningful choices for the state again.
Answers to the 2010 Candidate Questionnaires on the Issues
