Tuesday Open Line


Today, I’ve post a few articles we’ve received regarding North Carolina’s great business environment.  They sport great titles such as ” Site Selectors Rank North Carolina No. 2 in Best States for Business.” and “Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina Viewed as Best States for Business in Survey of Corporate Executives and Location Advisors”.  By what criteria do you think these surveys are rated against?  I just wonder how much you gotta pay to get top spot on one of these surveys.

House and Senate Democrats kicked off a statewide tour Monday highlighting public sector job losses caused by cuts in the Republican-penned state budget.  According to State Board of Education Chairman Bill Harrison, cuts to K-12 education since 2008 have resulted in the loss of 6,384 positions statewide: 1,723 teaching positions, 2,282 teaching assistants, 124 assistant principals, and 2,253 other support positions. Now, according to the Obama American Jobs Act article we linked to yesterday The President is proposing to invest $35 billion to prevent layoffs of up to 280,000 teachers, while supporting the hiring of tens of thousands more and keeping cops and firefighters on the job. These funds would help states and localities avoid and reverse layoffs now, and will provide $900,300,000 in funds to North Carolina to support up to 13,400 educator and first responder jobs.

So, according to the benefits of the jobs act, North Carolina could hire back all teachers, teacher assistants, assistant principals and other support positions that have been laid off since 2008.  And still have enough left over to fund over 7,000 first responders.

Think that would actually happen?

Discuss and more on the Tuesday Open Lines