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2 competing visions for North Carolina – Restoration NewsMedia

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2 competing visions for North Carolina – Restoration NewsMedia


Alexander H. Jones

An archetype of North Carolina’s financial lifeblood has contained, at numerous factors, the next scenes: the country horror of a plantation slave labor camp; the grimness of company-town mills that endured right here lengthy after New England had moved on; a smoky cigarette manufacturing facility; and an air-conditioned, glass-cube workplace constructing teeming with college-educated information employees. 

This variety didn’t solely outcome from natural financial change. Like all developments in political financial system, the state’s financial evolution was influenced by numerous visions of how North Carolinians ought to work and produce. And rarely has the distinction between financial visions for our state been starker than it’s within the Trump period.

Although it pains us to acknowledge it, for practically two centuries, North Carolina was an financial backwater. 

“The state of the general public thoughts in North Carolina is mysterious to us,” stated President Thomas Jefferson, exuding the indifference that the majority People felt towards what after Jefferson’s demise would come to be known as the Rip van Winkle state. 

By the flip of the twentieth century, North Carolina had begun to industrialize, although even there, historians corresponding to UNC’s Peter Coclanis dispute how in depth that industrial progress actually was. Nonetheless, textile, furnishings and tobacco-product manufacturing started to enhance the state’s historic financial core of agriculture. This was the period when mill villages grew to become a fixture of the Piedmont.

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Regardless of all of the industrialization, by the Nineteen Fifties, North Carolina nonetheless ranked forty fourth out of the then 48 states in employee wages. Appalled, Gov. Luther Hodges sought to reconfigure the state’s financial improvement technique to draw higher-wage jobs. (Sarcastically, the low-wage, dead-end textile trade that dominated the state financial system was the identical by which Hodges had made his fortune.) Hodges and a number of other Triad-area businessmen turned this imaginative and prescient into actuality by founding Analysis Triangle Park, a groundbreaking experiment in high-tech financial improvement by public-private partnership that has remodeled the state.

Ought to the financial system appear like a dusty mill village or a well-landscaped, Twenty first-century congregation of laboratories and company buildings? You will have discerned my very own choice. However the debate rages inside North Carolina political circles as as to if we must always emphasize a Jeffersonian minimal-government method or return to the progressive imaginative and prescient that held sway in financial coverage from the times of Luther Hodges to the autumn of the legislative Democrats.

Conservative Republicans favor an financial imaginative and prescient that grew out of the conservative textile trade. This entails low wages, aggressive union-busting and unwavering political obedience to company calls for. As within the firm mill cities of previous, employees on this model ought to exhibit absolute loyalty to their employers, resist any efforts by the labor motion to prepare them in unions (which, within the heyday of the mill-village empire, have been usually derided as “socialistic”) and easily settle for their lot as lowly laborers destined to perpetually incomes a pittance. 

The expectation is that each employees and politicians will take a respectful and unquestioning stance towards the state’s largely out-of-state financial royalty.

Progressives disagree with this market fundamentalism and Third World docility to company energy. Most trendy Democrats need an financial system that strikes ahead with the folks and rewards their labor with a dwelling wage. 

Defying the “socialist” label, they welcome trendy, high-paying industries and compete for them by providing engaging incentives like a extremely educated workforce and business-friendly insurance policies. Having attracted the roles, Democrats search to equip North Carolinians with the talents essential to earn dwelling.

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Sarcastically, the progressives are actually the traditionalists. For 60 years previous to the Republican counterrevolution, North Carolina pursued what Invoice Clinton would have known as an “invest-and-grow” technique. GOP leaders need to return far deeper into historical past and embrace a method healthier for the determined plutocrats scavenging for any jobs they might deliver to the state. 

On this as in a lot else, Republican legislators usually are not tradition-minded conservatives however reactionaries making an attempt — and, for now, succeeding — in returning the state to a poor and benighted previous.

Alexander H. Jones is a coverage analyst with Carolina Ahead. He lives in Chapel Hill. Have suggestions? Attain him at alex@carolinaforward.org.





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North Carolina

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper backs out of consideration to be Harris’ running mate

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North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper backs out of consideration to be Harris’ running mate


North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has informed Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign that he does not want to be under consideration in her search for a vice presidential candidate, the governor said Monday night.

Cooper said in a statement explaining his decision that although he was taking himself out of consideration for the role, he’s still backing Harris’ candidacy.

“I strongly support Vice President Harris’ campaign for President,” Cooper said. “I know she’s going to win and I was honored to be considered for this role. This just wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket.”

“As I’ve said from the beginning, she has an outstanding list of people from which to choose, and we’ll all work to make sure she wins,” he added.

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The New York Times first reported that Cooper was withdrawing his name from consideration.

One source directly involved in Harris’ search for a running mate said Cooper took himself out of the mix because he wants to run for the U.S. Senate in 2026. The source said Cooper never indicated to the campaign that he wanted to be vice president and told Harris aides that he did not want to be considered.

NBC News previously reported that interviews with some Democratic insiders pointed to Cooper, along with Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, as top contenders to join Harris on the Democratic ticket.

Other governors, including Kentucky’s Andy Beshear and Minnesota’s Tim Walz, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg are among those who have also been floated as potential running mates.

The Harris campaign previously said she plans to select a running mate by Aug. 7.

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Feds approve Cooper plan to relieve up to $4B in NC medical debt, as Harris weighs in

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Feds approve Cooper plan to relieve up to B in NC medical debt, as Harris weighs in


A plan unveiled at the beginning of this month by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to leverage Medicaid funds to help North Carolinians struggling with medical debt has been approved by the federal government.

On Friday, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) approved a plan that has the potential to relieve $4 billion in existing hospital medical debt for people in the state, according to a news release. In order for the plan to take effect, hospitals would need to sign on.

“Unlike most other debts, medical debt is not intentional because people don’t choose to get seriously ill or have an accident,” Cooper said, according to the news release.

“Medical debts are often beyond people’s ability to pay, ruining their credit, keeping them from getting credit cards, loans and jobs and sometimes driving them into bankruptcy. That’s why we’re working with hospitals and federal partners to help relieve the burden of medical debt for North Carolina families,” he said.

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Vice President Kamala Harris — who appears set to become the Democratic presidential nominee for the November election, and has been considering Cooper as a possible running mate — has been “coordinating” with state officials on the medical debt plan, The Washington Post reported.

“No one should be denied access to economic opportunity simply because they experienced a medical emergency,” Harris said in a statement sent as part of a news release Monday.

“Yet today, more than 100 million Americans struggle with medical debt — making it more difficult for them to be approved for a car loan, a home loan, or a small-business loan, which makes it more difficult for them to just get by, much less get ahead.”

“I applaud North Carolina for setting an example that other states can follow by advancing a plan that has the potential to relieve $4 billion in medical debt for two million individuals and families. This critical step also strengthens financial assistance for emergency medical procedures moving forward,” Harris said.

Vice President Kamala Harris, joined by N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper, speaks while visiting Durham’s historic Black Wall Street district on Friday March 1, 2024.

Vice President Kamala Harris, joined by N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper, speaks while visiting Durham’s historic Black Wall Street district on Friday March 1, 2024.

Harris wrote that over $650 million in medical debt had been forgiven through the American Rescue Plan, which was passed under the Biden administration.

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The News & Observer has contacted several hospitals and the North Carolina Healthcare Association, which represents hospitals, regarding their stances on the plan.

UNC Health “continues to have discussions with state and federal officials,” UNC Health spokesperson Alan Wolf said in an email.

“We support efforts to reduce medical debt and we expect to receive more details on the approved plan soon,” he said.

Medical debt relief provided

According to Cooper’s news release, hospitals that opt in to the plan must implement the following to be eligible for enhanced payments offered under the plan:

  • For those on Medicaid, relieve all unpaid medical debt dating back to Jan. 1, 2014.

  • Relieve all unpaid medical debt that has become virtually impossible to collect dating back to Jan. 1, 2014, for people not enrolled in Medicaid whose income is at or below at least 350% of the federal poverty level (FPL) or whose total debt exceeds 5% of their annual income. A family of two at 350% of the FPL makes about $71,000 a year.

  • Provide discounts on medical bills for people at or below 300% FPL.

  • Automatically enroll people into financial assistance, known as charity care.

  • Not sell medical debt of people making below 300% FPL to debt collectors.

  • Not report debt covered by policies laid out in the plan to a credit reporting agency.

Patients of participating hospitals will not need to take any actions to benefit from medical debt relief, according to the news release.

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Plan to leverage Medicaid funds

When the state expanded Medicaid in December, it implemented a mechanism that allowed hospitals to receive higher federal reimbursements in return for paying the state’s share of costs under the expansion bill.

The federal government covers 90% of Medicaid coverage costs for the expansion population, while the state covers 10%. This funding mechanism was called the Healthcare Access and Stabilization Program.

The medical debt relief plan further leverages federal funds by providing higher HASP payments to hospitals that choose to implement the plan.

Hospitals often only collect a small fraction of the medical debt they are owed, Cooper said during a press conference announcing the plan on July 1.

However, large debts that remain on the books can prevent people from buying a home or getting a credit card and sometimes can lead people into homelessness and bankruptcy, he said.

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North Carolina has one of the highest percentages — 13.4% — of adults with medical debt, according to KFF, a health policy organization. About 20 million people — or nearly 1 in 12 adults — owe a combined total of at least $220 billion in medical debt in the United States, KFF says.



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North Carolina

Officials warn against swimming in French Broad River due to dangerous bacteria

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Officials warn against swimming in French Broad River due to dangerous bacteria


NORTH CAROLINA (WTVD) — A North Carolina river is deemed ‘too dirty’ to swim in.

People are advised to refrain from swimming in the French Broad River near Asheville for 24 to 48 hours, or until the water is less muddy.

Samples showed high levels of bacteria, including e-coli from recirculating water. According to officials, it’s because of the recent heavy rains.

“What we recommend for folks to do is…find somewhere else to go swim,” Anna Alsobrook, the watershed science and policy manager at MountainTrue, said. “We’ve seen everything from ear infections to GI issues (to) sinus infections.”

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Officials are also telling people to avoid ingesting any water until the quality level improves, which could be in a matter of days.

French Broad River flows from North Carolina into Tennessee.

SEE ALSO | NC farmer losing crop because of unsafe levels of chemicals in water

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