Scott Cumbie

On November 2, 2010, the Republican party gained control of the North Carolina General Assembly for the first time since 1898… 112 years! I’ve had the opportunity to get to know a number of the people that will be representing us in this new General Assembly and am hopeful that NC will turn back towards freedom and prosperity. Clearly, the number one priority of this new General Assembly will be to rein in the spending of state government and address the growing budget deficit. Aside from this first priority, there are a number of priorities that I would like to encourage the next General Assembly to consider:

1. Election reform
2. Tax reform
3. Regulatory reform
4. Education reform
5. Secure our Rights

Election reform

It seems like it has become normal to expect voting problems and election fraud during each election. If we are to be a self-governing people, as our founders intended, then we must do everything we can to insure the integrity of the election process.

• Require a photo ID to vote

The easiest and most important step that can be taken to insure that every person who votes is legally allowed to vote, to insure that each voter lives in the precinct that they claim and to insure that each voter votes only once is to require that each person show a photo ID in order to vote. I worked as a poll observer this year and watched over and over again as people willingly volunteered to show their driver’s license when they signed in to vote. It was very apparent to me that people expect that they should prove who they are in order to vote. The only ones that should be concerned with producing an ID are those who are trying to take advantage of our election process.

The new General Assembly should require that everyone that votes show a photo ID to prove their identity.

• All ballots should list the party affiliation of all candidates

Currently, candidates for the NC state judiciary and candidates for school board are listed on our ballots without listing the candidates party affiliation. These offices have been referred to as non-partisan offices. That is a contradiction. Every candidate running for any office has a party affiliation. A person’s party affiliation tells us something about the person’s beliefs, philosophy and worldview. Previous General Assemblys removed the candidates party affiliation from the ballot in an attempt to make liberal candidates for office more palatable to voters by hiding their party affiliation.

The new General Assembly should require that every candidate for any office be listed on the ballot with their party affiliation.

• Election: Straight party voting should be eliminated

Our current ballots allow a person to vote for all the candidates that are running in a particular party with one “click”. This allows a person to vote without considering the people who are actually listed on the ballot. Even if a voter votes only for the candidates of a certain party, every voter should be required to vote for the individual people and not for specific parties.

The new General Assembly should remove straight party ticket voting from all future ballots.

Tax reform

One of the greatest drains on an economy is income taxes. Billions and billions of dollars and thousands of hours are spent each year complying with income tax regulations, preparing tax returns and finding ways to legally avoid paying taxes. This time and money is wasted and does nothing to encourage business and generate jobs. The surest way to encourage new businesses to locate to NC and to encourage existing businesses to expand and to encourage new businesses to start is to eliminate the NC state income tax.

There has been some suggestion that a service tax might be considered next year in NC. If the state income tax were replaced with a service tax that could be a welcome exchange. If a service tax were added in addition to the existing taxes, then the Republicans should expect to find themselves voted out of office in 2012.

The new General Assembly should quickly work to eliminate the NC state income tax.

Regulatory reform

After taxes, particularly income taxes, regulations are the greatest burden on businesses and people in NC. The cost of business regulations are passed on to us, the consumers, in the cost of products that we purchase. Eliminating unnecessary regulations will encourage businesses to come to NC, stay in NC and expand.

One specific regulation that the General Assembly should quickly eliminate is the requirement for medical facilities to file for a Certificate of Need to build new facilities, expand or remodel and to purchase medical equipment. The Certificate of Need makes it difficult for a medical facility to respond to the needs of their patients by growing or buying equipment which results in higher medical costs for patients.

The new General Assembly needs to systematically review all state regulations on businesses and individuals and eliminate or simplify all regulations. One regulation that should immediately be eliminated is the Certificate of Need for medical facilities.

Education reform

• Remove Charter School cap
The best way to improve public education is to create competition in the public school system. Charter schools, which are private schools that operate as public schools, have been shown to perform better than most public schools and at the same time, the added competition improves public schools. NC has a cap of 100 charter schools in the state, which averages to one charter school per county in NC. NC should encourage more charter schools in the state in order to generate more educational competition.

The new General Assembly should immediately eliminate the existing cap for the number of charter schools allowed in NC.

• Education Vouchers

Another sure way to generate competition in the public schools and to improve education is to provide every school age child with a voucher that is equivalent to the amount of money that the state spends to educate each child. That voucher could then be used by the parent to “pay” for that child’s education in any school that the parent chooses, public or private. Vouchers with minimal regulations would encourage many more private schools to be built which would create more educational competition

The new General Assembly should provided every school age child with a voucher that is equivalent to the amount of money that NC spends to educate each child that can be used to “pay” for the child’s education in any public or private school that the parent chooses.

Secure our Rights

• Eminent Domain
One of the reasons that we separated from Great Britain in July of 1776 was because of property rights. Twice in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson refers to abuses and usurpations. A usurpation is when someone takes and uses someone else’s property without their consent. When a government is allowed to take a person’s property without a compelling reason, even when the law allows, that government has abused the very rights of the citizens that government was instituted to secure.

The new General Assembly should immediately work to strengthen private property rights.

• Participate in the health care legislation lawsuit
One of the greatest governmental abuses in our country has been the implementation of health care legislation by the federal government. The federal government has no Constitutional authority to pass any laws in the area of health care. According to the Constitution, any power not specifically delegated to the federal government is reserved to the states. NC must forcefully claim its power in the area of health care and not allow the federal government to intruded on the powers of the states.

The new General Assembly must participate in the current lawsuit with other states to reclaim the powers that are reserved to the states.