News Releases
Report says Texas Enterprise Fund not creating jobs as promised
James Drew
Jan 28th, 2010
"Nationally, all we are doing is moving companies around and giving them huge incentives to do what they were probably going to do anyway," said Robert Orr, executive director of the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law and a former North Carolina Supreme Court justice.
Critics of Raleigh safety center seek a delay
Sarah Ovaska
Jan 28th, 2010
Voters should decide whether to write a $205 million check for a new public safety center and have their taxes raised for it, a handful of local conservative leaders said at a news conference Wednesday.The call for a citywide referendum, and pointed criticism of the Clarence E. Lightner Public Safety Center, a proposed 17-story glass tower, come less than a week before the RaleighCity Council is scheduled to vote on the downtown project at its Tuesday meeting after two previous delays. "They're supposed to go to the public for a vote," said Bob Orr, a Republican and former N.C. Supreme Court Justice who heads the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law. Orr said he thinks that Mayor Charles Meeker and the seven other members of the council don't have the power to push significant debt on Raleigh taxpayers without getting approval directly from voters.
Groups Want To Put Brakes On New Police Home
Justin Moss
Jan 28th, 2010
Several groups joined in opposition Wednesday to try to put the brakes on a new home for the Raleigh Police Department. Americans for Prosperity, the Wake County Taxpayers Association and Bob Orr, Director of the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law, all joined together in a press conference. They said the current design of the Lightner Public Safety Center is too extravagant and could be scaled back. "I don't think it needs to be as pretentious as the designs that I've seen," said Truman Newberry with the Wake County Taxpayers Association.
Raleigh public safety center faces resistance
Sarah Ovaska
Jan 27th, 2010
Three local conservative groups want to put the pressure on the Raleigh City Council to hold off on a $205 million project to build a new public safety center and allow voters to decide if they want the 17-story building to be built. The groups -- N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law, Wake County Taxpayers Association and N.C. Americans for Prosperity -- will hold an afternoon press conference to talk about the Clarence E. Lightner Public Safety Center project, a 300,000-square-foot project that will go before the Raleigh City Council at its upcoming meeting Feb. 2.
Let the voters decide on debt
Robert F. Orr
Jan 17th, 2010
The recent call by Wake Republican Party chairman Claude Pope for a referendum on the construction bonds for the proposed $205 million Lightner Public Safety Center in downtown Raleigh met with resistance from the mayor and city manager. "This decision is about public safety, not politics" Mayor Charles Meeker said. He's right that the issue is not about politics. It is, however, a significant issue about the constitutional right of Raleigh residents to vote on whether the city should incur debt.
Tom Campbell`s Spin: NC needs to reverse the economic development policies of the past 20 years
Tom Campbell
Jan 14th, 2010
During the past decade North Carolina had a net gain of three hundred jobs, according to UNC Charlotte economist Jack Cannaughton, who calls this our “lost decade.” No doubt the continued loss of manufacturing jobs and two recessions has been a major contributor but we haven’t created more jobs because of North Carolina’s failed economic development policy.
Good Jobs First Tax Incentives Press Conference
Staff Writer
Jan 13th, 2010
On January 13th, Good Jobs First held a press conference to announce the release of its major study of seven states competing to grow their economies amid the tax-break and giveaway incentives war among the states. The study looks at Pennsylvania’s policies and compares them to those of Ohio, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, North Carolina and West Virginia. It charts a positive alternative strategy for the most effective job-creation investments. The study indicates that “[i]nstead of competing with each other for specific companies, states' resources will best be spent strengthening small, young and locally owned businesses, and improving the skills of workers to match industry needs.” The study provides eight case studies of big-ticket incentive deals, including those involving Dell and Google here in North Carolina.
Buying Business: How do taxpayers know if incentives packages are paying off?
Richard Craver
Jan 10th, 2010
The incentives era in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County turns 20 this year. Amid all the touting, if not shouting, about job- and capital-investment pledges from companies and economic officials, two key questions remain unanswered publicly. How much bang for our tax credits are we really getting from incentives packages, particularly in terms of jobs? Will jobs based on incentives stick around past the end of the contract? Those questions loom in the spotlight as the clock ticks toward the mid-April closing of the Dell Inc. desktop-computer assembly plant and the last weeks of employment there for its hundreds of employees. The plant has become the local and statewide poster child for over-the-top incentives hype and unfulfilled job pledges. What's clear is that there's no readily available scorecard for the estimated 70 city and county incentives packages awarded since 1990, which total more than $112 million — topped by the $38 million for Dell. That means there is no definitive way to determine what percentage of an estimated 13,045 jobs pledged in those packages were created by the recipients, and how many still exist. However, the Winston-Salem Journal's analysis of data provided by the city and county shows it is likely that more than 40 percent of the pledged jobs either were never created or no longer exist. The lack of an incentives scorecard for the public baffles Dave Plyler, the chairman of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners. "I'd like to know what we got and didn't get from our incentive packages, how many jobs came and stayed, for the sake of making comparisons and fine-tuning future offers," Plyler said. But Plyler says he is "a stronger supporter of incentives now than ever" to help add jobs in a region struggling through a pivotal and painful economic transition.
Supreme Court Permits NCICL Attorneys To Participate In Ballot Access Case
Jason Kay
Dec 30th, 2009
NCICL Executive Director Bob Orr and Senior Staff Attorney Jason Kay were permitted to file a brief as amicus curiae before the North Carolina Supreme Court in Libertarian Party of NC v. State. The case addresses the burdens placed on emerging political parties and their constitutional rights to participate in the election process. NCICL will urge the Court to protect the integrity of the North Carolina Constitution and not permit constitutionally inequitable treatment of rising political parties.
Volvo reflection: Most NC job grants stumble
Jordan Schrader
Dec 21st, 2009
“Here's the conclusion that you have to draw from that: that the money was insignificant or irrelevant to the company's decision,” said Bob Orr, an opponent of incentives whose group, the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law, has sued the state over aid to companies. “All it was,” said Orr, a former state Supreme Court justice, “was a PR deal for the politicians to say, ‘Oh, look what we're doing to bring jobs to Western North Carolina.'”