Recent editorials from North Carolina newspapers:
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Aug. 18
Winston-Salem Journal on unemployment benefits amid the coronavirus pandemic:
In tough times, a little bit of help is better than none at all.
So it makes sense for North Carolina to apply for President Trump’s inadequate attempt to resume extra unemployment benefits.
People who are out of work urgently need assistance, and that was all that was on the table.
But it’s also easy to understand why Gov. Roy Cooper made it clear that he wasn’t happy about signing on to Trump’s new program, which diverts FEMA disaster-relief money to give unemployed people an extra $400 a week. Isaias probably won’t be the only hurricane North Carolina has to deal with this season.
Yes, the White House has said it will make sure there is still money for relief from natural disasters, but that remains to be seen.
More important, the president’s $400 in extra benefits is inadequate. He acted only after Congress failed to do as it should and extend the $600 benefits in the first federal COVID relief package. At that point, Trump stepped in so he could portray himself as coming to the rescue.
Congressional Republicans were worried about money, they said, and feared the extra benefits would discourage people from going back to work - even though multiple studies have found no evidence of that happening.
Instead, the extra $600 was helping hard-hit, low-income families stay in their homes and have enough to eat.
It’s odd, isn’t it, that Republicans suddenly get worried about spending money when it’s for people struggling to make ends meet, but they’re fine with generous - and costly - tax cuts that mostly have helped the well-to-do?
The level of help is crucial in North Carolina, because the state has some of the worst jobless benefits in the country. Republican lawmakers made cutting the benefits one of their top priorities in 2010, and even a pandemic hasn’t made them willing to increase benefits or extend the time limit for receiving help.
Suddenly, though, Republicans in the General Assembly say they’re ready to do whatever it takes to come up with the state’s 25% share of the money under Trump’s plan. They couldn’t understand Cooper’s reluctance, they say.
Isn’t it interesting that Republicans are ready to come up with more unemployment funds if it’s part of a plan to help Trump politically?
If lawmakers really want to help those North Carolinians who are in desperate straits, they would do what’s necessary to increase the state’s inadequate jobless benefits for the long haul.
And while they’re at it, lawmakers could do the right thing and finally extend Medicaid coverage. Led by the state Senate leader, Republican Phil Berger of Rockingham County, Republicans have adamantly refused to expand Medicaid coverage since the Affordable Care Act offered that possibility in 2012. Over the years, all but 12 states have chosen to expand health coverage. But even in the midst of a public health crisis, North Carolina Republicans still say no.
A number of states, most recently Missouri, have expanded Medicaid through voter referendums, but North Carolina law doesn’t allow for that. That means the legislature will have to act.
Yes, the $400 a week temporary extra jobless benefits will be better than nothing. But if lawmakers want to really help the needy, they will improve the state’s unemployment benefits long-term and expand Medicaid coverage.
Failure to do so now seems downright heartless.
Online: https://journalnow.com/
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Aug. 18
The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer on the cluster of coronavirus cases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:
Kevin Guskiewicz, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, appeared on the CBS news show “60 Minutes” in June to discuss the university’s plan to bring thousands of undergraduates back to campus amid a pandemic. “There certainly is some risk,” he said, “but we believe we’re putting in place the right measures to mitigate that risk.”
It was a plan as ambitious as it was naive. Only a week into the start of the school year, Guskiewicz – confronted with clusters of coronavirus infections in student residence halls and a rising mutiny among faculty – on Monday announced that most students living on campus would be sent home and the rest of the fall semester would be conducted with remote instruction.
The chancellor is the face of the decision, but it was the UNC Board of Governors that is to blame for the turmoil caused by the abrupt reversal. The Board of Governors – a panel elected by the Republican-led General Assembly – has insisted that the system’s 17 campuses bring students back, despite concerns by many faculty members, students and public health experts.
The board has pushed for a return to normalcy on campus in keeping with the reckless views of President Trump, who wants schools at all levels reopened for in-person instruction. Taking a more cautious path at UNC-CH would have been an affront to that effort. Indeed, even as UNC-CH was sending students home, Senate leader Phil Berger appeared at Mt. Airy High School on Monday to praise the school for opening with in-person classes.
The return-to-normal dictate was reinforced by the board’s position that if campuses switch to all-remote learning, tuition and fees will not be changed or refunded. In addition, campuses cannot expect increased aid to cover their pandemic related losses. The board has asked all chancellors to submit contingency plans for how their campuses would operate if their budgets are cut up to 50 percent.
Now the pressure turns to Berger, the Board of Governors and UNC System President Peter Hans about what should be done as COVID cases arise on the system’s other campuses. Some may safely stay open if the incidence is low, but the decision should be made by campus leaders. It shouldn’t be shaped by the Board of Governors members or legislators trying to downplay a public health crisis created by Trump’s botched handling of the pandemic.
As testing reveals COVID infections on other campuses, it’s essential that the emphasis be on transparency. Students, faculty, staff and parents should be told the extent of infections, and what is being done to contain the spread. The issue of refunds for housing, tuition and other costs also needs to be reconsidered.
In his “60 Minutes” interview, the chancellor anticipated the exit he took Monday. “We’ll look for clusters,” he said. “If there was a cluster of positive cases, that would potentially create an off ramp for us and we could pivot back to a remote learning environment.”
So he pivoted. But not before parents were put through bringing their children to campus only to have them return a week later.
Meanwhile, even with UNC-CH’s residence halls becoming largely empty, thousands of students are living off-campus and now unable to break their leases. Those students will stay in the Chapel Hill area. If their social activities continue to spread the virus, local residents will face a growing risk. Other UNC campus towns may soon have the same concern.
The decision to abandon in-person instruction at Chapel Hill was embarrassing, but necessary. The confusion and bitterness it has caused is yet another example of how the politicization of the state’s university system has put ideology ahead of its mission to serve all of North Carolina.
Online: https://www.newsobserver.com/
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Aug. 13
The News & Record on North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger and an administrative rule barring state legislators from spending campaign funds towards buying or renting homes or condos that they or family members own:
The game is up, Phil Berger.
That little matter of how you’ve been making money off your housing in Raleigh has officially been declared both illegal and unethical.
Starting this month, it’s against the law for North Carolina legislators to use money from their campaign committees to buy or rent homes or condos for themselves or their families. The bipartisan State Board of Elections made that ruling in June, and the N.C. Rules Review Commission approved it in July.
Earlier, in the spring, the Legislative Ethics Commission approved new guidance saying it is “unethical” for a legislator to accept state money for daily expenses while serving in Raleigh if that legislator’s lodging is paid for from some other source –campaign dollars, for example.
Berger, the Rockingham County Republican who leads the state Senate, wasn’t singled out by name. But the actions are the result of efforts by Bob Hall. Hall retired as executive director of Democracy NC in 2017 but has not given up on his longstanding work to fight the corrupting influence of money in the state’s politics.
Berger must have thought he was being very clever. Starting in 2016, Berger’s campaign sent monthly “rent” payments to a company Berger owned for a townhouse that Berger and his wife were buying in Raleigh.
That wasn’t illegal at the time. The director of the State Board of Elections at that time, Kim Strach, said so in an email to Berger’s attorney: No state law prohibited a candidate’s campaign from paying rent to a company owned by that candidate for a residence owned by that candidate.
Maybe nobody had thought such a law was necessary. Thanks to Bob Hall, the appropriate agencies have thought of it now.
The Bergers sold the townhouse at the end of 2019 for a tidy profit and took out a mortgage loan to buy a condominium near the General Assembly. Berger’s company sent monthly “rent” payments to Berger for the condo where his wife, who is his legislative assistant, live when in Raleigh. From August 2016 through May of this year, Berger’s campaign paid $72,000 for his lodging in Raleigh.
But that’s not all. At the same time, Berger asked for and received $490 in tax-free state funds each week to pay for his lodging while the General Assembly was in session. He also got $70 a day any time he was in Raleigh for something related to legislative business.
Those payments amounted to more than $50,000 the state handed to Berger for his lodging while Berger’s campaign was paying his rent. That’s what Bob Hall called “double dipping,” and what the Legislative Ethics Committee ruled “unethical” in May.
Now that he’s been called out, Berger has said he will follow whatever laws and rules are in place.
But he’s not about to pay back any of the state per diem money he collected while his campaign was paying for his housing, even though Hall is calling on him to do so.
What Berger did hadn’t been ruled illegal or unethical when he did it, his spokesman said. In other words, apparently, whatever you can get away with is OK, even if it’s wrong.
And to think that Berger is one of the leading legislative opponents of anything that sounds like welfare, whether he’s cutting unemployment insurance or opposing Medicaid expansion. Hypocrisy, anyone?
Online: https://greensboro.com/
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