Spend NC tax windfall on maintenance of infrastructure, schools and roads

Budget windfall

How lovely to learn that North Carolina has collected billions more in taxes than expected. (June 16) Now we can use this unexpected bonus for one-time expenditures, not recurring ones.

No, not recurring corporate tax breaks. Any business knows better than to take a windfall and create recurring line items.

Maintaining infrastructure, school building, parks and roads — long neglected due to “no new taxes!” — are a perfect way to spend non-recurring funds.

If the N.C. General Assembly must give someone a tax break, let it be for the lower/middle class. In turn, they will stimulate the economy. Many studies show that “trickle up” is both possible and probable.

Now, legislators must go make a good budget without any more drama or doomed “something to run on” legislation. It just wastes time.

Chrystal Bartlett, Raleigh

NC wind energy

Gov. Roy Cooper signaled a week ago that the state welcomes offshore wind developments.

Dominion Energy in Virginia has already started generating power from the first utility-scale offshore wind farm in the country. Two wind turbines are currently in action, with another 178 to be built. Rhode Island has five wind-turbines, installed in 2016, and now wants to go big.

These projects take a long time — so why hasn’t Duke Energy started any offshore construction?

In August 2020, Duke CEO Lynn Good said, “I would think about (offshore wind) as something that probably has greater potential toward the end of the next decade.“

Now is the time for Duke to start, not in the late 2030’s. Europeans already get enormous amounts of power from offshore wind.

Here’s hoping Duke will reconsider its timeline.

David C. Sokal, Durham

Raleigh elections

The writer is a former Raleigh City Council member, 1989-1993.

The proposed change for Raleigh City Council elections is a mistake. Moving local, nonpartisan elections to even-year elections will put local elections on the same schedule as state legislative and county commission elections — and presidential elections every four years.

Anyone who has run in a local or “down ballot” election will tell you it is very difficult to get voters to pay attention to issues. Worse, voters do not turnout to vote in the smaller races.

The one good thing about even-year elections is higher voter participation. But voters’ interest is focused on the presidential or U.S. Senate or congressional and state legislative races, as they should be. City Council candidates are lost in the dust of those bigger campaigns — as are their very important issues.

Odd-year elections put the civic spotlight on local elections. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Barlow Herget, Raleigh

Sen. Thom Tillis

Regarding “Defund K-12 schools that teach ‘misleading’ 1619 Project, Tillis says,” (June 15):

Sen. Thom Tillis’ proposed legislation is scaremongering meant to incite a rabid response from Republican voters.

Do Tillis and his U.S. Senate colleagues really think the way to a more positive future for our country is to pretend that the horrors of human slavery weren’t the backbone of economic growth in the early republic? Or, that the wealth differential between Blacks and whites today isn’t related to post-war government policies that condoned segregation, unequal lending, and denied GI benefits for millions of Black GIs?

There is nothing admirable in attempting to legislate ignorance. If parents would like their children to be great citizens, the ability to discern the truth by consideration of facts — especially when presented for interpretation from different vantage points — is essential. Education makes for a well-engaged populace, capable of illuminating a bright future.

Stephen Jaffe, Durham

Vaccine refusal

I have a question for those who refuse to get vaccinated and resist mandates to wear masks: To what do they attribute the great reduction of COVID cases and great decrease in COVID deaths? I’d also suggest that they get down on their knees and thank God for the people who have gotten vaccinated and for the officials who have mandated wearing of masks.

Leonard A. Smith, Raleigh