| March 07, 2013 Things are sure different down in Raleigh and some local folks seem to be having problems keeping up.
The News & Record has an incredibly short corporate memory, or just doesn't care about any consistency. For years the News & Record has supported economic incentives, which are only offered to huge corporations. Small businesses don't qualify but Proctor & Gamble does.
Suddenly with the Republicans in charge of the state government, the News & Record has done an about face on economic incentives. Editorial Page Editor Allen Johnson last Sunday used his column to oppose the economic incentives that may be offered to the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte to renovate the stadium.
We happen to agree with Johnson. But we have opposed economic incentives for years. We believe that corporations decide where they are going to move and then go see how much money they can get, not the other way around.
The News & Record now has evidently decided that economic incentives to large wealthy corporations aren't fair when they are being offered by the Republicans. Or maybe Johnson just hates football.
The Republicans who opposed the state lottery are now intent on bringing it more in line with reality. The Democrats got the lottery passed and now we know that they did it illegally. But that doesn't matter, the law passed and we have a lottery. What the Republicans aim to do is to quit spending so much money on advertising and administration.
Lottery officials are paid a fortune. Why how hard is it to give away money?
Since they are giving away money all the time, why do they need to do so much advertising?
Changes have come to Raleigh and the folks like Rep. John Blust, who was for years rated as one of the least effective lawmakers, has suddenly transformed into one of the more effective lawmakers.
State Sen. Trudy Wade, who is in her first term in Raleigh, has a bill to end the monopoly paid-circulation newspapers have on legally required public notices. In today's world, people increasingly get their news from a variety of sources. Why should paid-circulation newspapers be the only place that legally required public notices can be advertised?
Wade said her bill would open the advertising up to other publications and to websites. She said it will be less expensive for governments because they won't have to buy ads from one particular newspaper but could use websites as well as established free publications of general circulation in the area.
Wade said that paid-circulation newspapers are adamantly against it and have been letting her know just how bad the world will be if legal notices are not required to be placed in paid-circulation newspapers.
Since the major paid-circulation newspaper in this area did everything in its power – including running some articles of questionable veracity about push polling to try and keep Wade from winning – it isn't likely that Wade is going to be overly concerned with making sure they continue to have a monopoly on legal advertising. As a matter of fact, there are a whole bunch of Republicans down in Raleigh who feel the same way.
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