Op-Ed

At the outset of the American Civil War, a young and at the time relatively undistinguished U.S. Army officer from Illinois who would later rise swiftly through the ranks, offered a simple and straightforward assessment of the political situation in his divided and troubled country in a letter to his…

As several provisions of the reconciliation bill Congress passed last year come into effect, the North Carolina General Assembly may have to appropriate as much as $659 million a year to maintain the state’s participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), what used to be called Food Stamps.

In places where governments are smaller, taxes are lower, regulations are lighter, and property rights are more secure, people tend to be more generous, trustful, and tolerant. Although my progressive friends may find this proposition hard to accept, there’s an ever-increasing stack of empirical evidence to support it.

Test scores are up for North Carolina’s public-school students — a welcome development, although the news isn’t all good.

As we bring the 2024–2025 school year to a close, I want to offer a heartfelt thank you to the entire Scotland County community. From the first day of school to the final graduation celebration, this year has been a powerful reminder that Every Step Matters — and every step…

Dear Scotland County Community,

Every citizen who meets the basic requirements — adulthood, residency, and the completion of sentence after a felony conviction — can cast a ballot in North Carolina. There’s no test of civic knowledge required to exercise the civil right to vote, nor should there be. (Our state constitution still contains…

North Carolina lawmakers have seldom been on the cutting edge of national public policymaking in recent decades.

The asymmetry is striking. In Washington, many Republicans take a maximalist position on the executive power of the president of the United States. All departments and agencies — even if created by Congress with the intent of limiting presidential authority over them — are as a constitutional matter subordinate to…

RALEIGH — North Carolina House Speaker Destin Hall earned at least two rounds of bipartisan applause at the start of this year’s legislative session. One was for assuming his new leadership post. The other was for releasing a House calendar for the next six months, complete with specific deadlines and…

It seems to me that as the Scotland County Commissioners once again consider doing away with the Scotland County School Floor it is a good time to review the history of this unique law that affects only one of North Carolinas 100 counties. I also believe that it is important…