Volvo took a pass on North Carolina. John Wynne’s smart analysis gets to the heart of the matter. Companies want certainty and the in-fighting between Pat McCrory, the Senate and the House leaves them wary of locating here.
And, as John notes, McCrory needs a big recruitment win to bolster his re-election chances. A report yesterday from John Quinterno of South by North Strategies highlights the problem facing the governor. He might be touting his “Carolina Comeback,” but few people are feeling the results.
According to the report, median income has dropped 8% since 2007, including a 3.2% drop during the so-called recovery from 2009-2013. The top 5% of households were the only ones to see any gains during the period. This is the same group that received the bulk of the benefit from the tax cuts passed by the Republican-controlled legislature and signed by the governor. (For a humorous take on this situation, check out Doug Clark’s column in the Greensboro News and Record.)
The jobs created during the recovery aren’t as good as the ones lost. Few people are getting raises or promotions that will improve their financial situations. As 2016 nears and they begin to ask themselves, “Am I better off today than I was four years ago,” the answer for most people will be, “No.”
However, McCrory and company face another, possibly bigger problem: credibility. They’ve been touting the Carolina Comeback for more than a year and a half with no tangible evidence of it. They claimed that they were giving everybody a tax break but, if they did, it wasn’t big enough for anybody except the wealthy to feel it. To defend themselves, they spout numbers and statistics that contradict the experience of most voters. If this trend continues, people will stop believing what Republicans say.
McCrory needs an auto plant or some other major recruitment victory to give validity to his claims. It might not improve people’s economic conditions before 2016, but it will provide tangible evidence that his policies are working. Without some success, he’s just offering hollow rhetoric to a skeptical electorate still waiting for reasons to feel optimistic.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Why would liberal Swedish businessmen ever want to locate in this backwards state with its lack of education,ideological quarrels,lack of health care, bad environmental planning etc. Everything about the McCrory administration and GOP legislature is the opposite of the views of prosperous and successful Sweden and its culture?
Neither South Carolina or Georgia are exactly compatible with the Swedish model either but they are the two states still in the running for the Volvo plant.
The difference between NC and SC/GA is that Republicans have been running SC/GA long enough such that many are actually statesmen, even if I disagree with much of what they say. They came along when being a public servant was the expectation and the 2010/2012 sweeps had somewhat less impact than in NC. The craziness of 2010 and 2012 brought pure wing nuts to the NC state house, many of whom I am convinced are there for the steady paychecks; both from the state and from their new best friend donors. Heck, ALEC is part of their salary support structure and writes all the legislature they need as well.