The 98 pound weakling and his weak recovery

by | Jun 15, 2015 | Economy, Editor's Blog, NCGov | 5 comments

Give Pat McCrory and his team credit for staying on message. Almost two years ago, McCrory responded to a scathing op-ed about North Carolina in the New York Times. McCrory said that contrary to the “liberal world view of The Times,” he was leading North Carolina in a “powerful comeback.” He’s been talking about the Carolina Comeback ever since.

Unfortunately for McCrory, and for us, the message isn’t true. The recovery in North Carolina isn’t powerful and he’s not leading anything. As this session of the legislature has shown, McCrory is just a bystander to the legislative process. He can’t find support to sustain his veto or for his signature programs. Talk about a 98 pound weakling.

Last week, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released a report that showed in 2014 the state’s real gross domestic product lagged significantly behind the rest of the country and was in the bottom half of the 12 states that make up the Southeast. The national GDP grew by 2.2% and Southeast’s by 1.7% while North Carolina’s only grew at 1.4%.  In addition, the state was well below the average growth of both the state and region since 2011.

We might not be sliding back into recession but we are in a weak recovery, not the powerful one the governor brags about. McCrory and company have crowed about the plummeting unemployment rate but the dramatic decrease was fueled as much by kicking people off of the unemployment roles as actual hiring. In fact, we have fewer than 65,000 more jobs than we had in 2007 at the beginning of the recession but we have about 900,000 more people. That’s about one new job for every 14 new residents.

McCrory will probably ride his Carolina Comeback theme right on into the election year. Given his skimpy record so far, he doesn’t have much choice. However, not only do the numbers not bear out his bravado, people aren’t feeling it, either. McCrory already has a credibility problem. He might have a bigger one if he tries to sell the voters on a recovery that conflicts with their experience. He better hope that sometime in the next 16 months that the enthusiasm of the voters starts to match that of his rhetoric. 

5 Comments

  1. Linda

    Carolina Comeback? More like Carolina Setback.

  2. Ryan

    Is it possible at this point that McCrory decides not to run for reelection? He’s been so demoralized and emasculated by the legislature that I think it has to be considered a real possibility.

    • Progressive Wing

      No way, Ryan. First, McCrory has the ego and ambition of politician. Secondly, IMO, he doesn’t have the smarts or self-reflective nature to come to that sort of decision himself .

  3. brotherdoc

    Well the GOP will have to run someone against him in the primary who will be a stronger spokesman for Tea Party values. Guy is just too nice to be a true Republican. He had a lot of people fooled last time that he was a moderate. He obviously is far too wishywashy, compared to the ruthless rightwing GA majority.

  4. Apply Liberally

    McCrory’s and the NCGOP’s mediocre economic revival track record for NC is definitely one of the five big albatrosses around their necks that Dems need to exploit in 2016.

    First, indeed, NC’s “comeback” had just not been any better than that experienced by half the other states. Regardless of what McCrory or Berger or Rucho or Dollar tout, NC is just another of the “floating boats” among states that has been lifted as the nation, as a whole, has come out of the recession. No coherent jobs programs, no major corporate relocations to the state, no major investment or improvements in the state’s aging infrastructure, the cutting of thousands of state jobs, and the failure to expand Medicaid (which would have been paid for by the feds, and would have had positive economic and health effects especially in rural counties) have all hurt the state economically.

    Second, there’s their record of heavy income tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy while enacting smaller income tax cuts for the middle class AND while adding regressive sales taxes that hurt the less wealthy more..

    Third, despite their so-called, self-praising “largest teacher raise in NC history,” facts are that the most veterans teachers have been left out of the raise equation, and that NC has only risen 4 spots on the teacher-pay national rankings (from 46th to 42nd).Further, the GOP support of exclusionary charter schools and private school vouchers is moving funding away from public schools, where resources are truly needed and where the state’s constitution mandates the strongest state support.

    Fourth, the GOP has weakened the laws and means by which NC can protect its natural resources. The Duke-E coal ash waste rehab law was too kid-glove on the utility and gives it too much time to complete, all the while ash waste contaminants will continue to pollute soils and waterways. The GOP will soon remove stream buffers along streams which will make protecting surface waters all the more challenging in the future. And need I mention the Jordan Lake Solarbees fiasco?

    Fifth and finally, the stridency with which the NCGOP has advanced its ideological agenda has been a disaster for the state. Whether its using the pretext of religious freedom to deny civil rights, or preaching the sham of non-existent “voter fraud” to deny voter access, the GOP has hurt the state’s image across the world. In doing that, they may have hurt the state’s future development in incalculable ways. Who knows how many companies may not relocate to, or expand within, or invest in NC because of the GOP’s regressive, oppressive and suppressive approach to most all things social?

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