Office of the Conference Leader
Contact: Tori Bragg
The Daily House Call
Wednesday – March 5, 2014
STATE:
Public Safety forms new legislative affairs team
The state’s public safety agency has assembled a new legislative affairs team. Ryan Combs will be the lead liaison between the Department of Public Safety and the General Assembly. He replaces Doug Holbrook, who left the agency last year. Combs has been a legislative liaison since March 2013. Before that, he was a field representative and county coordinator for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004, and was a special assistant to U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole. He received a bachelor’s degree from N.C. State.
By Craig Jarvis, News and Observer
2014 Elections should focus on freedom
And so it begins again. Filing is over, and the 2014 election cycle is off and running. North Carolinians will elect a U.S. senator and 13 U.S. representatives to serve in Washington. We will elect 50 state senators and 120 state representatives to the North Carolina General Assembly. The elections for the chief justice and three other justices to the N.C. Supreme Court, along with the elections of three members of the N.C. Court of Appeals, are important as well. District attorneys will be elected to more than 30 districts, and dozens of superior and district court judges will be chosen to serve.
By Becki Gray, Carolina Journal
NC tax collectors want alcohol permits denied if taxes owed
Bars, restaurants and grocery stores that sell alcohol owe North Carolina taxpayers nearly $8 million. State tax collectors think they’ve come up with a way to make those businesses pay: Pull their liquor licenses. The N.C. Department of Revenue will ask legislators to pass a law denying ABC permits to businesses that owe back taxes to the state.
By Margaret Moffett Banks, News and Record
New group to promote higher education in NC
A new political action committee promises to build the case to bolster funding for North Carolina’s university and community college systems with lawmakers and people across the state. Higher Education Works will “remind both citizens and elected officials that our public universities and community colleges have helped distinguish this state from other states and it is worth preserving them as gems,” said David Rice, the new group’s executive director.
By Mark Binker, WRAL
NATION:
Obama: Democrats “sleepy” during midterms
President Barack Obama is hoping to send a wake-up call to “sleepy” Democrats this November. Obama called out his party for what he says it’s lacking during midterm elections. “It’s something about midterms. I don’t know what it is about us. We get a little sleepy, we get a little distracted. We don’t turn out to vote. We don’t fund campaigns as passionately,” the president said during a Democratic fundraiser in Virginia on Tuesday night.
By Jonathan Helman, CNN
Recalling the days when Democrats cut taxes
Fifty years ago last week, on Feb. 26, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the sweeping tax cuts that had been championed by his predecessor, John F. Kennedy. The law brought the top marginal income-tax rate down to 70% from 91% and the bottom marginal rate down to 14% from 20%. The 22 rates in between also were cut.The tax legislation of 1964 was one of three major across-the-board income-tax cuts in the 20th century. The others took place in the 1920s, during the Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge administrations, and in 1981 and 1986 during the Ronald Reagan administration. After the Tax Reform Act of 1986, the top marginal rate was all of 28%. Today it is 39.6%.
By Larry Kudlow and Brian Domitrovic, Wall Street Journal
George P. Bush wins statewide race
Another George Bush scored a state-wide victory in Texas on Tuesday, a win that could pave the way for a much bigger career. George P. Bush — the nephew of former President George W. Bush and son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — was running for land commissioner in the Lone Star State and easily defeated little-known Republican primary opponent David Watts, a businessman from East Texas. The Associated Press called the race for Bush about an hour after polls closed. He is likely to win the general election in the deep-red state in November.
By Katie Glueck, Politico
Military takes new aim at sequester
The Pentagon’s war on the sequester is back. Three months after the Pentagon won a significant victory in the two-year budget deal that rolled back $31 billion in automatic defense spending cuts, defense leaders are telling Congress it has to tackle sequestration again. On Tuesday, the military released a 2014 review that warned looming cuts beginning in 2016 will hollow out the military, risking longer wars and more U.S. casualties.
