Barlow Herget is a commentator and host on SGR Today. He has been a commentator on UNC public radio and an instructor in continuing education at Duke University. Herget was a Nieman Fellow ('70) at Harvard University, has worked for the Daily Press of Paragould, Ark., the Detroit Free Press, and the News & Observer of Raleigh. His articles have appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times and numerous other publications. Have something to say to Barlow? Contact him by email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  

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North Carolina Transportation Secretary Gene Conti is a willing witness for the 2009 federal stimulus and its job-creation results.
 
Secretary Conti said on my Exclusive program in November the state used $700 million on transportation projects that infused the state’s economy with 30,000 jobs.  The Congressional Budget Office has calculated that almost 3 million jobs were created or saved nationwide.

Still, there is an impression that the stimulus hardly budged the then spreading Great Recession.  Republican presidential candidates such as Texas Governor Rick Perry exploited this mistaken attitude by claiming not one job had been created by the stimulus.  He was wrong and now he is gone from the race.

But the impression lingers and an investigative reporter, Michael Grabell, at ProPublica explained “why” in an article titled “How Not to Revive an Economy.”  ProPublica is an amazing, independent, non-profit, news group based in New York City.  It covers stories in the public interest and won a Pulitzer Prize in 2010.

The article confirms that the stimulus did good and cites even conservative economists who agree.  But the reporter found that the stimulus’ impact was “spread far and wide” and despite its intent, did not finance enough ready-to-go construction projects.  Nationally, these “shovel-ready” jobs were slow in starting and sometimes shoddy in hurried execution.

The reporter also writes that “there were and are, shovel-ready projects.  The Administration just needs to find them.”

They did find them here in North Carolina and elsewhere such as the nuclear cleanup at the Savannah River site in South Carolina, which put thousands of people to work by summer’s end.

I found some, too, at the non-profit Rural Center that had dozens of small projects, some already underway, that could have put the money into jobs quickly.

The start-up requirement in the stimulus act was also lengthened from 90 days to 120, slowing an immediate impact.

Some states simply didn’t take money that was available for WPA type jobs.  The reporter believes there should have been more such jobs that can put thousands to work in a short time, through federal administration if necessary.

President Obama’s current budget proposal calls for $50 billion in job stimulus money.  Even if Congressional Republicans kill the budget bill, they should save the jobs bill.  They, the Democrats and Mr. Obama can learn from the lessons of the 2009 stimulus and put the $50 billion to work putting people to work.  Quickly. 

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 H. L. Mencken once wrote, “The public demands certainties, but there are no certainties.”

 That’s one reason Mr. Mencken was not elected to public office.  Uncertainties make for uncomfortable politics, especially for the young and Americans.

 We prefer things to be black or white.  Former President George W. Bush exemplified the attitude after the nine-eleven attack when he warned, “You’re either with us or with the terrorists.”

 But Mr. Mencken’s advice is a good policy to remember when wading through the slog of foreign affairs.  That’s what the country is doing now on the question of Iran’s development of a nuclear bomb.

 Republican presidential candidates except for Congressman Ron Paul have vowed war against Iran if one of them is elected and Iran doesn’t take an about face.  Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich seem to be itching for a fight, which is a popular sell among the very conservative wing of their party.

 To Israel, the most threatened by Iran, war is not campaign bluster.  A lengthy, January, report in the New York Times described the current Israeli policy toward Iran, which has declared its intent to destroy Israel.

 Israeli leaders, conservative and liberal, believe Iran will have a nuclear bomb or the capability of building a bomb this year.  Here is what the New York Times reported:

 “Iran today has five tons of low-grade fissile material, enough…to make about five to six bombs; it also has about 175 pounds of medium-grade material, of which it would need about 500 pounds to make a bomb.  It is believed that Iran’s nuclear scientists estimate that it will take them nine months, from the moment they are given the order, to assemble their first explosive device and another six months to be able to reduce it…to a payload for their Shahab-3 missiles…”

 The reporter concluded Israel will attack Iran sometime this year.  Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a liberal in the Netanyahu government, told the reporter, “The bottom line is that we must deal with the problem now.”

 The consequences of such an attack are real: a crippling counter attack on Israel; an immediate global oil shortage and shock to the shaky world economy; United States’ involvement in yet another war; and worst of all, a nuclear, if limited, war.

 President Obama, the only adult in the American conversation, has proceeded with caution, not campaign swagger.  It’s a path of uncertainties, but less likely to cause us to “cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.” 

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Why is it so hard to reduce the achievement gap between white and Asian American students and black and Hispanic students?

Living in the South, I hear some of the more extreme answers from those who still don’t accept racial integration.  The arguments are echoes of the 1950s and 1960s civil rights debates.  Blacks were an inferior race, segregationists claimed, and “race mingling” led to ruin.

The arguments today are not as raw or blunt as in the civil rights era.  More politically correct code words often serve as substitutes:  state’s rights, food stamp president, keeping people “in their place,” and learning to “show up for work.”

Such old attitudes are deeply discouraging for those who long for a country of equal rights and meritocracy.  Sadly, the words also signal a retreat to older times and a resignation to do nothing to change the status quo on such challenges as the achievement gap.

Thus, it is more than heartening to read about a long-term study of poor children and the impact of early education on their future prospects.

The study was conducted by the Frank Porter Graham Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  It followed the lives of 111 poor children, many of them minorities, from birth to age 30.

The good news is that pre-kindergarten school meant better reading and math scores for the poor children in later school years.

The children were more likely to pursue college, and they were four times more likely to earn a college degree.  Twenty-three percent graduated from college while only 6 percent in the control group received a degree.

There were other measurable benefits.  The early-educated students were less likely to become teenage parents.  They were employed more and remained off public assistance more.

Surprisingly, given the encouraging findings, there was little difference in incomes, and more troubling, criminal behavior did not change when compared to the control group. 

The latter suggest that curriculum improvements might positively affect such negative results.

Another encouraging sign in North Carolina has been reported by Tony Habit, president of the New Schools Project.  His nonprofit’s focus on early college high schools has reduced dramatically the achievement gap among older, high school students.

The message here is one of hope.  The study and the News Schools Project show we can do better.  And we have evidence to prove it. 

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So much for my certainty that Governor Beverly Perdue was going to seek reelection.

Governor Perdue surprised the press, including this journalist, and almost everyone else, when she withdrew from this year’s governor’s race.

No one in the media and none of my political observer sources knew why she stepped down other than the reason she gave to supporters last week.  She said she wanted to devote her energies to education funding without being accused of political motives.

She has been and is a fighter.  But she’s also been a hard-headed realist.  You can see that in her legislative voting record over the years.  She certainly is aware of her constantly low favorability ratings in polls.  I suspect that the decision was hers.  Mostly.

Her determined stand against budget cuts to education will mark her in history.  The greater marker is that she is the first woman elected as North Carolina’s governor.

The political fallout of her decision is heavy.  Democrats will first have to find a strong candidate, and with the exception of Lt. Governor Walter Dalton, the field is lacking in statewide campaign experience, statewide name recognition and talent for raising 10 to 12 million dollars.

Former University of North Carolina President Erskine Bowles is at the top of the lists of many Democratic political bulls.  He would be the Republican’s scariest nightmare.

But Bowles has served his public duty and is wealthy enough not to need the job.  He and his wife Crandall, a former CEO herself, should not be blamed if they choose a less crazy life.

The story of Governor Perdue’s withdrawal appeared first in The Washington Post.  That is a clear clue that President Obama is very interested in the governor’s race.

The President sees North Carolina as a critical win in his own re-election.  He wants someone at the top of the state Democratic ticket strong enough to help him and congressional Democrats in November.  He probably will be involved in helping recruit such a gubernatorial candidate.

Governor Perdue’s decision also throws a wrench into Republican Pat McCrory’s gubernatorial campaign.  The politically attractive former Charlotte mayor announced his intention to seek the office Tuesday.

He now will have to change his campaign strategy and dump all the 30-second attack ads against Governor Perdue.  Given the dramatic change in landscape, he may even face a primary challenge.

Charles Dickens had a phrase for McCrory’s and the Democrats’ dilemma:  “It was the best of times and it was the worst of times.”  So it is. 

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The outlandish radio host Howard Stern talks about all things sexual, but when it comes to his compensation, he says, “I don’t talk about my salary.”

That’s the way many of us feel.  A person’s pay is not a subject for polite conversation.

That is especially the case for executives of charity or nonprofit organizations.  With charities, there is, at least by the public, an expectation of modest salaries because the act of “doing good” is itself part of one’s compensation.

That is the case for the majority of nonprofits in North Carolina, according to the N.C. Center for Nonprofits.  The median salary of chief executives is about $60,000, says the Center.  A quarter of the executives have no company paid medical insurance.

The Center’s Chair Tog Newman of Winston-Salem adds, “The large majority of nonprofit workers are committed to their missions, highly educated and in most cases, underpaid.”

That is why a recent report in the Triangle Business Journal caused some teeth grinding.  The report showed the pay for 10 nonprofit executives in the Triangle, and the salaries were more than generous.

The big winner was William Hudson who made $827,000 in annual salary.  He heads a Durham charity called LC Industries that employs visually impaired workers.  The nonprofit manufactures and distributes mattresses, housewares and paper products, much of them to the military and federal government.

Goodwill Community Foundation pays its executive Dennis McClain $394,000.

These kinds of salaries are not limited to the Triangle.  A Charlotte Observer article in 2009 reported on a Cornelius nonprofit that offered credit counseling gave its executive director John Waskin a $5.1 million payment for his pension fund when the company went broke.

The Observer also noted that nonprofit leaders nationwide on average received a 6 percent raise in 2008 while their counterparts in the private sector took a 9 percent pay cut.  Hudson, for example, made over $700,000 in 2008 and $827,000 in 2010.

As nonprofits, these organizations receive tax breaks that total over $60 billion.  There is a provision in the tax code that allows the IRS to police nonprofit executive pay, but it seldom does.

Rather, the policing falls to the boards of nonprofits.  And too often, those boards are selected because of close ties to the respective nonprofit’s executive.  When those boards do not provide oversight on excessive pay, says Jane Kendall, president of the N.C. Center for Nonprofits, they are not doing their job.

And when the boards do not do their job and the IRS does not question nonprofit status, the only recourse is public shaming.  And that’s a shame. 

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Former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory will file to run as a Republican for North Carolina governor at the end of this month, January 31.

While she hasn’t announced a date, Governor Beverly Perdue, a Democrat, will file by the end of next month in this leap year, February 29.  That’s the deadline for the filing period.

Both candidates have about $2 million in their campaign accounts.

There is some talk that the governor may not run, but the talk is mostly by Democratic state Sen. Bill Faison from Orange County who wants her job.  Among political observers, Governor Perdue’s campaign is “game on.”  She will seek reelection.

Mr. McCrory will face little if no opposition in the primary.  Like his contemporary, Senator Richard Burr who had the help of Karl Rove, Mr. McCrory enjoys the strong support of the Republican Establishment.

The race is a rematch of the close 2008 contest.  Interestingly, there are important similarities between then and now.

Governor Perdue benefited greatly in 2008 from the surprising Democratic tide that gave Barak Obama North Carolina’s electoral votes.  She will need a similar Obama boost this year.

Pat McCrory still faces the same suspicions from social and religious conservatives.  He’s North Carolina’s Mitt Romney—without the money.  McCrory says the right things as does Romney, but McCrory’s moderate record—raising taxes for light rail, softness on Planned Parenthood—doesn’t excite the meat eaters.

And like 2008, the race probably will be decided by the economy.  The 2008 Wall Street collapse cemented President Obama’s victory, and if the economy continues to improve in 2012, so do Governor Perdue’s chances.

There will be some significant differences, none pleasant, unfortunately.

The rise of the super PAC—political action committees—will pour more money than ever into campaigns, especially for gubernatorial and congressional races.  Thanks to a dumb decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, wealthy corporations and individuals can give unlimited amounts of money to independent PACs.

It’s a farce that these groups are independent.  Witness the super PAC that dumped just in Iowa over $3 million on behalf of Mitt Romney that crippled Newt Gingrich’s campaign.

Which leads to another big difference.  Super PACs, for both sides, are the guys with brass knuckles and baseball bats.  They run the nastiest attack ads, and the 2012 governor’s race will be flooded with such thuggery.

Because the two candidates have been determined early, the final difference, sadly, is that all this sludge will start earlier.