Until 2004, North Carolina was considered a fairly stingy state when it came to "development subsidies" -- the over $50 billion a year in tax breaks and other give-aways that states and localities pay to attract business. But then came the controversial deal to spend some $300 million to bring a Dell chip manufacturing plant, and the floodgates opened.

The latest newsletter from Good Jobs First, a leading follower of corporate subsidies, highlights three recent deals in North Carolina, which show how expensive and political the give-away game has become:

North Carolina gives boatmaker the royal treatment

Executives at Chris-Craft Corp., which recently announced plans to construct a new manufacturing plant in North Carolina, are still marveling at the red-carpet treatment they received from officials in the Tar Heel State. Gov. Mike Easley made available his personal helicopter and a pilot to allow representatives of the boatmaker to view sites across the state. To get the competitive juices flowing, Chris-Craft also showed interest in South Carolina, whose Governor, Mark Sanford, told the company: "We will do anything to bring you here."

Chris-Craft went with a site near Charlotte that is projected to employ more than 640 workers with average annual pay of $32,000 within five years. A sister company, Indian Motorcycle, will open its own plant nearby, creating 167 jobs. State officials sweetened the combined deal with about $9 million in subsidies, including a Job Development Investment Grant of $5.2 million, $3.5 million in William S. Lee tax credits and $250,000 from the One North Carolina Fund. Cleveland County is kicking in another $971,000.

North Carolina also wins vaccine plant despite being outbid by Georgia

Novartis has also succumbed to the charms of North Carolina. The Swiss drug maker announced that it would build a vaccine plant in Wake County that is expected to cost $267 million and which will employ some 350 people within five years. The state lured the company with some $44 million in subsidies, but this was less than the $61 million package reportedly offered by Georgia. The company, which will also receive a $220 million grant from the federal government, insisted its main consideration was the availability of "a highly trained work force."

This point was taken to heart by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which editorialized that the decision by Novartis "should make it clear to proponents of costly state incentives that money isn't everything when it comes to economic development...North Carolina got serious about reforming its public education system--raising standards and instituting merit pay for teachers--more than a decade ago. (And still it had to offer incentives.) If Georgia is still going to have any chance at winning in this league, it, too, must improve public education."

Doh! Officials discover that subsidy recipients don't necessarily need them

Officials in Durham County, North Carolina have suspended plans to provide a $400,000 subsidy package to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, which recently agreed to move its headquarters to Durham. The decision came after a spokesperson for the trade association was quoted as saying that the incentives were "not a major factor" in the relocation, which involves 320 jobs. The AICPA is also set to receive state subsidies worth up to $7 million.

County Manager Mike Ruffin removed the subsidy plan from the agenda of the county board of commissioners, saying: "You shouldn't give people $400,000 if they're coming anyway." Once the controversy erupted, the AICPA changed its tune. An official of the organization wrote a letter to the editor of the Durham Herald-Sun insisting that "ultimately, we made the final decision to relocate to Durham because the competitive incentives offered by the state and county made it economically feasible for us to do so." You'd think that an organization of bean-counters could get its story straight when it comes to money issues.

At times, it can seem that the escalating Lebanon/Israel conflict is a distant battle over which the U.S. -- aside from the ocassional diplomatic visit -- has little control. But as the Institute showed in its report "The South at War," we're more closely implicated than we think, especially south of the Mason/Dixon line.

In many ways, the South is the home base of the U.S. military, making Southerners the ones most tied to and impacted by our country's adventures abroad. The South supplies more troops, houses more military bases, elects more hawkish politicians, and attracts more defense dollars than any region in the country -- making us a direct player in events in the Middle East today.

In the case of Lebanon/Israel, the South has two key ties to the conflict, which has claimed the lives of 430-600 civilians in Lebanon and 19 in Israel: arms and religion.

In terms of arms, Frida Berrigan and William Hartung of the World Policy Institute outlined the U.S. role in a paper this week:

Much has been made in the U.S. media of the Syrian- and Iranian-origin weaponry used by Hezbollah in the escalating violence in Israel and Lebanon. There has been no parallel discussion of the origin of Israel's weaponry, the vast bulk of which is from the United States. [...]

U.S. aid accounts for more than 20% of Israel's total defense budget ... Israel is one of the United States' largest arms importers. Between 1996 and 2005 (the last year for which full data is available), Israel took delivery of $10.19 billion in U.S. weaponry and military equipment, including more than $8.58 billion through the Foreign Military Sales program, and another $1.61 billion in Direct Commercial Sales

During the Bush administration, from 2001 to 2005, Israel received $10.5 billion in Foreign Military Financing — the Pentagon's biggest military aid program — and $6.3 billion in U.S. arms deliveries.

As a key leader in U.S. arms production, the South comprises a big share of these numbers -- by one analysis five years ago, almost 2/3 of arms sold to Israel come from the South. Examples of this connection include the $4.5 billion spent on 102 F-16 fighters, contracted to Lockheed Martin's plant in Fort Worth, Texas.

The second connection has to do with religion, as Michael Lind of the New America Foundation argued in Newsweek a few years ago:

Along with unilateral militarism, Protestant fundamentalism is deeply woven into Southern culture. Not all white Southerners are fundamentalists, of course, but the white South is the homeland of the religious right. Southern fundamentalists are ardent supporters of the state of Israel, for religious reasons. Many know the geography and history of "the Holy Land" as well as -- or better than -- they know the geography and history of the United States.

These two factors -- military economics and religious belief -- play an important part in U.S. policy, and tie the South particularly closely to the fate of Middle East conflicts.

Of the people hurt most by Hurricane Katrina -- poor and working-class residents, African-Americans -- especially hard-hit were the elderly. The fact that old people made up a disproportionate share of those killed in the 2005 storms was chalked up to the elderly being isolated and physically unable to outmaneuver a storm.

But there's more to the story. The elderly also suffered due to the failure of nursing homes -- an industry long bedeviled with charges of cutting corners and neglect -- to create and carry out effective evacuation plans. Sue Sturgis, a reporter for the Institute's Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch project, reveals the scope of the problem in a story this week:

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast last year, it revealed serious shortcomings in nursing homes’ evacuation plans.

At St. Rita’s Nursing Facility in St. Bernard Parish, La., 34 residents and caregivers died after owners Salvador and Mable Mangano allegedly turned away two buses parish officials had offered before the storm, according to the Baton Rouge Advocate. The couple then reportedly failed to call on an ambulance company they had contracted with to evacuate patients. The Manganos were eventually charged with negligent homicide and are awaiting trial.

Twenty-two people also died at Lafon Nursing Home of the Holy Family in eastern New Orleans, and three residents of eastern New Orleans’ Ferncrest Manor Living Center died as a result of an evacuation involving school buses that lacked air-conditioning and water, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.

Sturgis points to a recent GAO study which chronicles a list of ways in which current emergency response plans don't take the needs of people in health facilities into account.

As the 2006 storm season gains steam, will leaders in Washington act to make sure the least-able among us are protected?

"As with the Katrina response, we can’t let confusion and gaps in responsibility get in the way of the effectiveness of the response," U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chair of the committee that oversees Medicare and Medicaid, said in a statement. "I urge the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies that are involved to plug the gaps in our evacuation system to ensure that some of the most frail and vulnerable among us are not left behind."

(Copyright (C) 2006 R. Neal. Click image for larger view)

Green Heron spotted at a local park (Springbrook Park in Alcoa, TN) yesterday evening. We saw an immature down there a couple of days ago but I didn't have my camera. We were looking for it yesterday and didn't see it, but did see this adult. This is the first time we have seen Green Herons at this park. This seems encouraging. (Here's another view.)

At least there are some positive side benefits to otherwise silly or downright ugly election year politics:

Bush signed the bill amid fanfare and before an South Lawn audience that included members of Congress, civil rights leaders and family members of civil rights leaders of the recent past. It was one of a series of high-profile ceremonies the president is holding to sign popular bills into law.

The Republican controlled Congress, eager to improve its standing with minorities ahead of the November elections, pushed the bill through even though key provisions were not set to expire until next year.

Now Congress should pass the Rush Holt Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act so Bush can sign it, too.

By way of C.E. Petro, Mother Jones has a report on some statistics entitled "How the poor get dinged at every turn." Here is a random sampling:

Among the working poor, 13% of income is spent on commuting if public transportation is used, 21% if a private vehicle is used.

Workers who earn $45,000 or more spend 2% of their income on commuting.

Since 1983, college tuition has risen 115%. The maximum Pell Grant for low- and moderate-income college students has risen only 19%.

Nationwide, the number of payday lending outlets has risen 11,000% since 1990.

The average annual interest rate on a payday loan is more than 400%, costing borrowers $3.4 billion a year.

And so on. What's even more disturbing is how many working-class Americans who are hardest hit by failed right-wing conservative economic policies keep voting against their own interests, especially here in the Southern Red States.

(And yes, I realize some of these examples date back to the Clinton era and before. But the current single-party government has had five years to fix all those horrible Clinton mistakes. What's taking so long?)

Houston-based Halliburton, which to many had become synonymous with "contract abuse" after high-profile scandals in Iraq, may finally be taking a financial hit for its controversial dealings.

For years, the energy and military contracting company had seemed impervious as charges of cost-overruns, fraud, cronyism, and other misdeeds exploded with stunning regularity. But that may be changing.

First came the news that the Army is re-bidding the no-bid, no-cap contract (first exposed by the Institute in 2001) Halliburton had been given for “logistical support" in the war on terror.

Next, Halliburton’s widely-anticipated move to sell off its KBR subsidiary, responsible for most of the Iraq deals, fizzled, in part because of a project gone sour in Nigeria, the Wall Street Journal reports:

Halliburton Co., facing unexpected problems with the initial public offering of its Kellogg Brown & Root unit, says it will take steps to separate the unit in a tax-free spinoff to shareholders within nine months.

The Houston-based company filed in April to sell 20% of its energy-construction and government-contracting unit through an IPO, hoping to capitalize on strong market interest for KBR, which dominates the fast-growing market to build liquefied-natural-gas plants.

But since then, the company says the IPO market has weakened and the unit faces a newly surfaced problem with cost overruns in a giant construction project on the Nigeria coast.

The troubled news continued last week, when Halliburton announced Friday that it was carrying a 6-month operating loss of $41 million, causing Merril Lynch analysis to downgrade the company’s stock from “buy” to “neutral.”

News that car makers Nissan, GM and Renault SA may be teaming up for a "global alliance" is making waves in the auto industry, especially among workers. Despite frustrations and setbacks, GM and Renault are both companies that have accepted the basic labor-management compact forged in the 1940s, which saw unions -- organizations speaking in workers' interests -- as part of doing business.

Not so with Nissan, which made its attitude towards unions clear at its plant in Smyrna, Tennesssee, where a United Auto Workers drive was crushed five years ago, largely because of Nissan's threat of shutting down if the union came in. As the Washington Post reports:

Back in 2001, a United Auto Workers effort to organize Nissan Motor Co.'s North America flagship factory in Smyrna, Tenn., went down to crushing defeat. Nissan workers' two-to-one vote against the UAW dashed its hopes of penetrating the flourishing foreign-owned auto manufacturing sector in the United States. And it came with Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn's distinctive signature.

"It is without reservation to say that bringing a union into Smyrna could result to making Smyrna not competitive, which is not in your best interest or Nissan's," Ghosn said in a videotaped message played in the plant shortly before the election. The UAW released a transcript of the talk at the time.

Today, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger is making clear that he has "very serious concerns" about a proposed global alliance between General Motors Corp. and automakers Nissan and Renault SA -- both headed by Ghosn. [...]

"In Rick Wagoner [GM's chief executive] the UAW has a man who sees the union as a fact of life, now and in the future," said Clark University professor of labor relations Gary Chaison. "In Ghosn, they have a man who sees the union as a burden."

In his much celebrated turnaround of Nissan, Ghosn became known in Japan as the Ice Breaker for shattering long-established relationships with unions and suppliers and for laying off 21,000 people in a culture that once prized lifetime employment. Earlier, as an executive of the French company Michelin in Brazil, he was known by the nickname "le cost killer."

As the story makes clear, labor's role in the new global auto industry is increasingly precarious. But the new alliance, if it happens, could well set the tone for the future, as companies continue their world-wide "race to the bottom" for cheaper production and higher profits. May be good for auto makers in the short run, but what are the long term economic and social costs?

Several states around the South are offering sales tax holidays for back-to-school purchases this year, including four for the first time:

Four new states are offering holidays this year: Alabama, Maryland, Tennessee and Virginia. New York, which held holidays in past years, now has a year-round exemption for clothing, footwear and items used to make or repair exempt clothing costing less than $110. In Massachusetts, a holiday has been proposed but not yet enacted.

In addition to these four states, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina will have sales tax holidays. The article gives a rundown of every state's program.

This could be particularly helpful in Tennessee, where sales taxes are the state's primary source of revenue, and the combined state and local sales tax can run as high as 9.75%. And unlike some other states such as Florida, groceries are not exempt.

According to this article, the State of Louisiana recently gave teachers in the state a $1500 pay raise, but the Southern Regional Education Board says the state still lags behind other Southern states in teacher salaries:

But because almost every other state in the Southern Regional Education Board area also granted raises - some larger than Louisiana's - the funding gap remains. The SREB average has been described as "a floating target" because when teachers in any state receive a raise, the average rises.

"We're always playing catch-up," said Carol Davis, president of the Louisiana Association of Educators. "All states, especially the states surrounding us, recognize that if you want to attract and keep the brightest teachers, you have to increase salaries."

[..]

"There isn't adequate funding for salaries and resources to get the job done right," Davis said. "We're grateful to the governor and the Legislature for finding the money" but it's difficult to reach the southern average "when it's done piecemeal without a plan for reaching that goal."

Superintendent of Education Cecil Picard says that besides raises, the state needs a base salary that would boost wages for the lowest-paid teachers in the state. Several parishes are paying too little to attract and keep effective teachers.

In addition to lower salaries, Louisiana also lost teachers as a result of Katrina:

"An unfortunate consequence of the storms is that a lot of teachers found jobs in other states and they're going to stay there," she said. "They thought they were looking for temporary employment but the salaries were higher, there was more funding education and the working conditions were better."

The article also has some interesting comparisons of state budgets v. education appropriations around the South.

Compared to the U.S. as a whole, however, Louisiana isn't alone among Southern states playing catch-up with regard to teacher's salaries. According to a fall 2005 NEA survey, the only Southern state (excluding Delaware and Maryland which the SREB includes in their region) in the top 20 ranking is Georgia, at 18th. (Which, by the way, has made it more difficult for Tennessee to compete, resulting in teachers leaving the state for Georgia.)

Clustered below the top 25 are North Carolina at 27th, South Carolina at 29th, Tennessee at 31st, Florida at 32nd, Kentucky at 34th, and Arkansas at 35th. Rounding out the bottom 10 are Louisiana at 44th, West Virginia at 46th, Alabama at 47th, and Mississippi at 49th.

These rankings do not, however, take into account the overall lower cost of living in the South as compared to places like California (3rd) or New York (6th). Nor do higher teacher salaries necessarily translate into better schools. But, school systems clearly need to offer competitive pay to attract the best teachers. And as Carol Davis, head of the Louisiana Association of Teachers said in the above article, "It would take a real will on the part of the entire state. The Legislature can't do it by itself. It would take the entire education community and political and business powers."

According to the NEA, another problem is that teacher pay in many states isn't keeping pace with inflation, meaning some teachers are getting a net negative increase. A teacher here in Tennessee told me that one year her raise didn't even cover her increase in insurance premiums. Yet she and thousands of others like her go to work every school day to do the hard work of education children for the betterment of society. They deserve better.

Global warming is back on the agenda -- thanks not only to Al Gore's successful documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," but also as people welter under punishing, record-breaking heat. To get a sense of the local economic impact, here's a report from Rome, Georgia:

This summer’s record-breaking temperatures and arid conditions have area farmers and many business owners looking for some relief.

Even with this weekend’s rainfall, it’s been a brutal summer for area agriculture. Since May, Floyd County has experienced 17 record-tying or record-breaking high temperatures.

Keith Mickler, agricultural agent at the Floyd County Extension Office, said the lack of rain is affecting local crops much more than the high temperatures.

"The drought is what’s got most of the farmers concerned," he said. "Plants can take the heat, but they just don’t take the dry weather well."

Water wars are even a bigger issue downstream in Florida, where towns depending on Atlanta runoff face dry rivers and threaten the area's sharing agreements:

Lately, there hasn't been much water to give. The entire region is withering under a drought. Rivers and streams in Georgia, Alabama and north Florida are running low. Northeast of Atlanta, Lake Lanier --- the main reservoir between Atlanta and the Gulf of Mexico --- is more than 6 feet below full and dropping.

This is exactly the situation at the center of the 16-year legal battle over Lanier and the Chattahoochee River known as the tri-state water wars: How do the three states share water when there isn't enough?

The issue isn't whether any given drought or heat spike is directly related to global warming -- it's that there's a scientific consensus (current administration apologetics aside) that global warming is real, and will surely make such problems more common and more severe in the future.

Public fears about global warming are clearly hitting a nerve. Leaders in Washington seem content to dither with study commissions and foot-dragging, but defenders of the status quo are being more aggressive on other fronts.

For example, clearly alarmed by the declaration by 86 evangelical Christian leaders earlier this year that "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors," a group of "what problem?" Christians -- with the Orwellian name, the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance -- will be holding a press conference in D.C. tomorrow to present "scientific, economic, ethical, and theological evidence" that cutting carbon emissions is a bad idea, and that global warming "may on balance be more beneficial than harmful to humankind."

Tell that to the people of Rome, Georgia and further south. Or to the 59% of the U.S. public who think that global warming demands "immediate or some action" (as opposed to a paltry 28% who want "more research").

A key piece often missing from the immigration debate -- remember that? -- is the human story. People are turned into numbers, and many forget that people labeled as "immigrants" and "aliens" have become real, live members of our communities.

A dispatch yesterday by LA Times reporter Molly Hennessy-Fiske does an excellent job capturing this reality. Examining the aftermath of Arkadelphia, Ark., after a major immigration raid at the local poultry plant one year ago, Hennessy-Fiske (formerly with the Raleigh News & Observer) reveals that, in this quiet Southern town, community ties trump conservative ideology when it comes to the immigration issue. Here's how the story starts:

ARKADELPHIA, Arkansas --- The immigration agents arrived at the Petit Jean Poultry plant just before the 7:30 breakfast break, armed and dressed in khaki uniforms. They went straight to the room where more than 100 Mexican workers in tan smocks were cutting up chicken, then shouted in Spanish for everyone to freeze.

Some workers started crying. A few made quick cellphone calls, alerting relatives to care for children who would soon be left behind. The plant manager watched as 119 workers --- half his day-shift crew --- were bound with plastic handcuffs and taken to a detention center, from which most would be deported to Mexico.

Immigration officials said they were cracking down on document fraud and illegal hiring. But what happened after the raid last July came as a surprise to many people in this conservative Bible Belt region: Instead of feeling reassured that immigration laws were being enforced, many felt that their community had been disrupted.

The Petit Jean workers had come to be more than low-wage poultry processors. They were church friends, classmates and teammates in the local softball league. And so some residents responded to the raid by helping workers fight deportation, driving them to court and writing to lawmakers for help. Others donated money, food and clothing to the families of workers detained or sent back to Mexico.

Now, one year after agents arrived at the poultry plant, the Petit Jean crackdown shows the effects of an immigration raid can reach far beyond the illegal workers and businesses involved. Many residents say they feel sympathetic to undocumented workers and angry at the government.

Read the whole piece here, it's one of the better looks at the reality of the immigration debate "on the ground."

Taking a cue from the ugly national debate over immigrant, a little-noticed story is the spread of local and state ordinances aimed at immigrants. The Daytona Beach News-Journal sums up the trend in an editorial today:

It's a distasteful trend. States and towns across the country are manipulating the law to go after illegal immigrants. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 57 pieces of legislation have passed in more than two dozen states (out of 500 introduced) to restrict or cut off employment, health, housing and other benefits to illegal immigrants. Towns are rewriting trespassing, rental, code enforcement and permitting ordinances to literally exclude illegal immigrants from town and declare themselves -- as one small Cape Cod, Mass., town did -- "not a sanctuary for illegal aliens."

Next Monday, the City Council in Avon Park, a town half-way between Orlando and Lake Okeechobee, is scheduled to vote on just such a far-reaching ordinance, the culmination of a debate that has triggered national publicity and ugly reactions, none of those flattering to the American ideals of inclusion and fairness. Antagonism against illegal immigrants shrouds itself in righteous language: "They" should play by the rules, "they" are destroying the fabric of American life, "they" are taking jobs away from Americans. But it's racial and ethnic prejudice, an attempt to use legalese to discriminate against the country's growing Latino population, and to use illegal immigrants as the emotional wedge.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, it's a good time to stop and reflect: whatever happened to that "dialogue about poverty and race" that the 2005 storms were supposed to inject into the national debate?

In a recent Washington Post column, Michael Fletcher takes us back to August/September 2005 and its aftermath:

Poverty forced its way to the top of President Bush's agenda in the confusing days after Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast and flooded New Orleans. Confronted with one of the most pressing political crises of his presidency, Bush, who in the past had faced withering criticism for speaking little about the poor, said the nation has a solemn duty to help them.

"All of us saw on television, there's . . . some deep, persistent poverty in this region," he said in a prime-time speech from New Orleans's Jackson Square, 17 days after the Aug. 29 hurricane. "That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action."

As it happened, poverty's turn in the presidential limelight was brief. Bush has talked little about the issue since the immediate crisis passed, while pursuing policies that his liberal critics say will hurt the poor. He has publicly mentioned domestic poverty six times since giving back-to-back speeches on the issue in September. Domestic poverty did not come up in his State of the Union address in January, and his most recent budget included no new initiatives directed at the poor.

In many ways, this was the second tragedy of Katrina. First our leaders left Gulf residents to fend for themselves in the 2005 storms, which claimed 2,000 lives. And then the Gulf and its people were left behind again -- the bright visions of Gulf renewal abandoned, the commitment to economic and racial justice taken off the agenda.

Not only is the Gulf still reeling -- 50% of the New Orleans population still hasn't returned because the schools, hospitals, and other basics haven't either. But nationally, poverty is growing too, having risen every year since Bush came in office -- from 31.6 million in 2000 to 37 million in 2004. Personal bankruptcies and home foreclosures are at record levels and rising (especially in the South). One in four jobs pay less than a poverty-level income.

The White House is unapologetic about his lack of interest in tackling these bread-and-better issues, as Bush's press secretary Tony Snow relates:

"Does he often talk about poverty? No," Snow said. "There hasn't been a direct discussion of poverty, but he is focused on eliminating the barriers that stand in the way of people making progress."

Which "people" is he referring to -- energy executives?

Real estate investors looking to cash in on foreclosures note rising foreclosure rates around the South:

A six month housing market analysis reveals Tennessee is moving "up" the list of Top Ten states for mortgage foreclosures for the past six months.

The state ranks seventh for all of 2006, with Georgia coming in first for the year and second for the month of June, according to newly released study from Foreclosure.com.

[..]

According to the Foreclosure.com 2006 Mid-year Market Analysis, Georgia ranks highest among states in foreclosure rates to date in 2006, followed in order by Indiana, Colorado, Michigan, Texas, Ohio, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina and Utah.

Another report says Florida and Georgia are "foreclosure hotspots", and cites what some might consider predatory lending practices as partially to blame:

"This time around, however, the situation is exacerbated by the widespread use over the last five years of exotic mortgage products such as so-called option adjustable rate loans with very low start rates and high negative amortization. People bought homes they really couldn't afford, and now they're losing them as these loans reset to market rates and they can't find affordable refinancing options," Ms. McGee said.

Yet another report cites growing problems with "piggyback mortgages", or so-called "suicide loans":

According to Gill, piggyback mortgages, which are a combination of two loans packaged together and closed simultaneously, represent just one of many non-traditional mortgages that have put homeowners at risk of losing their homes.

Typically for people with little or no down payment, the amount for the first mortgage is set so it does not exceed 80% of the home's value. This allows the borrower to avoid paying Mortgage Insurance (MI). The remaining loan amount is financed as a second mortgage by way of a Home Equity Loan or a Home Equity Line of Credit and "piggybacked" onto the first.

[..]

According to SMR Research, lenders and mortgage brokers whose commissions are based on loan size, have aggressively promoted these loans because the first-lien portion of piggybacks tends to be larger than standard first mortgages.

Gill warns that borrowers with these loans should be ultra concerned because they are concentrated in metropolitan areas with the greatest risk of experiencing a fall in housing prices.

"If borrowers start to go into default in a declining property market, they will be committing financial suicide by having their credit destroyed and still being burdened with a debt well after they lose their homes," said Gill.

Which serves as a reminder that check cashing services and payday/title loans and the like targeted at the working poor aren't the only forms of predatory lending. Middle- and upper-middle-class homebuyers are targets, too. The flip side of that is that consumers need to make themselves better informed so they can make smarter borrowing decisions.

Read the amusing account here. Feel free to make up your own jokes.

At the request of Gov. Kathleen Blanco, the Louisiana Civil Service Commission has raised the minimum wage for all state workers to $6.15 per hour, one dollar more than the federal minimum wage. The new minimum wage will go into effect in August. In her remarks to the commission (full text at the link), Blanco urged the state legislature to raise the state's minimum wage for all workers.

On its way to being passed in the House, the Voting Rights Act renewal was almost gutted by a coalition of Southern legislators. It survived intact and is now on its way to the Senate for approval. Bush indicates he will sign it.

Here is a great analysis of the chicanery that occurred in the process. According to the article, no Democrat voted against the final bill. The names of 33 Republicans who voted against it are inducted into the Voting Rights Hall of Shame.

In addition to the Fall of Ralph Reed, by way of Andy Axel we learn that Alabama has elected its first openly gay legislator: Patricia Todd is the new state representative for part of Birmingham. She's the first white candidate in 20-years in that seat, the first woman, and on track to be the first openly gay legislator.

President Bush addressed the NAACP convention for the first time in his presidency, declaring that racism still exists and urging the Senate to renew the voting rights act:

"I understand that racism still lingers in America," Bush told the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "It's a lot easier to change a law than to change a human heart. And I understand that many African-Americans distrust my political party."

That line generated boisterous applause and cheers from the thousands in the audience, which generally gave the president a polite, reserved reception.

"I consider it a tragedy that the party of Abraham Lincoln let go of its historical ties with the African-American community," Bush said. "For too long, my party wrote off the African-American vote, and many African-Americans wrote off the Republican Party."

[..]

Most of the president's remarks were greeted with smatterings of applause, but many in the convention center stood up to clap when he urged the Senate to renew a landmark civil rights law passed in the 1960s to stop racist voting practices in the South.

"President Johnson called the right to vote the lifeblood of our democracy. That was true then and it remains true today," Bush said.

I'm losing count, but I believe that Bush has now compared himself to Lincoln, FDR, Winston Churchill, JFK, and LBJ. He's positively progressive.

This is in sharp contrast to the same President Bush who declined one of many previous invitations to address the NAACP convention, choosing instead to address the Southern Baptist Convention and calling them "faithful servants" and praying for them while they adopted a policy that "homosexuals can find freedom from this sinful, destructive lifestyle" by accepting Jesus as their savior.

I wonder if Bush's newfound respect for the NAACP has something to do with this? Or this?

As energy interests continue to post record profits, the Wall Street Journal reveals (no link, pay only) that refineries are still collecting tax breaks and subsidies, some getting "hundreds of millions of dollars":

Despite public frustration over high pump prices and flush industry profits, major refining companies are seeking and winning large local tax breaks for their refinery-expansion plans with little political opposition.

The reasons: The Bush administration is encouraging refiners to produce more gasoline to help keep prices down, while local communities fear the companies will take jobs elsewhere if they aren't offered inducements to stay.

It's part of what Greg LeRoy calls The Great American Jobs Scam -- the billions of dollars in give-aways officials hand to corporations for "economic development." For example, here's what Motiva LLA -- a British/Dutch venture involving Shell -- is trying to extract from Port Arthur, Texas, which includes slashing its tax support of schools:

The assortment of incentives means that a project like Motiva's $3.8 billion expansion in Port Arthur, Texas, could result in nearly $700 million in reduced federal tax payments, plus more than $600 million in local abatements. The federal incentives allow refiners to expense 50% of the costs of refinery investments that increase plant capacity by at least 5% or boost production of key products like gasoline by at least 25%. [...]

The refiner has applied for a lower assessment from the Port Arthur Independent School District, one of two major tax-collecting bodies in the industrial East Texas city, said Dan Casey, a partner at Moak, Casey & Associates, an Austin-based consultant retained by the school system. If the tax break is granted, Motiva will pay annual taxes on just $30 million of project costs -- instead of the $3.8 billion total -- during the project's first eight years of operations, a shift that could save the company more than $50 million a year during that stretch under the current tax rate.

And here's what Chevron has tried to get out of hurricane-ravaged Mississippi:

Chevron sought $22 million from the Mississippi legislature this year to support a road expansion that would further the company's proposed refinery expansion in Pascagoula. But the effort died, in part because it started too late in the legislative session and also because of criticism from some circles citing Chevron's high profits.

Chevron hasn't been deterred, though: "Chevron has met with Mississippi Department of Transportation officials since the effort failed," the WSF reports, "and is encouraged by their receptivity, said Chevron spokesman Steve Renfroe."

Ralph Reed, the former darling of the Christian right movement, conceded defeat in his bid for the Republican nomination for Lt. Governor of Georgia at 10 pm last night. As the Atlanta Journsal-Constitution reports,

"Reed left quickly but stopped to say he was pround of the race he ran. He said he had no plans to run for office again right now."

That must have hurt for a man who, just a year ago, was being discussed as a future GOP presidential hopeful. Reed's loss to Casey Cagle was notable not only because it made him the first political casualty of the Jack Abramoff scandal, but also because of how steep and fast Reed's fall from political grace has been.

It was under his leadership in the 1990s that the Christian Coalition became a political powerhouse (this Time magazine cover is from May 1995). As chair of the Georgia GOP in 2002, Reed helped elect the first Republican governor since Reconstruction, took out an incumbent Democratic Senator, gained a majority in the state Senate and made gains in the state House. In 2004, running the Southeast arm of the Bush campaign, Reed delivered 500,000 more votes for the president in GA than he got in 2000. The House went GOP in 2004, too.

Reed's strategy in Georgia -- closely watched around the country -- was to cultivate and deliver "values voters" from the fast-growing suburbs and exurbs around Atlanta. It was a marvelous success in 2002 and 2004 -- but as Hotline on Call observes, it didn't work this time:

It is in those very places [suburbs/exurbs] where [Reed] saw his political career sidetracked last night.

Thanks to an aggressive advertising effort by state Sen. Casey Cagle in the last few weeks of the campaign and similarly aggressive coverage of Reed's candidacy by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Metro Atlanta Republicans decided they could not take the risk of supporting a tarnished candidate. Cagle won the four big counties (Fulton, Cobb, Gwinnett and DeKalb) in and around Atlanta by a combined 19K votes. Add in the further afield exurbs (including Cagle's native Hall Co) and over half of Cagle's margin came from just the Metro area.

The further away from Atlanta, the better Reed seemed to do. He won or broke even in the three most sizable GA locales outside of Atlanta, Savannah (Chatham Co), Augusta (Richmond Co.) and Macon/Warner-Robins (Bibb and Houston Co's), and won a number of scattered rural counties.

Maybe those voters in the Southern 'burbs aren't as solidly in the conservative Christian camp as many suspected. Or perhaps these "values voters" decided Reed didn't represent their values after all.

In the wake of the 2005 hurricanes, experts offered an avalanche of proposals for jump-starting the ravaged Gulf economy. One visionary idea was creating a "Gulf Renewal Corps," targeting federal dollars to rebuilding programs that would put displaced people to work, stimulate the economy, and get the region's infrastructure working again, all in one shot.

But to the current leadership in Washington, the idea of such an active role for government was out of the question. Instead, Congress and the President hurried through legislation focused on letting the unfettered "free market" work its magic -- with the help of billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks, of course.

The result were the much-hyped "GO Zones," which despite being a central piece of the administration's post-Katrina economic strategy, have received little political or media attention. The Institute's Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch project recently published a new report from Sean Reilly sizing up what the GO Zone experiment has -- and hasn't -- accomplished:

"This important bill will help the citizens of the Gulf Coast continue to put their lives back together and rebuild their communities in the wake of the devastating hurricanes that hit the region earlier this year."

That was President Bush talking last December at a signing ceremony for the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005. Hustled through Congress in a mere 10 days, the act provides billions of dollars worth of federally subsidized financing and tax breaks to stimulate reconstruction in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

"With the right tools in their tool box, New Orleanians and our neighbors ... will rebuild and recover and a brighter future will emerge," its sponsor, Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La., told the House shortly before the bill passed 415-4.

But a funny thing happened on the road to economic renaissance. A key feature of the legislation allows Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana to issue up to almost $15 billion of tax-free "GO Zone" bonds on behalf of companies seeking to build or renovate. So far, however, many of the firms seeking to take advantage of the cheap loans are pursuing ventures at best loosely connected to the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Read the rest here.

Here's an interesting article in USA Today that reminds us there are still lingering problems all along the Gulf Coast. In two days, Katrina caused more damage to the Louisiana coastal wetlands than would occur in 20 years of natural erosion. As a result, an important and already endangered economic lifeline is at risk:

Nowhere in Louisiana are the nation's needs and the local population's desires so closely aligned as on the crumbling asphalt ribbon that reaches to Port Fourchon at the state's southern tip. Fourchon supply boats serve the giant Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, 18 miles into the Gulf, which offloads crude oil supplies from foreign tankers, and 75% of all deep-water Gulf oil and gas drilling.

Last year, Hurricane Katrina temporarily shut down most Gulf production and forced the evacuation of the peninsular strip of land that LA-1 traverses, laying bare the nation's dependence on a remote road that connects 16% of all U.S. oil supplies to 50% of the USA's refining capacity. Stranded energy supplies sent consumer prices soaring. The aftershocks rattle markets even now, amid a new hurricane season.

Still, local leaders are struggling to raise $349 million in public and private capital to erect a 2-mile modern toll bridge and elevated 5.5-mile road to the port that would rise high above the boggy peninsula, preserving a steady flow of energy supplies and better supporting local traffic. The investment shortfall runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Combined with what, until now, was a lack of state and federal political will, the deficit underscores the obstacles to post-Katrina rebuilding efforts here in Lafourche Parish and across the Gulf Coast.

Each day, 1,200 heavy trucks barrel down this wisp of road, bearing replacement parts for machinery and groceries for offshore workers. The trucks also transport 20% of Louisiana's seafood — fish, oysters and shrimp — north from Port Fourchon for processing and sale. A 4-foot-diameter pipeline runs on much the same route, filled with crude.

The article also says that the highway is the only evacuation route for thousands of offshore workers and residents. Local officials note that offshore oil producers "pay $4.2 billion a year in royalties to the U.S. Treasury, an amount more than 10 times greater than the sum needed to theoretically rescue LA-1 and offshore energy supplies from southern Louisiana's swamps."

Perhaps Congress should fund this project, instead of the unnecessary $50 billion I-3 project, or the $500 million environmental disaster called North Shore Road in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, or that "bridge to nowhere" up in Alaska.

This article in the Birmingham Business Journal says that bankruptcy rates in some Southern states are among the highest in the nation:

Despite the growth of the Alabama auto industry and other economic gains, the state is reporting bankruptcy rates in 2006 that rank among the highest in the nation.

And with high poverty levels, low job growth and weak consumer protection laws, experts say the state isn't likely to lose its place near the top of the bankruptcy list.

[..]

There is a strong correlation between poverty levels and bankruptcy rates, Norris says, and Alabama's poverty rates have risen in recent years.

In Alabama, 16.9 percent of residents, or about 763,000 people, lived in poverty in 2004, according the U.S. Census Bureau. That's up from 13.3 percent, or 583,000, in 2000.

"When you look at the poverty rate, it's not surprising that we're going to lead the nation in terms of bankruptcies," he says.

Norris notes that seven of the 10 states with the highest per-capita bankruptcies also report poverty rates above the national average.

In Tennessee, for example, which reported the highest rate of bankruptcy in the FDIC report, 15.9 percent of residents were living in poverty in 2004, well above the national rate, which was 12.7 percent. Georgia, the No. 2 state for bankruptcies, reported a 13.1 percent poverty rate.

[..]

Regionally, states in the South and upper Midwest ranked highest for bankruptcies in the recent report. As Norris notes, "you've got a lot of the Rust Belt and the Textile Belt being represented."

The article also notes that although the number of bankruptcy filings are down overall after Congress passed bankruptcy "reforms" last year, because of other factors including state laws in the South that are pro-creditor, and in Alabama's case, a trend towards harsher Chapter 13 filings (state law only protects $5000 of a home's value under Chapter 7), the new laws have not had as much of a "chilling effect" as in other parts of the county.

I'm back from a mostly-restful vacation. Many thanks to R. Neal for covering last week, including his excellent exclusive interview with former N.C. Sen. John Edwards about fighting poverty in America.

To amplify the point, I ran across another good piece waiting in my inbox from Texas columnist Molly Ivins: "The Politics of Greed." If you missed it, check it out -- here are some highlights:

Anyone who doesn't think this is a country where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer needs to check the numbers-this is Bush country, where a rising tide lifts all yachts. [...]

-- One in four U.S. jobs pays less than a poverty-level income.

-- Since 2000, the number of Americans living below the poverty line at any one time has risen steadily. Now, 13 percent-37 million Americans-are officially poor.

-- Bush's tax cuts (extended until 2010) save those earning between $20,000 and $30,000 an average of $10 a year, while those making $1 million are saved $42,700.

-- In 2002, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, compared those who point out such statistics as the one above to Adolph Hitler (surely he meant Stalin?).

-- Bush has diverted $750 million to 'healthy marriages' by shifting funds from social services, mostly childcare.

-- Bush has proposed cutting housing programs for low-income people with disabilities by 50 percent.

A series of related stats-starting with the news that two out of three new jobs are in the suburbs-shows how the poor are further disadvantaged in the job hunt by lack of public or private transportation.

Meanwhile, for those who have been following the collapse of the pension system, please note a series in The Wall Street Journal by Ellen Schultz taking a hard look at executive pension obligations:

-- 'Benefits for executives now account for a significant share of pension obligations in the United States, an average of 8 percent (of large companies). Sometimes a company's obligation for a single executive's pension approaches $100 million.'

-- 'These liabilities are largely hidden, because corporations don't distinguish them from overall pension obligations in their federal financial findings.'

-- 'As a result, the savings that companies make by curtailing pensions of regular retirees-which have totaled billions of dollars in recent years-can mask a rising cost of benefits for executives.'

-- 'Executive pensions, even when they won't be paid until years from now, drag down the earnings today. And they do so in a way that's disproportionate to their size, because they aren't funded with dedicated assets.'

As another Texas populist, Jim Hightower (who has a completely refurbished website) is fond of saying: "It's a class war, and we didn't start it." Molly drives the point home in her last paragraph:

It is so discouraging to watch this country become less and less fair—“justice for all” seems like an embarrassingly archaic tag. Republicans have rigged the “lottery of life” in this country in ways we don’t even know about yet. The new bankruptcy law is unfair, and the new college loan rules are worse. The system has been stacked so that large corporations have an inside track over small businesses in getting government contracts. We won’t see the full consequences of this mean and careless legislation for years, but it starting to affect us already.

Hurricane Katrina was just the exclamation point.

Part of the "culture of corruption" is the undue influence of big money in politics. Despite fits and starts of reform, special interest money dominates the political system -- and it's those with the biggest wallets that benefit.

The scope of big money influence isn't even known to the public, because in many cases it's not reported. For example, Democracy North Carolina just released a report about the role of lobbyists in North Carolina, while the legislature considers reform legislation. Lobbyists donated some $450,000 to state legislators, but their fundraising goes undisclosed. As Democracy North Carolina reports:

As the General Assembly grapples with whether to regulate the fund-raising activities of lobbyists, a new study finds that the house parties and other events hosted by lobbyists for legislators are rarely disclosed on campaign finance reports.

In a search of over 200,000 records covering contributions and expenditures from January 2004 to April 2006, researchers found only 11 cases of legislative candidates acknowledging the liquor, food, invitation letters, and other forms of in-kind donations that lobbyists provide to help fund-raising events. The goods and services come from lobbyists for pork producers, billboards, state lottery proponents and opponents, and education groups - but the total listed is only $5,005.

"The public gets hardly any information about how lobbyists move money into the political system in North Carolina," said Bob Hall of Democracy North Carolina, a watchdog group that monitors campaign finance reports.

"Political observers know that lobbyists are hosting an increasing number of fund-raising events for legislators, caucus committees, and executive branch politicians. But you don't see the lobbyists' spending for those events listed, even though state law says such in-kind donations should be disclosed on the beneficiaries' campaign finance report."

Hall also said a proposed restriction on lobbyists giving more than a total of $4,000 per election to all legislative and Council of State candidates would have, by itself, "a small impact on their clout and even less impact on the money chase that dominates North Carolina politics today."

Less than half the registered lobbyists in 2003-2004 made a donation to a state candidate or party over $100 during that period, Democracy North Carolina found. The top 10 donor-lobbyists gave a total of about $200,000 to legislative candidates, while the next 251 gave $250,000.

A Facing South Exclusive

Facing South has provided extensive coverage of the Katrina disaster and how it exposed the face of poverty in America. More recently, a study of children's wellbeing revealed much room for improvement in the South, and the common denominator was poverty.

Former North Carolina Senator, Presidential primary candidate, and Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards underscored the issue of poverty with his "two Americas" theme during the 2004 presidential elections. Since then, he has been a champion in the fight against poverty through his work as the Director of the Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his One America Committee.

We recently asked Senator Edwards via e-mail about poverty in the South, some of the causes and effects, and what we can do about it. He was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions, and here is what he had to say.

R. Neal, for Facing South: A recent "Kids Count" study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that several Southern states fare poorly in a number of categories such as infant mortality, children's wellbeing, high-school dropout rates, and others. One common theme expressed by state officials and activists was poverty. What are some of the consequences of poverty for families and society in general that maybe aren't so obvious and that people should be more aware of?

Sen. John Edwards We often hear skeptics talk about how costly it would be to make the investments necessary to end poverty. What you don’t hear as much about is how expensive it is for America to have so many citizens mired in poverty. We all pay a price when young people who could someday find the cure for AIDS or make a fuel cell work are unemployed or stuck in low-wage jobs because they didn’t get the education they need.

We all pay a price when our people turn to crime because they have no other hope. A Harvard professor estimates that growing incarceration costs and unemployment of ex-offenders costs 4 percent of our economy, each and every year. And we all pay a steep price when the American dream no longer seems attainable to every citizen.

Facing South: Southern states are consistently ranked near the bottom in education, health care, household income, and other measures of social progress. Is poverty a cause, or an effect? And why is poverty more prevalent in the South?

Sen. Edwards: I think it would be an oversimplification to describe poverty as either a cause or an effect of other problems. We have to adopt a holistic view in order to understand what it means to be poor or to be living at the edge of poverty in America today.

My friend David Shipler, tells a striking story about a single mother he met while researching his book, The Working Poor. She had no savings and low earnings, so she had to live in a drafty wooden house. This exacerbated her son's asthma. That led to two ambulance rides to the hospital. Those trips led to ambulance charges she couldn't pay. Those charges damaged her credit report. And so then she was denied a loan to buy a mobile home. That meant she had to stay in that drafty house. And she had to buy a car from a sleazy dealership that charged her 15 percent interest.

This is just one vivid example of how a combination of forces act together to keep people stuck in a cycle of poverty -- despite their best efforts.

It is important not to overlook rural poverty, which is particularly prevalent in the South. Eighty-two percent of the poorest rural counties in America are in the South. We need to offer tailored solutions to meet the needs of America’s small towns and rural communities. We should invest in community colleges, which are particularly important in rural areas and open rural small business centers to provide investment capital and advice to help entrepreneurs get off the ground.

Facing South: What role does education, or a lack thereof, play in poverty? And why do Southern states consistently rank near the bottom in education spending? Do people in the South not value education as much as they do in other parts of the country, or is there some other explanation?

Sen. Edwards: I believe people in the South value education just as much as other Americans and we will never end poverty in the South, or anywhere else, unless we improve our schools. Today, almost one in three students don’t graduate. On average, minority students enter high school four years behind their peers.

We should start by expanding preschool for three- and four-year-olds, getting good teachers into the places we need them most, and overhauling our outdated high schools.
We can never overcome poverty until we address the dropout crisis in our nation -- not by lowering standards, but by making sure everyone can meet them. We should have "second-chance schools" to lift up former dropouts, offering them one-on-one attention and a chance to earn a diploma at night or at a local community college.

Finally, the skyrocketing cost of college can be an insurmountable barrier for many students. Higher education should be accessible to every American child. I am involved with a pilot program in Greene County, North Carolina, which allows students to go to the first year of college for free if they are willing to stay out of trouble and take a part-time job. This year, we were able to provide students there over $300,000 in aid. That means kids who never before would have dreamed of going to college are not only leaving for school this fall -- but paying for their first year without going into debt.

Facing South: In your view, what are the most important strategic policy initiatives that we should be pursuing at the state and federal levels to fight poverty?

Sen. Edwards: We need to restore the American dream by finding ways to help everyone who works hard and makes smart choices get ahead. First, we need to raise the minimum wage substantially. No one should work full-time and live in poverty. Since the Republicans in Washington won’t raise the minimum wage, we are taking this fight to the states.

It's time to finish the job of welfare reform by giving low-income men the opportunity to work and challenging them to take responsibility for doing so. Welfare reform asked young mothers to join the workforce and gave them help to get there. Millions of poor women benefited, but poor men lost ground during the best economy we've ever had. In America today, there are communities where half the young men are out of work.

I believe that we should create one million "stepping stone" jobs over five years. A good job that will let people work their way out of poverty in the short term, and help them get experience so they can get better jobs in the future.

We also need to give America’s workers a real right to organize. Unions helped move manufacturing jobs into the foundation of our middle class, and they can do the same for our service economy.

There’s a saying -- "income is what you use to get by, but assets are what you use to get ahead." It’s true, and it’s why we should help every working American build their own assets with homeownership tax credits and "Work Bonds," which would match low-income workers’ wages with a tax credit to help jumpstart their savings accounts. And if we are going to help families save, we also need to protect the assets they have by stopping predatory lenders.

Finally, we need a new approach to housing. We need to integrate our neighborhoods economically. The federal government has built public housing in the worst neighborhoods and overlooked the need for affordable housing in the suburbs. These policies cut willing workers off from entry-level jobs, which are often created in the suburbs, far from public transportation. And they keep low-income children far from good schools.

Facing South: What can people do in their own communities to fight poverty?

Sen. Edwards Fighting poverty is a job for government, but it is also a job for all of us in our own communities. I believe our nation is up to this challenge. Hurricane Katrina exposed us to heartbreaking images of extreme poverty but it also reminded us of the extraordinary compassion of the American people -- millions opened their hearts, homes and wallets after the storm.

We need to speak up when we know something is wrong. Let's put poverty on top of the national agenda and pledge to hold our government accountable for ignoring the suffering of so many for far too long. I’ve traveled the country for more than a year, meeting with people who are struggling to get out of poverty. One thing I’ve noticed in these conversations is that they have never had a champion. They have no idea what it’s like to have somebody to speak up for them. All of us must champion their cause.

We must act both locally and nationally to fight for a higher minimum wage and other measures that will improve the lives of low-income families. And we need to get involved when our neighbors are in need. This can be as simple as volunteering your time to be a mentor to a young person or to help build a house for a homeless family. Each of us can make a huge difference.

Facing South would like to thank Senator Edwards for taking the time to share his thoughts on how we can solve the problem of poverty in America. To learn more, and to find out how you can get involved in the fight against poverty, visit One America.

It's official!

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Gov. Mike Easley Thursday signed into law a bill that will increase the state's minimum wage by $1.

House Bill 2174 raises the hourly minimum pay rate from $5.15 to $6.15 per hour and also ties North Carolina's minimum wage to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

If the federal minimum wage is raised, employees in North Carolina will receive whichever wage is higher. The federal minimum wage is currently $5.15 an hour and has not been raised in nine years.

At a news conference Thursday, Easley said the bill is just one step in changing the state's economy.

"We are not trying to build a low-road economy based on low wages and low skill. Those days are gone," Easley said.

Congratulations to everyone in NC who worked hard to get this done. And kudos to the NC legislature and Gov. Easley, who have a far better vision for their state than the Tennessee General Assembly.

See if you can get your head around this. I can't.

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, the African American founder and president of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND) is not willing to blame the Bush administration. Instead, he faults what he calls the "black culture."

"It's not President Bush's responsibility to make us get up and take care of ourselves. That was a political ploy in order to make blacks believe the Republican Party was against them and that they really don't care," Peterson said.

Peterson will moderate the July 26 conference at the Heritage Foundation.

Rev. Grant Storm, who is the Caucasian minister and president of Conservative Christians for Reform, echoed Peterson's view. "The mentality of 'government's going to bail me out. Where's the government?'" is "in the black culture," Storm said. "The mentality is instilled within their churches and in their homes -- of 'the government owes you, the government is your solution, and the government will come and help you.'

"When the government doesn't come and help them, frankly all they do is yap and complain," said Storm, instead of "saying 'Hey, I better go get a job, I better go on my own, I better go find an apartment, I better go take care of myself and my family.

"They are waiting for more FEMA money, they are waiting for more relief money and it ain't coming, or it's coming slow; meanwhile, the surrounding parishes -- the predominantly white parishes -- they are rebuilding on their own, and the same way in the Gulf of Mississippi," said Storm. "Orleans -- they still don't have their flooded cars off the streets."

White parishes and Mississippi residents are rebuilding on their own? Do tell.

In my view, this is an unbelievable insult to the thousands upon thousands of displaced residents who have gotten jobs, found apartments, and are taking care of their families the best way they can on their own while worrying about their homes and whether they will ever be able to return. Not to mention the thousands of needy residents of the Gulf Coast, black and white, who are still waiting on promised relief nearly a year later.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has approved an additional $4.2 billion in funding for Louisiana homeowners affected by Katrina:

HUD and the Louisiana Recovery Authority say the message is simple: Come home.

Officials say the $4.2 billion given to Louisiana to help reside