You can bet that if pro-business policies are working in a state then somewhere liberals are seething. That place is Raleigh, North Carolina. Today will be the 12th Monday where liberal protestors descend upon the Capitol building to protest. “Thom Goolsby, an outspoken GOP state senator, has jokingly dismissed the protests in Raleigh as ‘Moron Mondays’ and predicted that they would fade in the weeks ahead,” writes Stephen Moore at the Wall Street Journal and continues:
This past Monday marchers were waving signs that read “Justice for Trayvon Martin,” “Stop Fracking in North Carolina,” and “Vouchers Destroy Public Schools.” In recent weeks, demonstrators were out in force demanding abortion rights. On July 2, the state Senate passed a bill requiring health regulations and certified doctors at abortion clinics, a requirement that has been denounced by pro-choice activists as an assault on women. Gov. Pat McCrory has said he would veto that bill, and the state’s House of Representatives has since passed a revised bill that will now head back to the Senate.
Mostly, however, these protests are about money. The Civitas Institute, a conservative think tank in North Carolina, recently published an analysis of the financial statements of the left-wing groups sponsoring these rallies, such as the Community Development Initiative and the Institute of Minority Economic Development. It found they have collected about $100 million in state grants, loans and contracts. No wonder they’re enraged over GOP lawmakers’ attempts to rein in spending.
One common complaint is that the state is passing up free money by rejecting Medicaid expansion. But many financially pinched states—including Georgia, Alabama, Utah and Texas—are doing so, not because they’re coldhearted but because while the feds pick up the full tab in the first several years, eventually the states will have to pay even more money into a broken system that is already sapping state budgets.
