To the editor:
For the first time in decades, North Carolina’s poor, rural counties stand a chance of prosperity. Jim Hunt decided to export our state’s manufacturing jobs, concentrate the poor in the rural counties and create the most regressive property tax system in the United States, requiring the very poor counties to pay exorbitant unfunded mandates supporting programs for the poor, leaving a white-collar state.
This transforms North Carolina into a wealthy-county, poor-county state of affluent agricultural counties, thriving, shining metropolitan areas, resort tourism areas and extremely poor counties devoid of manufacturing, storing and caring for the poorest among us.
The Golden Leaf Foundation has set up a fund to support the recruitment of automobile manufacturing to North Carolina. N.C. is the only state in the Southeast except Florida that does not have automobile manufacturing.
For the first time in decades, we have a contingent in Raleigh that is laser-focused on our economy. We all believe in better schools, better pay for teachers and everyone else, better homes, a better life for our kids and all the other betters one could list. Without jobs and without economic prosperity, it is all bull.
Tom McInnis and Ken Goodman deserve our support. If we want to see our county grow, we have to lay down this political partisanship that has been used by local politicians to support their parties and desert their people.
Have I been critical of one party or another? Yes. The data of the local declining population, negative economic growth, skyrocketing budgets and exorbitant expenditures on pet projects which have proven through the data to have been useless or negative economic stimulators merits criticism.
Based on the criteria of companies such as Kia, Richmond County is the ideal location for manufacturing. Most automobile manufacturers desire to be away from major cities, close to good transportation, have a trainable, inexperienced work force and have reasonable utilities and a favorable tax rate. We have four out of five.
Let’s cease throwing stones and pull together for our community’s future.
David Browder
Rockingham
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