Why I Am Considering Leaving North Carolina

Rejecting Medicaid expansion is a state-level extension of the House Republicans' aim to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The North Carolina legislature is also trying to replay - and influence -- presidential elections by requiring voter ID, cutting back on early voting, eliminating same-day voter registration, and making it harder for former felons to recover voting rights. There's even a proposal to slap a tax penalty on the parents of college students who vote where they go to school, rather than at home - a naked attempt to suppress youth turnout. The legislature wants to make it hard enough for the young, the poor, and minorities to vote that it will be years before a repeat of 2008, when Barack Obama barely carried the state.

The politics of the 47 percent, the 1 percent, and the 99 percent is also getting replayed in the states. North Carolina's legislature is working to shift the state's tax burden in a regressive direction, cutting income taxes, especially on the wealthy, and expanding the state's sales tax.

The same goes for climate change and other environmental issues. Seemingly agreeing with Mitt Romney that trying to do something about climate change is just human arrogance, North Carolina has adopted a law that effectively bans acknowledging climate science, requiring all official projections of sea-level rise to be based on historical data (most from before serious warming began) rather than scientific forecasts. The legislature is working to fast-track fracking and embrace offshore oil drilling. It's also looking to repeal state support for renewable energy -- oh, and to impose an extra tax on hybrid-car drivers because they don't consume enough gasoline. (Will bicycle commuters and walkers be next?)

Abortion rights, so important in 2012, are also on the block in state politics. North Carolina has already required a waiting period before an abortion and mandated ultrasound viewings during pre-abortion counseling. Now it's considering the kinds of burdensome rules that are intended to make abortion clinics impossible to operate, like requiring doctors to remain with the patient throughout her recovery period, and restricting the distance from their home hospitals where doctors can perform abortions.

Wow! mr. glitterbag is very annoyed. Even in the late 70's North Carolina was considered one of the progressive southern states. Education was uber important, great universities. We both know very old people who still live in the late 40's and haven't been able to overcome old ways. Sad if the old ways are what the younger folks want as well.
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