Veteran N.C. Rep. George Holmes of Yadkin County spoke to a recent meeting of the Iredell Republican Men’s Club. Holmes’ district includes several precincts in North Iredell.

Holmes emphasized that he voted against this year’s state budget. He said it was the worst he had seen in his 28 years in the General Assembly. Holmes recited a list of “pork barrel” projects in the budget, which included:

$400,000 for a Teapot Museum

$1,000,000 to establish an equestrian center in Rockingham County

$500,000 grant to the Intercollegiate Athletic Association for tourism and marketing

$100,000 for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Urban League

$50,000 for a Louisburg bicycle path

Last September 13 the federal “assault weapons” ban ended. (The so-called “assault weapons” that had been banned functioned the same as legal semi-automatic hunting rifles, but were designed to look like military weapons.)

Then Presidential candidate John Kerry and other liberal politicians predicted the sunset of the ban would cause violent crime rates to increase.

The mainstream almost unanimously hyped the alleged dangers of ending the ban. An Associated Press headline warned, “Gun shops and police officers brace for end of assault weapons ban.” An internet search found more than 560 news stories that expressed fears about the expiration of the ban.

According to FBI statistics, the nationwide murder rate fell by 3.6 percent in the past year, the first decline since 1999. The seven states with their own “assault weapons” ban averaged a 2.4 percent decline in murders; the other 43 states saw a significantly larger average decline of 4 percent in their murder rates.

The same internet search that found 560 negative stories about the end of the ban produced just one brief news item about the decline in murder rates.

Occasionally we have positive local news to report.

The Monticello Volunteer Fire Department recently received a “Class 6” insurance rating from the state. The improved rating will mean lower homeowner insurance premiums for residents of the department’s service area.

Several other volunteer fire departments have also upgraded their ratings in recent years.

Medicaid fraud by illegal immigrants likely costs U.S. taxpayers many billions of dollars every year.

The U.S. Justice Department reports that 47 states do not require applicants for Medicaid to furnish proof they are U.S. citizens—they just take their word for it. The majority of states do no follow-up to verify the self declarations In some cases illegal aliens have even been encouraged to declare their citizenship status.

Does anyone think that illegal immigrants who broke the law to get into the country are going to tell the truth about their citizenship status?

“As far as I know there has not been any prosecution for anyone lying about US citizenship in order to access Medicaid,” said Jack Martin, special projects director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

Medicaid is primarily a federal program, but the states pay about a third of the cost and have wide latitude in determining eligibility standards, the services that are covered, and fee schedules.

North Carolina’s Medicaid costs are out of line with comparable states. If the state spent the same proportionate amount as Virginia or Georgia, it would save an estimated $630 million to $800 million per year.

N.C. Senate boss Marc Basnight got the General Assembly to appropriate $834,000 for a ferry across Currituck Sound. Annual operating costs are estimated to be more than $400,000. The purpose of the ferry is to transport about 10 students to schools on the mainland.

North Carolina’s ABC ratings system for schools has drawn both praise and criticism. The goal of the program is to increase performance and accountability. Teachers at schools whose students score well on the test receive a bonus.

Over the past few years, pass rates on the ABC tests have increased and the number of “low-performing” schools has decreased. Some critics have questioned how much of this improvement is genuine and how much is due to manipulation of the test scores.

The tests are designed and administered by the state, not by a disinterested outside agency. They have been redesigned several times. This year sixth-grade reading scores slumped for the second consecutive year. The state decided to exclude these scores from the bonus formula, thereby increasing the number of schools that qualified for bonuses.