North Carolina tends to vote Republican at the Federal level, but Democrats control the governorship and both houses of the legislature. Under the administration of the current governor, North Carolina’s tax burden has risen to the highest of any state in the South.

Republicans hope 2008 will be the year they regain the governorship. It is widely assumed that N.C. Sen. Fred Smith will be a candidate for the office. Many political observers believe he is the front-runner for the GOP nomination.

Smith is currently serving his second term in the state Senate, and previously served as a Johnston County Commissioner. He is an attorney, but is also a farmer and entrepreneur who founded a successful homebuilding business that provides about 700 jobs.

Local Republicans recently had an opportunity to get acquainted with Smith. As featured speaker at the June 15 meeting of the Iredell Republican Men’s Club, he made a near-flawless presentation without standing behind the podium and without the use of notes.

Quoting Ronald Reagan, Smith said that most citizens wanted government to spend their tax money as if it were their own family money. “Every dollar spent by government is a dollar that can’t be spent in the private sector.”

The state had a surplus of over two-thousand million dollars this year. Smith maintained that surplus should have been used to roll back recent tax increases and provide relief for counties. Instead, the Democrat majority in the state Senate passed a budget that increased spending by ten percent.

North Carolina is one of only two states that bills counties for a portion of the state’s share of Medicaid. Smith said the state should have used part of the surplus to eliminate this burden. That would allow counties to lower property taxes and still have more funds for school construction and other uses.

[Ed. Note: Iredell County’s share of Medicaid is projected to be over $6 million in FY 2006-07. This expense adds more than four cents per hundred-dollars valuation to the county’s tax rate.]

State government cannot do everything, Smith asserted. It needs to focus on its core functions, such as education and roads, and reduce spending on non-essential items.

We need to do five things, Smith said: (1) provide tax relief for individuals and businesses; (2) make sure government regulations don’t unnecessarily burden businesses; (3) build and improve roads; (4) deal with the problem of illegal immigration by securing our borders; and (5) protect private property rights. We need to guarantee the state cannot seize private property to sell to private developers, as the Supreme Court’s recent Kelo decision allows.

Smith said we need to make sure “West-coast values” never become North Carolina values. He is in favor of amending the North Carrolina Constitution to define marriage as being between one man and one woman.

The local mainstream press was informed of Smith’s appearance, but did not cover the event. The Mooresville Tribune did run a brief notice of the meeting.