| I’m sure you remember, as I do, the year 2010 when the NCGOP, the Tea Party groups and unaffiliated voters and groups across NC came together to put the NC General Assembly under Republican Party control after 140 years of Democrat rule. It was a stunning defeat but not totally unexpected. Whether it was the Democrat’s incompetent handling of the budget during the Great Recession or the midnight passage of the “Education Lottery” or any other pay to play schemes that the liberals could come up with, we had had enough. Fast forward to 2023. Republicans have approved Medicaid Expansion. Approved deregulating Blue Cross, Blue Shield. Supported casinos in some of our most downtrodden counties. They have even given the green light to developers to hold towns for ransom by threatening to de-annex land to bypass their planning boards.If you didn’t know any better you would think they were Democrats. Or worse. Unbelievably they have now set their sights on NC Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey. It seems they don’t approve of his efforts to run a clean, bribe free organization. First they gave his headquarters to Democrat NC Auditor Beth Wood. Now they are wanting to strip him of the office of Fire Marshal and make it a stand alone appointed position. Never mind that he has increased scores across the board for our rural fire departments. Never mind that there has been no request from any of the departments to make this change. Never mind that this would create a whole new bureaucracy costing taxpayers million of dollars in uneeded and unecessary payroll and office space. None of this makes sense unless you factor in the corruption that seems to have permeated the legislature. What can you do? As of now it appears to be shelved until next year but the money is still in the budget. Get in touch with your legislator and remind them that they are up for re-election next year. Then ask them to strip Section 30-B from the budget bill or pass a technical correction to fix this mistake. We have a damn good Insurance Commissioner in Mike Causey. Let’s all make sure that we do everything we can to shield him from the political shenanigans that are taking place this year in the legislature. It’s sad that I even have to write this article. |
Lee Haywood is a franchise owner for Winzer USA, an MRO supply company based in Plano, TX.
He services industrial and government accounts across NC. Lee and his wife Brenda reside in Summerfield, NC and have been married for 39 years. He considers himself to be quite the dude.