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Publisher's Pen: What Hope Mills needs now is LOVE, SWEET LOVE!

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Tuesday, 01 October 2024

Written by Bill Bowman

Last week, I had a refreshing and long-overdue conversation with Jesse Bellflowers, the Mayor of the Town of Hope Mills. He and I go back decades to his early days at Fayetteville Technical Community College, where he continues to serve as FTCC’s Chair of the General Business Administration.
However, on this day, I’ve never seen him so excited, proud, and enthusiastic about the growth and positive dynamics taking place in the Town of Hope Mills. Hope Mills is one of the fastest-growing municipalities in North Carolina, with a population rapidly nearing 20,000. Bellflowers and his Board of Town Commissioners have the monumental task of managing the town’s breakneck growth in residential population and the influx of much-needed economic development. Maintaining a healthy balance of progress with Hope Mills’s rich history, heritage, traditions, and charm is even more challenging.
I saw and heard Jesse’s excitement as he articulated the progress and achievements he and the town staff have accomplished since he took office. Without a doubt, Jesse loves and is dedicated to Hope Mills.
Quality of life and the support for locally owned businesses and incoming industries remain his highest priorities but are also the most significant challenges. The realization is one cannot stop progress. The 295 extension is nearing completion and Exit 41 is being developed and expanded. With more and more families seeking homes in communities with small-town charm and abundant amenities, Hope Mills is the premium destination.
Bellflower’s perseverance and fortitude are impressive. However, despite the many accomplishments now enjoyed by a prosperous Hope Mills, Bellflowers and the town continue to feel the wrath of about a dozen resident malcontents who are adamantly against any growth or progress to the community.
They would prefer to freeze Hope Mills in a nineteen-sixties Time Warp. In past Up & Coming Weekly articles, I identified these vocal and disgruntled antagonists as Social Media Trolls since they prefer social media as their communication weapon of choice.
Social media allows them anonymity to lie, slander, and criticize the municipal programs, policies, elected officials, and town staff that they disagree with. These unhappy few are always causing problems and never providing solutions or constructive criticism.
However, they have the loudest voice via social media and the internet. And, while Mayor Bellflowers believes in open government, transparency, and public input, Hope Mills finds itself defenseless against this corps of discontents. The truth be known, without effective media communication vehicles (TV, Radio, local newspapers) to convey accurate Hope Mills town news, municipal updates on projects, introduce new programs, promote upcoming events, or tout Hope Mills celebrations and achievements, it isn’t easy to communicate Hope Mills progress to its residents.
Without local media, Hope Mills businesses and organizations become collateral damage because they cannot advertise, market, or promote their products and services to Hope Mills residents. Hope Mills would benefit significantly from a positive campaign like SHOP LOCAL-SHOP HOPE MILLS! The good news is Mayor Bellflowers realizes this and is working hard to make Hope Mills all it can be by meeting with residents and businesses and establishing higher expectations.
I appreciate Jesse Bellflowers coming by to share his vision and leadership strategy for the future of Hope Mills with me. I’ve always been a Hope Mills fan. It’s a beautiful community full of history, heritage, arts, culture, recreation, and gracious Southern Hospitality.
We hope the Mayor and town leadership rediscover the proper voice (media) to broadcast and tout Hope Mills’s amenities, successes, progress, and contributions to its residents. They had it once in 2018. And it worked! For 28 years, we have been Cumberland County’s hyper-local community newspaper for ALL municipalities. It’s what we do. Cumberland County can never have enough “good news!”
Thank you for reading Up & Coming Weekly.

(Photo: Bill Bowman, left, publisher of Up & Coming Weekly community newspaper, and Hope Mills Mayor Jesse Bellflowers, right, discuss the growth, achievements, and vision for the Hope Mills community. Photo by Linda McAlister)

Meanwhile on Earth Two...

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Wednesday, 25 September 2024

Written by Pitt Dickey

Did you ever feel like you woke up on the wrong side of the Matrix? Our current year 2024 keeps dropping hints something is happening here, but what it is ain’t exactly clear.
You don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones? Just when you think that things can’t get any weirder, they do. Recall the words of the late great philosopher Hunter S. Thompson: “When the going gets weird, the Weird turn pro.” People of Earth: Time to give up your amateur status and turn pro. The photo with this column shows the door to Earth Two. You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond is another dimension- a dimension of sight and sound, a dimension of mind.
We have entered Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass Zone leaving our old pal Earth One behind. We have just crossed over into Earth Two.
Recent weeks have been jam packed with Weirdness. Let us ponder Earth’s recent transformation. The Hopi Native American tribe has a word for what we are experiencing: “Koyaanisqatsi” which in Hopi means “Life out of balance.” The scales are out of whack.
Our first clue was the sudden prominence of the word “Weird” when applied to the Republican candidates for national office. Six months ago, ‘weird’ was a wallflower of a word. You did not hear it very often. It was as unpopular as gluten. Now it is everywhere.
Like Petula once sang, weird was a sign o’ the times. Dick Cheney endorsed Kamala Harris for President. The Fraternal Order of Police endorsed a multiple felon for President.
Yet another school shooting took place. The usual excuses for school shootings were rolled out, too soon to do anything, thoughts and prayers, Second Amendment rights. Guns are people too. Yada Yada. The once proud Boeing company stranded two astronauts in space.
Cumberland County landed a Titanium recycling plant by promising to issue $1.3 billion in bonds through the county’s Industrial Facilities Financing Authority. County taxpayers allegedly will not be liable for the $1.3 billion if the company defaults. Who would be liable for repaying the bonds if default occurs? Don’t ask too many questions.
Sounds like free money. Sounds almost too good to be true. Nah, it's just weird free money.
Over in collegiate gridiron news, the NIL money is flowing like wine. The ACC added two California teams and a Texas team to its roster. Clemson and Florida State want more NIL money and are seeking a divorce from the ACC. It turns out that NIL money ain’t cheap. New dollars must be found. Over at UNC, there is serious talk about replacing the Dean Dome resulting in fewer seats but more luxury boxes to keep up with the Joneses.
The UNC Board of Governors may ultimately consider selling the Old Well, canceling all academic classes, firing the professors, turning the dorms into luxury condos, and putting its lab equipment on EBAY to raise money to pay for better NIL fine young student-athletes in football and basketball for UNC Inc. Carolina may sell naming rights to UNC to some High Tech Billionaire.
How does The University of Zuckerberg at Chapel Hill sound? It is high time to stop wasting money on academics and use those funds for sports betting.
The final ticket punched in the transformation to Earth Two was the warning that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating the pets of the local people. Never in Earth One history has a candidate for President announced in a televised Presidential Debate that: “They’re eating the dogs—the people that came in ---they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
A whirlwind of pushback resulted that his claim was false and likely insane. Mr. Trump then tripled down to add water birds to the list of animal sushi being consumed alleging immigrants are also eating Ohio geese from the parks.
This timely Earth Two warning triggered me to think about what Martin Niemoller once said in a different context. It can be slightly modified to save our pets and waterfowl.
“First they came for the dogs. I did not speak out because I wasn’t a dog. Then they came for the cats, and I did not speak out because I wasn’t a cat. Then they came for the geese, and I did not speak out because I wasn’t a goose. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.” Only you can prevent murder most fowl.
As our buddy Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark said: “The rest is silence.”

(Photo courtesy of Pitt Dickey)

JD Vance and me

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Wednesday, 25 September 2024

Written by D.G. Martin

Writing in the Sept. 5 Chicago Tribune, columnist Steve Chapman explained how “JD Vance keeps proving he's a terrible choice for VP.”
Chapman wrote, with tongue in cheek, “Whatever his many failings and outrages, you have to give Donald Trump credit for picking a sound running mate--someone with experience in government, a mild temperament, a belief in democracy and the backbone to stand up to Trump himself. Unfortunately, that was eight years ago, when Mike Pence joined the Republican ticket.
“This year, Trump chose JD Vance, who is notable in all sorts of ways that don’t put him in a flattering light. His history of misogynistic remarks and his abrupt conversion from fierce Trump critic to fawning Trump toady only underline why he is one of the worst vice-presidential choices of the past century.
“The first requirement of a running mate should be the capacity to step into the most powerful office in the world on a moment’s notice, as several vice presidents have done. For Vance to be in that position would be like the office intern taking over as CEO. At 40, he has held only one political office, U.S. senator, and for less than two years.
Preparation for the presidency doesn’t get much more minimal.
“Pence had spent 12 years in Congress and four years as governor of Indiana. Vance is even less qualified than Sarah Palin, who had been a small-town mayor and governor of Alaska before John McCain elevated her to national prominence in 2008.
“Vance’s Kleenex-thin resume matters even more than usual because at 78, Trump is the oldest presidential nominee ever. He has a far higher chance of dying in the next four years than Kamala Harris, who is 59.
“Vance has gotten little scrutiny for his inexperience because he has gotten so much for his strange comments about women--sneering at ‘childless cat women,’ claiming that professional women without kids are on a ‘path to misery’ and apparently agreeing with an interviewer who said that helping to raise grandchildren is ‘the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female.’”
I have mixed feelings about these condescending comments about Vance because he and I share some important common experiences.
JD became famous in 2016 as the author of “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.”
Some of my friends thought I would be interested in Vance because he, like me, is a graduate of Yale Law School. Neither JD nor I are typical Yale Law grads. Although many Yale law students are graduates of Ivy League undergraduate colleges, JD and I graduated from non-Ivy League colleges: JD from Ohio State and I from Davidson.
Both of us had served in the military before entering law school.
Like JD, I wrote a book shortly after law school. His was a best seller. Mine, about the federal regulation of resort real estate sales, sold very few copies, but it helped establish my legal credentials.
There are other similarities. Both of us use initials rather than complete first names: he as JD, and I as D.G. The D in both our names stands for David.
Both of us spent a significant amount of time growing up in or near Appalachia, he in Kentucky and I in Bristol, Tenn.-Va. We both worked for short times in law firms in Ohio.
I ran for the U.S. Senate and lost. JD won his U.S. Senate race on his first try.
We may be the same in some ways, but very different in others.
For instance, in growing up, I had the full support of a great family and community, while JD had to contend with an unstable family in a struggling community.
As a result, I think we, including the government, should encourage and support strengthening our families and communities.
JD, on the other hand, gives himself credit for his success and resists supporting government efforts at community building.
Notwithstanding our similarities, we are going to differ on many important political and social questions for the rest of our lives.

Federal funds are going away

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Wednesday, 25 September 2024

Written by John Hood

One of the most predictable crises of modern times is the implosion of America’s federal finances.
The basic math is inescapable. As recently as 2008, total federal debt held by the public was less than 40% of gross domestic product. Today, that ratio is just shy of 100%. If interest rates stay perpetually below 4%, the ratio will rise to 236% over the next three decades. If interest rates rise to 5% or higher, the debt-to-GDP ratio will surpass 300% by 2054.
In that (likelier) scenario, wrote Manhattan Institute senior fellow Brian Riedl in a recent cover story for Reason magazine, debt service will consume nearly all federal taxes collected. “There would be no tax revenues left to finance any federal programs.”
Obviously, that is not going to happen.
I know you’ve seen or read many strident denunciations of Washington’s fiscal recklessness. Some of them probably came from me! But that’s not my purpose here. Whether we like it or not, and regardless of how much blame we assign to political actors past and present, the reality is that no country can afford to run $1 trillion to $2 trillion budget deficits in perpetuity.Let’s be real. They are not going to decommission the United States Navy, sell off all federal parks, and stop paying all Social Security and Medicare benefits. And they are not going to close all or even most of the budget gap with tax increases. Even confiscating every penny of the assets of billionaires and multi-millionaires couldn’t fund the federal government for more than a short time — and that wouldn’t be possible in a free society, anyway.
“At most,” Riedl estimated, “1% to 2% of GDP in new taxes could be raised from higher earners and corporations before their tax rates reach revenue-maximizing levels and the economy begins to capsize.” Keep in mind that federal deficits are already running at 7.5% of GDP and will rise to at least 14% by 2054.
So, here’s what is likely to happen — and why North Carolina legislators, executives, and local officials need to get ready.
First, Washington will be forced to restrain spending on the largest and fastest-growing programs in the federal budget: entitlements. Congress will apply significant means-testing to Social Security benefits, either by changing the income-replacement formula for beneficiaries with above-average incomes or taxing their benefits more. As for Medicare and Medicaid, they’ll means-test the former and, for both, pay medical providers less for services.
Remember last year when state leaders said the federal government would cover 90% of the cost if North Carolina expanded Medicaid? Forget about it. There is zero chance Washington will keep reimbursing the medical costs of the relatively healthy expansion population.
Second, everything that isn’t defense spending or entitlements will be slashed to the bone. That includes transportation. Local officials in the Charlotte region, for example, are reportedly counting on billions of federal dollars to help defray the cost of new rail-transit lines. Forget about it. The same goes for roads, airports, water and sewer lines, and other infrastructure around the state. If North Carolina governments don’t finance such projects, they won’t happen.
Third, about 40% of North Carolina’s state budget consists of federal funds. In addition to Medicaid and transportation, these dollars fund a wide array of development projects, social services, and public assistance programs. Our counties and municipalities also receive federal grants for various purposes. Washington will be compelled to cut back here, as well. Think we can avoid this outcome by aggressive lobbying, or by slavishly reelecting our congressional delegation so they gain enough seniority to keep the spigots flowing to North Carolina? Forget about it.
The time to plan for all this isn’t decades into the future. It’s right now.

Editor’s Note: John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His latest books, Mountain Folk and Forest Folk, combine epic fantasy with early American history (FolkloreCycle.com).