"A souring economy in North Carolina received another piece of bad news yesterday, with the jobless rate hitting a nearly five-year high of 6.6 percent in July, the N.C. Employment Security Commission reported." (Craver, Richard, "N.C. Unemployment at 5-year high of 6.6%," Winston Salem-Journal, August 16, 2008)
- North Carolina's unemployment rate is at its highest peak since 2003.
- Barack Obama will try to blame George Bush, John McCain, and other Republicans for North Carolina's struggling economy but voters in North Carolina are smart enough to know the truth. With Democrat Mike Easley in the Governor's mansion and Democrats controlling both houses of the General Assembly, it is the Democrat leadership in North Carolina that is to blame for local troubles.
- With an education system that is failing to graduate 1 in 3 North Carolina high schoolers, a crumbling and neglected infrastructure, and the highest tax rate on business of any state in the Southeast, it is Democrat policies that have robbed the state of jobs in an already struggling economic environment.
- Republican Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina has been quoted as saying, "The best marketing tool that South Carolina has for recruiting new business ... is North Carolina tax rates."
- The last thing North Carolina needs is Barack Obama as president with a high tax agenda that will further harm businesses in North Carolina, particularly small businesses.
- Because many small businesses file their taxes as individual income earners, Obama's tax increases that are only supposed to impact the rich will hit North Carolina small businesses hard. Small businesses create more than 8 in 10 new jobs in NC and Obama's tax increases will cripple job creation here.
- Obama does not have the experience to understand North Carolina's economy and he lacks the judgment and the will to lead the state in a new direction.
