Graham prescribes

meet-and-greet event
By Scott Nicholson
nicholson@wataugademocrat.com

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Graham made a campaign sweep through Boone as part of his quest for the governor's mansion.

Graham held a media “meet and greet” at Boone Drug downtown, covering the issues which he said made him the best candidate for the office. He advocated dropping the corporate tax rate to 5 percent to attract more small- to medium-size businesses, which he said were the key to the state's economy.

He also supports removing the tax on overtime and believes the state should offer incentives and tax credits, particularly in health care, to help businesses grow and be able to offer employees better health benefits.

He said while the state is strong in education and developing intellectual property through its university system, educational power alone wouldn't solve the problems of the state's poorest counties. He said the bottom 20 percent of counties had fundamental problems with their economies, and he'd consider worker retraining, boosting education, reducing the drop-out rate and adjusting tax rates to help those counties.

He also supports economic incentive packages for major corporations but only if they are tied to job guarantees. “That's the only way to hold people's feet to the fire and make sure they're going to do what they say they're going to do,” Graham said.

He doesn't support last year's General Assembly move to give counties more local-option revenues like the transfer tax and quarter-cent addition to the sales tax. He said those options arose through bad government.

“There's a never-ending desire for more money when there's bad government,” he said.

He cited $450 million in mental-health spending and $150 million in transportation spending as areas of government waste, though he advocated increasing spending for the court system and moving a higher percentage of the budget into education.

He said the current mental-health reform effort, creating larger regional management entities, was “rolled out too quickly for the care that was going to be delivered on the ground.” Graham wants to go back to smaller, more local management entities, develop more mental-health hospital beds, and keep services closer to home.

“We shouldn't have to ship a family member across the state for drug or alcohol treatment,” Graham said.

“This is a Raleigh failure, hook, line and sinker.”

Graham said, as governor, he would create a committee made up of mental health professionals and have them deliver a report with recommendations within 30 days. “I figure they already know what they need,” he said.

He said he would develop a state plan for water resources and “change the way we charge for water. We can't ask people to conserve and then raise their rates.”

He said more emphasis should be placed on teacher retention and criticized the federal “No Child Left Behind” legislation. “We should have them act as teachers instead of simply proctoring a test,” Graham said.

He said parents should be more involved in schools and academic progress and said the governor should challenge parents to participate. Children should also be tracked at all levels to help head off potential dropouts, and Graham said money was pumped into early-education programs like More at Four and Smart Start, but those students weren't tracked and given support as they entered higher grades.

“We spend millions of dollars on the front end, but then we take our hands off the wheel,” Graham said. “In some counties, the drop-out rate is as much as 50 percent. They're not going to be successful until they get the drop-out rate down.”

Graham also touted his role in launching a grassroots effort to freeze the gas tax, which he called proof that he was able to encourage different groups to work together. He said highway money could be used at the local level since those maintenance crews would best know the repair needs, and road decisions would be removed from politics. “What's shocking to me is the idea that we need to send more money into a broken system,” he said.

He also wants to make health insurance rates more competitive by allowing groups to join together to create larger risk pools. He said it would also allow people more choice in doctors and services.

“Taking only low-risk people doesn't serve the public,” he said.

Graham, a Raleigh attorney, is competing against Pat McCrory, Bob Orr and Fred Smith for the Republican nomination. Democrats vying to replace Gov. Mike Easley are Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue and N.C. Treasurer Richard Moore. The primary is May 6.