Under the provided headline "More Federal Cooperation Is Needed To Unleash North Carolina’s Economy," Gov. Pat McCrory offers these thoughts before he heads to Houston on Monday for a governors' Outer-Continental Shelf meeting.

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By Gov. Pat McCrory

To get North Carolina moving forward again, our administration is concentrating on reforms in three fundamental areas: the economy, education and efficiency. We’re making great progress on some complex long-term problems, but on two critical issues – health care and energy – we’re going to need the federal government’s cooperation.

On Monday, I will participate in a panel of Outer-Continental Shelf governors on the need to expand offshore energy exploration. In February during a White House visit, I asked President Obama directly to expand offshore leasing off the coasts of North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina. He told me the issue is being reviewed.

The time for delay is over. It’s time to get off the sidelines and allow the states to exert the leadership that will create thousands of jobs, reduce America’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil and protect the environment. The federal government must form a more cooperative partnership with the states so that more Americans – especially North Carolinians - can get back on the payroll.

There are estimates that opening up the Atlantic shores to energy exploration could create up to 140,000 new jobs during the next 20 years. These are good-paying jobs that will allow families to save and build an economic future.

There’s real-world evidence of energy’s economic contributions as well. North Dakota enjoys the nation’s lowest unemployment rate at 3.3 percent (March 2013). Much of North Dakota’s economic success can be attributed to investments made in energy exploration on private and state lands. Growth has been so robust that energy production has surpassed agriculture as the state’s largest economic sector.

Offshore energy exploration would also provide significant returns to the public sector. Under a bipartisan plan recently introduced in the U.S. Senate, North Carolina would receive at least 27.5 percent of royalties and other energy revenue from lease sales off our coast. An additional 10 percent could be earned by making land-side investments in conservation and renewable energy projects. North Carolina could use the money. We have a long list of needs. Energy revenue could be used for additional investments in education, transportation and health care.

Federal cooperation is vital on another issue that deeply affects North Carolina – Medicaid.

Last week, we received news that Medicaid budget overruns from Gov. Bev Perdue’s administration will total $248 million, twice what was originally expected. The unpredictability of Medicaid costs and its adverse impact on the entire state budget is reason alone for reform.

However, budgetary concerns are not the prime reason we’re overhauling North Carolina’s Medicaid program. We’re pursuing reform so we can take better care of our fellow citizens. Our plan centers on the patient’s well-being, not just physical needs. We would like to provide mental health and substance abuse coverage. Our plan also calls for coordination with social service providers so that nonmedical needs that contribute to the patient’s healing process can be delivered. Our reform goals are simple. We want to do everything we can to get the Medicaid patient healthy sooner and provide him with avenues that will lead to a long-term, healthier life.

To implement this holistic approach, we’ll need a waiver from Washington. I hope the president approves this unconventional approach so we can take care of our Medicaid patients in a caring, comprehensive manner while at the same time reducing costs to the taxpayer.

Medicaid reform and energy are just two issues where the federal government needs to join North Carolina in solving problems that affect people’s everyday lives. I hope the president adopts our view that government must be a partner - not an adversary - to progress.

By working together, we can get North Carolina and the nation back on the right track by simply unleashing the unlimited potential of our people.

This formula has worked before. I guarantee it will work again.

Here's Dwane Powell's take on General Assembly doin's this week:

Christopher J. Conover – a research scholar at Duke University’s Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research, an adjunct scholar at AEI, affiliated senior scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, author of the book American Health Economy Illustrated and a Forbes contributor – takes issue with last week's Point of View piece by Adam Searing on recent comments by North Carolina's Medicaid director.

Read Searing's piece here

What Conover had to say:

Hmmmm

Peter St. Onge of the editorial board at the Charlotte Observer wonders what happened to Pragmatic Pat.
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Long, long ago, in one of his final days as Charlotte’s mayor, Pat McCrory looked out the window of his 15th floor Government Center office, and he swept his hand toward all that had changed in his city.

Uptown had filled out and shot upward, its streets vibrant and busy. There was a new school out there – Johnson & Wales – a promising NASCAR Hall of Fame, an arena that might help bring bigger things. Each had happened, McCrory said, because he had brought together diverse teams of leaders who had different backgrounds and different political philosophies, but a common desire to make their city better.

It was good for Charlotte, and it was good for McCrory, and when the book on Mayor Pat was finished, it told how a Republican leader got things done in his New South city. It was the story of Pragmatic Pat.

So now he’s governor, and McCrory would surely like to keep that image intact. He’s called himself a moderate “Eisenhower Republican,” and when the New York Times featured him in a January front page article on GOP soul-searching, he emphasized problem solving and cooperation, not ideology. It’s the McCrory that moderates embraced last November.

So what’s our new governor done, less than two months in?

Read the rest
here

Commercial writer gives his side to lottery advertising issues of Gov. Pat McCrory

This is from Alexandra Sirota, director of the N.C. Budget & Tax Center:

Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger explains in a letter to the editor, printed on tomorrow's editorial page and online now, why Republicans are rejecting the Medicaid expansion:

Editorial page editor Ned Barnett interviewed new DENR Secretary John E. Skvarla III this week. Here's a look at what they talked about:

Gov. Pat McCrory's office has sent the following letter to newspapers across the state in response to the controversy over the comments he made questioning the value of certain liberal arts degrees in today's economy.