Taking ‘a Fresh Look’ at North Carolina’s Budget

Art Pope’s appointment as Deputy Budget Director in the new McCrory administration drew the attention of Bloomberg, which contributed this story on the possibilities of the shift in power in Raleigh:

For more than two decades, North Carolina businessman Art Pope advocated free markets and limited government. Now he’s in a position to turn his views into reality.

Pope, 56, chairman of Variety Wholesalers Inc., an operator of discount retail stores, was appointed as budget director by new Governor Pat McCrory. Pope, a long-time Republican donor, took office this month after elections in which his party took control of the governorship and legislature for the first time in more than a century.

Friends and foes said Pope’s appointment suggests McCrory, a former Charlotte mayor, will turn the state in a new direction by embracing cuts in the income tax and budget, moves long advocated by Pope and research groups he created and funds.

“It really sent a signal,” said Dallas Woodhouse, state director of the North Carolina chapter of Americans for Prosperity, the Arlington, Virginia-based organization formed by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, which favors spending and regulatory restraint. Pope was a founding national board member.

“We’re going to see a major overhaul of state government, a major overhaul of the tax code,” Woodhouse said. “The corporate income tax will disappear. The personal income tax will be cut at least in half.”