Orr's platform: End tax incentives

By Jack Betts
Charlotte Observer

Almost 40 years ago, before Bob Orr had finished his undergraduate work and enrolled in law school, Justice Susie Sharp wrote a majority opinion for the N.C. Supreme Court on economic development policy that was the law of the state for decades.

"If ... we are to bait corporations which refuse to become industrial citizens of North Carolina unless the state gives them a subsidy," the public must approve of it first, she wrote.

Chief Justice Sharp had been retired for 16 years before Orr joined the Supreme Court as an associate justice in 1995, but he says his view about the use of public money for private purposes is still more in line with Sharp's 1968 view than that of subsequent majorities on the Supreme Court. In time, they came to view as constitutionally acceptable the use of public tax funds for private companies, as long as there was a demonstrable public purpose.

That's a shift in state policy that Orr, now a Republican candidate for governor next year, would reverse if he gets the chance.

I believe I'll support Bob Orr for governor. Like him, I'm not in favor of all this corporate welfare we have here in NC.