- Hi, I'm Mark Rotterman.

Coming up on Front Row, Americans begin to rollback mask mandates.

We'll discuss a new CBS poll on former President Trump's impact on the GOP and should North Carolina consider eliminating the state income tax, next.

- [Announcer] Major funding for Front Row was provided by Robert L. Luddy.

Additional funding provided by Patricia and Koo Yuen through the Yuen Foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

And by... Funding for the Lightning Round provided by Boddie-Noell Foundation, NC Realtors, Mary Louise and John Burress, Rifenburg Construction and Helen Laughery.

A complete list of funders can be found at PBSNC.org/FrontRow.

[upbeat music] ♪ - Welcome back, joining the conversation, Mitch Kokei with the John Locke Foundation, political analyst Joe Stewart, Donna King, Editor-in-Chief of Carolina Journal and former state Senator Bob Rucho.

Donna, why don't we begin with the status of mask mandate here and around the country.

- Absolutely, we're seeing a trend across the country including in Democrat-run states, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut all rolling back at least easing mask restrictions in some cases for school students too.

Well, that materialized this week here in North Carolina.

The legislature passed what they call the Free the Smiles Act which would put that decision right on parents to whether or not children should mask in school.

Simultaneously, almost simultaneously, Governor Roy Cooper had an announcement.

He encouraged local communities to start reconsidering mask mandates, lifting them for schools and their local communities.

So we're seeing North Carolina while not leading in this is certainly seeing that train coming, seeing that trend building.

And then most recently Wake County Schools, which is the county surrounding the capital and North Carolina's largest school district, sent an email to parents Friday morning saying they're going to probably start lifting that mask mandate in the coming days.

So it really is a trend heading into the spring and I know it's to the great relief of a lot of parents who say, look, my child's medical and health autonomy is in my hands, in their hands and it's not in the hands of the government.

- Joe, are officials making political calculations now, it's no longer about the science?

- No, I think absolutely.

I mean, we can say without doubt that the pandemic has been the kerfuffliest kerfuffle that we've ever had.

- [Mark] First this time this year, kerfuffle.

- Well, it's that big, Mark.

[Mark laughs] It's that big.

But this is one of those issues that became political in the midst of the pandemic and public health officials trying to identify ways to forestall the spread of the virus.

I do hope that this begins the discussion of other important matters before North Carolina's General Assembly.

We have an issue with regard to remote and online notarization, which was a function of the pandemic.

We needed to be able to have documents notarized.

The General Assembly extended or created an emergency order to allow it and allowed it to lapse, it needs to be extended.

But there are plenty of other things related to the pandemic that are lessons learned that we should take action on.

I'm hoping we're turning the page and that masks can be put to bed and these other issues can be addressed.

- Mitch, there are some studies that show that masking hurts early childhood development.

- Well, certainly among the youngest kids, but most of the studies that have come out have shown that it's a net negative for the youngest kids.

And that's why so many parents have been so adamant about this.

They're seeing the negative impact that it's having on their children to be in masks all day long in the time that they're in school.

I think one of the most interesting things about this development to me has been that some members of the media have been perplexed because they'll say to the officials who are rolling back these mandates, "But isn't the science, aren't the evidence "of cases still showing us a lot of COVID cases?"

And the politicians are saying, well... We're just getting rid of the mandate.

So basically it's showing that it really is a political calculation, not to do with the science.

- Bob, weigh in here, please.

- Well, I think the point Mitch makes is clear.

The number of infections, the number of deaths are as high or higher than they were before the mask mandates were put in.

So the question you ask yourself, is it public health or is it politics?

And I think politics is the answer.

- Donna, close this out in about a minute.

- Well, I think that we do still have a little bit of probably a little controversy coming about this.

Our fear is dramatically entrenched in a lot of families who now worry.

The good news is that all of these school districts are not banning masks in any way.

They're making them optional.

So if you feel your child is safer in a mask, put them in a mask.

Again, that it what we're talking about is parent control over this.

But statistically, still about 50% of in this case Democrats say that they think you have a 20% likelihood of being hospitalized if you get COVID.

So some of those numbers, the real numbers about infection rates and hospitalization rates, your chances of becoming hospitalized, they really need to be more publicized.

- Okay, any final thoughts, Mitch?

- Yeah, I would say that one of the things that we have to keep in mind is this has all been about parental choice.

It's not about you have to wear a mask or you can't wear a mask.

Let the parents make the choice for their kids.

- Okay, I wanna move on.

I wanna talk about an interesting CBS News poll about President Trump and his impact on the GOP, Joe.

- Yeah, CBS News did a poll about 2500 people nationwide back in early February, the 8th or the 11th.

The most interesting thing I think as a starting point, there was a famous quote from Ronald Reagan about the eleventh commandment was do not attack other Republicans.

And it was in the context of his 1966 run for governor in California.

Interestingly enough in this poll, the question was asked among the Republican portion of the sample, what should we do to Republicans who are "disloyal" to Donald Trump?

48% of the respondents said nothing, nothing should be done to people that are disloyal to President Trump.

42% of those Republicans said, well, we should support whomever's running against him in a primary.

This is an interesting dynamic within the Republican Party where Republican candidates will want to feel as though they have the support of Trump voters within the base of their party, but to win general elections may need crossover voters.

- They liked the policies Trump had.

- Yeah, so to some extent, the current governor of Virginia who won on the basis in large part of having gotten the endorsement of Donald Trump but not having to have Donald Trump in the state campaign with him.

I think that's what this poll shows.

One of the things that jumped out at me, they asked people what would be the most compelling reason you could come up with for Donald Trump to run for president again in 2024?

36% of people under the age of 30 said just purely the entertainment factor of having him as a candidate for president again.

So I think there's a clear dynamic in current American politics specifically within the Republican Party but generally in our politics that Donald Trump is this phenomena and how politicians deal with that.

This poll I think shows there's a lot of diversity of opinion about what you do to say you've got Trump's support, but you don't want the downside risk from some voters feeling like you're too aligned with him.

- Mitch, there is some slippage in this poll though for Trump to run again?

- Yeah, I think the numbers have gone down because I think people look at it and say, do they wanna win and can Trump win?

And that's one of the calculations.

I think the other interesting thing to me about this poll is that there were some who feared that once Donald Trump won that the Republican Party would be a party only of Trump and you had to be loyal to Trump.

And there were some people who said, well, look, we like what he's done, we like what he did with the courts, we like some of his policies, that doesn't mean that it has to be completely devoted to one man.

And I think you're seeing more and more of those people saying, look, let's take the good from Trump and try to get rid of what we didn't like about him.

- GOP voters do wanna move, Donna, away from and get off rerunning the last election.

- I think so and I think what we're really seeing is that while the GOP has become a much larger tent with Donald Trump's arrival on the political scene and having more folks in there is better, that populist vote that may not have been active before, it's important.

But Republicans are really saying that we wanna focus on the big things, the economy, inflation, debacle in Afghanistan, you name it, the real policy problems that they're seeing-- - About the future, they don't wanna rerun the past.

- That's exactly right and I think that that's what we're seeing and that's what they're encouraging of course other members of the Republican Party and some candidates to really focus on.

What are the policy things that these voters care about and what impacts their kitchen table?

- Bob, what about your thoughts?

What struck you about this poll?

- Well, again, the issues will ultimately go back, the issues will be what will determine the election, for sure.

But there are a lot of voters out there, Republican, unaffiliated, Republicans and Democrats that really believe that America First policy actually was positive for America, especially after what we've seen in the last year.

But it'll be very interesting to see whether Trump's endorsement will actually carry these candidates over the line.

- Yeah, we'll see that in North Carolina, right, Joe?

- I think it will be a factor here in North Carolina as the Senator made allusion to.

I mean, I think some part of this is the perception of Donald Trump's presidency.

Overwhelmingly people supported the policy but when asked this question, what about the way he conducted himself, even Democrats were a little more skeptical about wanting to see a return of that.

So some of it may be candidates here in North Carolina and across the country espouse a Trump oriented policy set without feeling like they're getting the downside from the other parts of his personality.

- We gotta move.

I want to talk to Mitch about our state income tax.

Eight states have it.

Should North Carolina be on the bandwagon?

- Yeah, eight states have no income tax at this point.

- That's right.

- And New Hampshire looks like it's getting to be.

- Thanks for clearing that up.

- Over the next five years, New Hampshire could become the ninth and it looks like Louisiana is on a path.

Although it would take probably another decade before they'd get to zero.

North Carolina has had an income tax for about a century now and at its peak at its highest level, it was eight and a quarter percent was the top rate.

Now we have seen, since Republicans took control of the general assembly, some sweeping tax reform.

I'm glad that we have on the panel, former Senator Bob Rucho, who is part of that.

I'm sure some great comments about this, but one of the ideas in that tax reform package that was passed in 2013 was to start the decline of the income tax rate.

We saw getting rid of a progressive system, putting in one flat tax rate.

That tax rate has continued to go down.

Starting this tax year, it's now gonna be 4.99%.

It goes down to 3.99%.

Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform is one of those who's been describing this as the path to zero.

So it'll be very interesting to see what happens on that front.

We know on the corporate side, corporate tax side, we're already on the path to zero.

We should be at zero from the, within a decade, going down from what already the lowest corporate income tax rate among the states that put this forward.

So if we wanna get to zero, we're already moving in the right direction.

- Bob, you have the floor.

- Well, of course I believe in, it's always been my goal to get to zero but I will tell you right now that what we have established is a pro growth competitive economy, that was critical.

But think of the results, you know.

Tax revenues have increased, wage and salaries have increased.

People have received about $3.5 billion of their own money returned to them.

GDP growth, other things have increased.

Jobs created.

All of those positive effects and the question is, have we gone far enough?

I think if we continue down to the road to zero, course there has to be two things that have to be done.

One of them there has to be controlling spending.

And there also has to be a consumption based tax established.

That's a sales tax on services so that there is a stream of money maintained for the government to operate.

But clearly if that is done with those, I believe North Carolina can be one of the top nine or ten.

- Donna, what are critics saying about that?

- Well, I mean, there's a lot that worry that you know we won't have the money, the revenue, but really what that means is you - [Host] They say it hurts the poor too, correct?

- They do.

And one of the things that we're really seeing is that North Carolina is getting a huge influx of people who are looking at the results.

They're looking at incomes going up.

Services are not being cut at this point.

Florida spends half as much as New York and they don't have an income tax.

So really you can't put those two together.

They don't make sense unless you're not controlling spending.

And that's the big deal you have to control spending.

You have to have something to replace it, like a services tax, those kind of things.

But we're seeing folks coming to places like North Carolina, like Florida, particularly during COVID because they're seeing that there's a higher quality of life, that there's a lower cost of living.

And the services really don't change.

It really is about those people coming from high tax areas to low tax areas, 'cause they see the results.

- Joe.

- The interesting thing about all this, I remember back in 1996, when hurricane Fran hit the state.

Then President Clinton came in, we set up, I was at the Department of Public Safety at the time, we set up a group, a small panel of local elected officials and President Clinton came in and one of the local democratic officials made the derisive comment that here these local Republican officials who run on lower taxes and less government seem to be the first ones out with a hand out for federal money in the aftermath of the storm.

And President Clinton said, I'll never forget this.

He said, "People don't want more government "or less government.

"They want just enough and not one bit more than that."

And so to some extent, the thing to remember in terms of tax policy is we need a reliable way to run the functions of government that are essential.

And so the discussion about taxes, unfortunately, higher and lower, we have to make sure we're spending the money that we do have appropriately and too often governmental programs are created and then tax revenues are generated to substantiate that.

And we don't have a discussion whether this buggy whip regulation program that we have is it really needed anymore and we could do away with it.

- Great conversation, I wanna move on to Medicaid expansion.

Bob, it's on the table in the general assembly.

- Yes.

Well again, that was part of the last year's budget.

There was a provision that actually established a joint legislative oversight on access to healthcare and Medicaid expansion.

Senator Krawiec and Representative Lambeth are lead on that.

The purpose of the committee was to consider improving access to healthcare and also find the availability or improve the availability of health insurance.

Four main purposes to that.

One of 'em was to find the state of healthcare in North Carolina, how to compare other states, what the state of rural emergency care is and the viability of rural hospitals, especially as they face closure, examining the state nursing shortage, which is something that has really popped up, especially with COVID, and the impact of the federal surprise billing law in our state.

I spent about an hour last night studying that and I'm not sure it could have gotten more complicated.

So that probably for another show.

There are 12 states that have not, as North Carolina, expanded Medicaid.

And again, if you, 2.3 million people in North Carolina here.

If an expansion occurs is 450 to 650,000 new souls on that and I will tell you, the Republican leadership did say that any vote will come before the November election.

- Mitch, can we in an economic downturn, can we count on the Feds to help us with this?

They fund about 90% of the Medicaid, don't they?

- That's been one of the concerns ever since the Medicaid expansion was first proposed is that the federal government, which is going further and further into debt is not gonna be able to keep up its end of the bargain.

So that has been a question.

I think the leadership within the general assembly right now has seen that as less of a problem.

One of the other reasons why you're seeing more interest in this is that the Biden administration has put forward both carrots and sticks.

$1.7 billion perhaps as a carrot and a stick that your rural hospitals that are relying on this money might not get the Medicaid money that they've been getting in the past.

So that's one of the reasons why you're seeing increased pressure for the expansion.

- Joe, is the GOP leadership and House and Senate teeing up an issue for the November elections, you think?

- I think absolutely some of element of pragmatism is in this because rural hospitals have spoken out about the need for expansion, given the dynamic of the healthcare they have to provide in the parts of the state where they're present.

And I think for Republican candidates running for the general assembly in the fall, in rural parts of North Carolina, having the ability to say we've delivered on this way to help assure some greater economic stability for the provision of healthcare services in rural parts of the state, some significant number of counties in North Carolina don't have a primary care physician.

I mean, there, there is a big issue about access here that has to be addressed and if the rural hospitals are able to get this additional revenue from this expansion, I think then maybe the provision of those services in the rural areas of the state would be greater assured.

- Donna, this has been a top priority issue for Governor Cooper.

- Absolutely.

He's been calling for it since his very first campaign for governor.

We've been seeing a lot about it.

It held up a lot of budgets that he vetoed, would not even consider without money for it.

But again, the situation may have changed with sticks and carrots from the Biden administration.

But I think the important thing is, it's important to study this and in this group also needs to look at some of the things that are driving up costs and reducing access.

And that includes things like certificate of need laws, requirements that hospitals have a certain level of education among their nurses, which prevents them from bringing in anybody who can be qualified.

There are a lot of government thumbs on the scale that are impacting access and cost.

- Okay, great rep, I wanna move on to the most under reported story of the week, Mitch.

- First of all, I wanna say, I'm glad I'm not the one who said certificate of need this time.

I'm usually the one who brings that up.

[everyone laughs] - [Host] And so are we.

- The number of people in North Carolina killed in traffic related accidents was up last year at the highest level in almost 50 years since the early 1970s, 1,755 people killed on the roads.

We actually have seen an increase of 45% since 2011.

Now some of you may think, well, North Carolina's a growing state.

We have more people on the roads.

That's why.

Got some bad news for you.

If you actually look at the per capita rate which factors in population, that number had dropped by 70% from 1968 to 2011, then turned in the other direction since then, we've been up by 33%.

And much of that has just been in the past couple of years during the pandemic.

- Joe?

- Interestingly enough, a lot of is been discussed about the mental health implications of COVID and the pandemic and people having to be locked down.

Actually, there are now starting to be medical studies that show other aspects of the human body have been impacted by COVID.

Eye strain, as a result of a less favorable condition, working from home, aching backs as a result of chairs not being appropriate, even the reduction in the absorption of vitamin D from a lack of sunshine because you're not out of the house as much.

I can only imagine how much more changes we will see in the human body as a result of a continued presence at home as a workplace, as opposed to going into the office.

I can only imagine from my own perspective what I've noticed as people have started to come back, apparently a sense of humor has also been discouraged quite a bit.

People are not able to take a joke as much as they once were I think.

Hopefully that returns.

- That's bad news for you.

- Yeah, that's bad news for me, bad, bad news for me.

- Okay, Donna.

- So my under is that North Carolina, our tax season is a bit delayed here in North Carolina.

Partially because of the budget and all the changes that came in November and our extremely long session.

But due in part to that change, there are also software approvals, some other things.

The Department of Revenue is still finalizing tax forms.

If you've tried to file your taxes and you can't, that's why.

- What's the date?

- Well, I don't think they've really said.

Oh, February 28th.

February 28th, that's when you can start.

- What are the reasons again now?

- Now, there's a couple of things.

One, North Carolina's budget came through with lots of changes to our tax system.

But also, which means that if you're using a software to file your taxes, those updates have to be done and approved, which has slowed the process down a little bit.

And that's part of what the Department of Revenue says, they're still working on those tax forms.

- Bob?

- Well, my under reported story is the headline would be "North Carolina tax collections soaring again."

Reported back that since January 31, that seven months into the fiscal year, 2022, tax revenue was 1.4 billion dollars above what was expected.

And now, with that in place, the Office of State Budget and Management has announced that that surplus should reach 2.4 billion dollars by the end of the fiscal year, 2022.

That is tremendous.

That is great growth.

That's exactly what we wanted to do when we had in charge of putting this tax policy together.

- So fiscal restraint, cutting taxes works?

In your view?

- Without a doubt.

- Mitch, you believe that?

- Yeah, that's true, and in fact, this goes back to that theme of having the tax rate go down.

One of the things we didn't mention was putting in the revenue triggers.

If you're worried about revenue going down, say the tax cut only takes effect when the revenue goes up.

- Where's our rainy day fund right now?

- Two billion.

- Two billion?

It's not bad.

[Mitch laughs] Okay.

Let's go to "Lightning Round."

Who's up and who's down this week?

- What is up this week is burnout among nurses in North Carolina.

There was a new report from the nurses association that said that nurses are showing increased frustration about their workload.

Pay, of course.

Patient aggression was one thing they're worried about, and also, the idea that they've just seen too little change since COVID started.

They wanna see things getting back to something close to normal.

When you went on a scale from one to 10, they put 7.4 about their concern about COVID.

And when you talked about their mental health, they were at about a 5.6.

So a lot of concerns.

My down, humor in politics.

The satirist and author PJ O'Rourke died this week from lung cancer complications.

He was 74.

Had a chance to interview him a couple of times, including when he was touring behind the book, "Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence and a Bad Haircut."

[all laugh] PJ O'Rourke will definitely be missed.

- You know, he really captured the American culture for his time, don't you think?

- He definitely did, and he skewered Democrats, he skewered Republicans, he basically just looked at government and said- - He was a libertarian [indistinct].

- He was a libertarian and he looked at everything that went on and said, "Can't we have some common sense?"

- Joe, who's up and who's down this week?

- Who's up is fries.

The Idaho Potato Commission has announced they're unveiling a french fry scented perfume called Frites by Idaho, for a dollar 89, which they say is about the cost of a bag of french fries.

You can go on their website and purchase this.

- [Marc] Have you done it?

- They say scientifically 90% of Americans say they enjoy the smell of french fries.

And so, Donna, perhaps for this holiday season, in your stocking, from me, a little spud aroma.

[all laugh] Down, Andrew Yang.

The former presidential candidate and failed mayoral candidate in New York had an op-ed talking about boys.

He's concerned about the failing rate of high school completion, the declining percentage of young men represented in college.

Feels like this is a significant problem in our country, at a time where we're trying to seek issues of equity, that young men are having a really hard time in America.

- Donna, who's up and who's down this week please?

- I'm gonna say up is the sound of silence on the special counsel John Durham's investigation on Russia.

I know we're going national with this one.

But I have been really surprised at how little coverage it's gotten amongst mainstream media.

You're really only seeing it in a few spots, and then when you do see it in mainstream media, uses words like conspiracy theory and paranoia, and things like that.

But basically, Durham uncovered that the Hillary Clinton campaign utilized government resources to check in on President Trump when he was president and during his campaign.

I think that there will be more to come on this.

- [Marc] I don't think it's going away.

- I don't think it's going away.

As much as many might like it to, I just don't think it's going away.

- Down!

- My down, economic freedom in the United States.

The Heritage Foundation releases an annual index of the freest economic, freest countries.

North Carolina dropped from 20 to 25, primarily because of COVID restrictions.

The freest places in the United States were Singapore and Switzerland.

The least free were China and Australia.

- Who's up and who's down, quickly, Bob?

- Quickly, 30 incumbent congressional Democrats are retiring ahead of the mid-term election.

That speaks a lot for what potential red wave may be.

Going down, I'd say the Canadian government.

And that is because of the way they're treating the truckers.

They are putting in no go zones to basically not allowing peaceful protest.

- [Marc] They're freezing their bank accounts!

- That's the second part of it was they're seizing their vehicles and they're freezing their bank accounts.

So basically, you just have to stand up and shut up.

- Headline next week!

- Court renders verdict on new North Carolina election maps.

- Headline next week!

- With the re-districting resolved, whatever will we have to talk about?

Oh yes, the election!

[all chuckle] - Oh, yes!

- Headline next week, Donna.

- Candidate filing is scheduled to re-open on February 24th.

Pending the outcome of this re-districting map decision.

- Bob, headline.

- Yeah, and I agree, the re-districting maps are going to receive a very cold response back from the courts, the Democrat controlled courts.

And clearly, you can tell by that, because they've already appointed the special masters!

- Okay, that's it for us.

Great job, panel.

Hope to see you next week on "Front Row."

Have a great weekend.

[upbeat music] ♪ - [Announcer] Major funding for "Front Row" is provided by Robert L. Luddy.

Additional funding provided by Patricia and Koo Yuen through the Yuen Foundation.

Committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

And by.

Funding for the "Lighting Round" provided by Boddie-Noell Foundation.

NC Realtors.

Mary Louise and John Burress.

Rifenburg Construction.

And Helen Laughery.

A complete list of funders can be found at PBSNC.org/FrontRow.

♪