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By John Hood

 

North Carolina’s motto is a Latin phrase: Esse quam videri. Popularized by the ancient Roman statesman and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero, the phrase means “to be rather than to seem.” The General Assembly adopted it as our official state motto in 1893. Since then, North Carolinians have disputed whether we’ve ever really lived up to it, whether we have truly been rather than just seemed.

Guess what? That makes North Carolina just like every other country, state, city, or club that espouses high ideals and then argues about them.

What sets our state apart politically isn’t a motto, arguments about a motto, or even the specific issues our state and local leaders are currently trying to tackle. What truly makes North Carolina distinctive are several longstanding practices—some formal rules, others informal traditions—that shape our policy debates.

One of them is how our state constitution apportions the coercive power of government. All states have legislative, executive, and judicial branches. However, North Carolina’s legislative branch is one of the strongest in the country. Correspondingly, our executive branch is among the weakest, its responsibilities distributed across 10 independently elected officers, and our governor enjoys comparatively limited powers of appointment and veto.

Here’s a second distinguishing characteristic: North Carolina governs and funds roads and schools primarily at the state level, not the local level.

Most states have county (or parish) road systems. We don’t. Even our city streets are technically state roads administered by localities. As for K-12 education, while we have elected school boards with the power to hire district superintendents and make some policy choices, the most important actors are the General Assembly and the State Board of Education. 

So when you read that North Carolina has one of the highest gas taxes in the United States, that’s just another way of saying our county taxes are relatively low (because they don’t fund county roads). And on a per-pupil basis, our state spends more than twice as much as our counties do. Nationally, the two funding sources tend to be roughly comparable.

A third major policy difference between North Carolina and most other states involves public finance. For nearly a century, it has been our common practice to borrow relatively little and pay for public assets with cash. According to the latest Facts & Figures report from the Tax Foundation, North Carolina ranks 48th in state and local debt, at $4,314 per person.

Only Idaho ($1,915) and Wyoming ($3,913) have lower debt burdens than we do. Neighboring Tennessee ($6,312), South Carolina ($7,254), and Virginia ($9,236) borrow quite a bit more, although none is quite in the league of a California ($14,273) or a New York ($17,846).

You and I might argue about whether North Carolina ought to strengthen the hand of its governor, or give localities more responsibility for roads and schools, or finance more infrastructure with debt. Still, productive argument requires common definitions and at least some shared understanding of the facts.

Our state doesn’t just seem to be distinctive. It really is. Esse quam videri, indeed. 

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy with American history.