Duane Cutlip is a businessman and a Republican candidate for House District 39. He will be facing Democratic incumbent Linda Coleman in November. The district covers eastern
Wake County and was a Republican seat until the 2004 election after redistricting had been done following the 2000 Census. The district was shifted northward adding more predominantly Democratic neighborhoods. The district is currently comprised of approximately 51% registered Democrats, 32% registered Republicans, .21% Libertarian, with the remaining 16% being unaffiliated voters.
On the issues:
Our public school system is failing our children. We have an alarming droppout rate and are graduating children who have difficulty with basic reading and mathematical skills. In North Carolina, 52% of the General Fund is spent on education, yet recent statistics show that less than 7 in 10 are graduating. Our spending on schools is growing almost twice as much as our student numbers are growing, yet we have little improvement. We need to cut out ineffective spending and put that money into teachers and students where the real learning occurs.
I have written plenty of the education system in American gone awry. North Carolina needs legislatures that will stand up to the powerful special interests that are hurting our education system and stop supporting the status quo. Cutlip is correct. Plenty of money has been thrown in to the education system with no results.
North Carolina has the highest taxes in the Southeast and this has hurt the overall well-being of our state. We’ve got to have leadership that will make the tough decisions rather than the current practice of playing for the highest bidder.
Hence the reason I live across the state line in South Carolina. Lower taxes!
I am for the development of alternative energy sources as long as they are feasible. We can improve existing technologies to make their use of fuel more efficient and support the development of credible alternative energies. I believe that we are far too dependent on Middle Eastern oil and should strive for energy independence as quickly as possible.
A very sensible environmental policy. Indeed, alternative energy is the future. Let’s make North Carolina a leader in its development.
I believe murder at any stage of life is wrong. Life begins at conception and our state and federal governments struggle unnecessarily with this idea. While they will allow abortion freely, they seek to prosecute the murderer of a mother and unborn child with double-homicide. They’ve got it right in the latter.
He brings up a very interesting scenario here that really illustrates the hypocrisy of the pro-abortion crowd. Basically, if the mother wants the child then the fetus is alive. If the mother doesn’t then the fetus is a mass of tissue. Abortion should be a Federalist issue and as such handled at the State level, not the Federal judiciary.
We must secure our borders, and North Carolina must not become a “harbor state” to illegal immigrants for whom we have no documented reason for their ‘visit’.
I think North Carolina has already become a harbor state for illegals. It actually won’t take a lot of work to change that, just the political will by people who aren’t afraid to deal with the problem. Look to Arizona for guidance.
The government should be held responsible for how it uses our tax dollars, and should be forced to eliminate wasteful government spending. The government can not solve everyone’s problems and should not be expected to. There are too many programs the government takes on that it cannot handle efficiently and should be left to private enterprise.
Spending in North Carolina continues to increase at twice the rate of inflation while the state legislature has done little to nothing to instead look for waste and additionally scale back on the size of government in the state. Cutlip appears to be prepared to address this issue.
We are not a Democratic Republic without Private Property. John Adams said, “Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist.”
Activist judges and renegade legislators have recently paved the way for the seizure of private property to be redistributed to other private interests.
I gather he is speaking about eminent domain, more precisely Kelo v New London. Eminent domain is one of those necessary evils of government, but is being widely abused across the nation. What also needs to be addressed in North Carolina is the forced annexation of unincorporated neighborhoods by incorporated cities and towns against the will of the property owners. That has to be stopped.
The second amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America guarantees the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. Studies will always show that criminals kill, not guns. We should not punish law-abiding citizens for the wrong doing of criminals.
This is just plain common sense. An armed populace is a free populace.
Duane Cutlip is an excellent candidate for this race. He is on the right side (no pun intended) of every issue, although he has an uphill battle. In 2006, Coleman received 59% of the vote to the Republican challenger’s 41%. 2004 was a little closer with Coleman grabbing only 54%. The 5 point increase may have been due to the anti-Republican wave that swept through the country in ‘06. It’s certainly not an impossible race to win under the right circumstances. Perhaps Mr. Cutlip will surprise us with an upset victory come November.
