For the newly re-drawn 19th District seat in North Carolina’s House of Representatives, David Perry and Charlie Miller are running in the Republican primary. WHQR has this preview of the race.
David Perry is running for a seat in the General Assembly for a second time. He ran as a Libertarian candidate for the same seat in 2018.
“My overall goal is to reduce the size and scope of government. It is way out of control with a lot of bloated waste that I believe you begin that process by taking back the money, getting the money back in the into the local community and back into people's wallets so that, that our state government doesn't have money to waste on needs, programs that aren't securing our life or liberty. So to start that I would eliminate the state income tax and stop moving some of the services that are currently funded by these funds to the local community and then eliminate some others.”
He says eliminating the state income tax is very doable.
“But there are actually a couple of very large states that do not have an income tax like Texas and Florida, and they're making out just fine. I believe people are tired of the swamp and the waste. People no doubt in their hearts that our General Assembly, whether they're Republicans or Democrats, are really not looking out for them. They're looking out for the corporate special interest. And we need to get back to a limited government like Reagan was preaching back in the day. It's really focuses in on the essential things that government should be providing.”
For Charlie Miller, education is at the top of his agenda. He currently serves on the Brunswick County School Board.
“Well I want to take my life experiences in the law enforcement now for 32 years. I've been on the Brunswick County Board of Education for four terms and now I want to take what I've learned here, working on the board of education and law enforcement, to Raleigh, which is school safety. I'm real big on school safety and, you know in Brunswick County we really have taken our safety to new levels and, uh, we're a model that some counties across the state, and we're real proud of that.”
And he says teachers here need to be taken care of.
“And I'm also a big advocate of teachers and, teacher retention, teacher recruitment and teacher pay. That's very important nowadays, with our neighboring county to our south of Brunswick and New Hanover – Horry County. You know, their pay is, is quite a bit more starting in. They have different incentives and stuff like that. We're losing teachers in Brunswick County to Horry County. So I'd like to see what we could do to increase some of those things for our teachers.”
Election day is March 3rd. Early voting February 13. Vince Winkel, WHQR News.