Is small business the key to kickstarting the state's economic engine?

A new poll of 600 voters by the conservative Civitas Institute poll shows a majority of North Carolinians believe small businesses are the catalyst to creating jobs and economic growth.

According to the survey, when asked who is better able to create jobs and rebuild the economy, 59.7 percent selected small business and entrepreneurs, 18 percent large corporations, 9 percent government and 3.5 percent non-profit organizations, while 9.8 percent had no opinion.

More than 85 percent of respondents would approve of a proposal to cut taxes on small business by 10 percent, while 10.3 percent were opposed and 4.5 percent had no opinion.

"Voters are keenly aware of the power of small businesses and entrepreneurs to create jobs and grow the economy," said Francis De Luca, executive director of the Civitas Institute, Francis De Luca. "Less than one in ten voters thought government was the best vehicle to create jobs. This seems to contradict current economic policy in Washington and Raleigh where government is raising, rather than cutting, taxes on small businesses."

The poll was conducted April 21-23, 2009 by Alexandria, Va.-based McLaughlin and Associates. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan will hold a roundtable on the stimulus.

The Greensboro Democrat and other local, state and federal officials will discuss how female- and minority-owned businesses, small companies and nonprofits can access federal stimulus funds.

State stimulus czar Dempsey Benton, Lee Cornelison of the U.S. Small Business Administration, David Heinen of the N.C. Center for Nonprofits and N.C. Central Chancellor Charlie Nelms, among others, will also speak.

The forum will be held at 10 a.m. on Monday at the Mary Townes Science Complex at N.C. Central University in Durham.

Hagan said the forum was inspired by complaints from the state NAACP executive council about the challenges of minority-owned businesses.

She has also posted an online resource guide about the stimulus package.

Gov. Beverly Perdue said this morning she saw "a glimmer of hope" with the economy, with the stock market showing some signs of life and with signs that North Carolina may be reaching the bottom with unemployment.

Perdue said that the new figures to be released this morning show unemployment in March had only risen one-tenth of one percent, Rob Christensen reports.

But the governor said there was still heavy pain all across the state from people of all walks of life who have lost their job.

"The question I hear over and over is the next pay check going to be a pink slip?" Perdue told about 50 people at a meeting of the Alliance of North Carolina Black Elected Officials at the Sheraton Raleigh Hotel.

More after the jump.

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U.S. Sen. Richard Burr said he panicked when he first learned of the banking crisis.

The Winston-Salem Republican told the Henderson County Chamber of Commerce that he called his wife, Brooke, and told her to withdraw money from the bank after talking with former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

The remarks, first reported by the Hendersonville Times-News, have since been picked up by The Hill, a Washington-based newspaper, and various political blogs:

"On Friday night, I called my wife and I said, 'Brooke, I am not coming home this weekend. I will call you on Monday. Tonight, I want you to go to the ATM machine, and I want you to draw out everything it will let you take. And I want you to tomorrow, and I want you to go Sunday.' I was convinced on Friday night that if you put a plastic card in an ATM machine the last thing you were going to get was cash."

Burr also said that he does not think the current economic problems — which he termed a depression — would have a U-shaped or V-shaped recovery, as past recessions have had.

"Those are the only things they talk about," he said. "Either it’s a lack of imagination or some belief that you can make everything fit into those two. Let me suggest to you today, I think we are in a Nike swoosh."

Gov. Beverly Perdue gave her education cabinet a preview of her plans for education in the face of a massive budget shortfall.

Perdue said her budget proposal, which she will unveil Tuesday will treat education and jobs as the top priorities. Other parts of state government will feel deep cuts, Ben Niolet reports.

"I figure by tomorrow nobody in North Carolina is going to be speaking to us," Perdue said at a meeting at Wake Tech. "What I'm about to do tomorrow hasn't. Been fun. It hasn't been easy."

Education, specifically K-12 will see an increase in spending of $350 million. Perdue said the 2.5 percent increase will come from a combination  of state money and federal recovery funds.

Perdue said she wants to see local schools make teachers in classrooms the priority for federal dollars.

The state board and local administrations will see cuts across the state, Perdue said.

More after the jump.

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Major budget cuts are on the way. 

Gov. Beverly Perdue will propose significant cuts in public services next week, as she faces the biggest drop in tax revenue in recent memory, her chief budget advisor said Wednesday.

"The decisions the governor has to make are some the toughest that have had to be made in the last 80 years," said Charlie Perusse, her budget director said at a briefing for the news media, Rob Christensen reports.

There was no hint of how Perdue will balance the budget — whether agencies or programs will be eliminated, prisons closed, state employees laid off, or taxes raised.

"She has charged my office to look line by line at the agency's budget to focus on protecting core services: education, health care, public safety," Perusse said. "There are going to be substantial reductions in our budget."

Perusse said the governor had asked his office to make "strategic cuts," not just across the board reductions, looking whether the taxpayers were benefiting from the program.

Perdue's recommendations are scheduled to be made Tuesday. But aides said she will make a speech Monday outlining her some of recommendations on education.

In her State of the State speech to a joint session of the legislature Monday night, Perdue said she would increase per pupil spending in the public schools.

The good news? The economy may rebound by 2010.

The bad news? State government won't get more tax revenue then.

During a half-hour presentation on the state's economic situation, Gov. Beverly Perdue's budget director, Charlie Perusse, said that the state will likely end this year with a $2.2 billion shortfall.

That would be 10.6 percent below the amount the state budgeted, or 5.9 percent less than it received in the last fiscal year. That would be the largest year-to-year drop in state revenue in the records available, which date to the 1970s.

In the first eight months of the year, the state already has seen revenue drop by $1.2 billion. The second billion is projected through the next four months, in part because April and June are normally big tax-collection months.

Perusse said that the economy would rebound by early next year, but tax collections will lag behind, likely staying flat in next year's budget.

"Employment and the market will stabilize, but it will take six months to a year for revenue collections to actually catch up," he said.

Talk-show host Jimmy Fallon "slow-jammed" a mention of Rep. Virginia Foxx.

As part of a segment on his new show Monday, the former "Saturday Night Live" cast member sang an R&B-style number about the federal stimulus package with house band The Roots.

"It could have passed much sooner, but Congresswoman Virginia Foxx wanted to play with it a little," Fallon spoke-sang, putting particular emphasis on "Foxx."

Rapper Black Thought, a.k.a. Tariq Trotter, gave a bluesy elaboration from the band stage.

"She played with it. Touched on all of its fine details all night long, all night long," he sang. "She added an amendment."

Along with the rest of the House Republican caucus, Foxx voted against the $787 billion stimulus package in Congress last month.

Washington-based newspaper Politico wondered if Fallon knows who Foxx is, though Dome figures she was chosen because her name has a particular punch.

Hat Tip: Brent Woodcox

Gov. Beverly Perdue will likely give her State of the State address to the legislature next Monday evening.

A bill by Rep. Bill Owens, the House Rules Committee chairman, invites Perdue to speak to a joint session of the legislature at 7 p.m. on March 9, Rob Christensen reports.

But aides to the governor, said Perdue will most likely propose her budget a week or so after her speech to the legislature.

The State of the State address is expected to be filled with tough news as North Carolina battles with growing budget shortfalls resulting from the recession.

The stimulus package is being repackaged.

The money coming to North Carolina from the federal stimulus package passed by Congress is being rebranded.

At the Monday morning Cabinet meeting, Gov. Beverly Perdue said the North Carolina effort has been renamed to the more positive sounding "economic recovery" program, Rob Christensen reports.

Dempsey Benton took some kidding at the Cabinet meeting for being the state's new "stimulus czar." But maybe he now should be called the "economic recovery czar."

Dome will continue to refer to it as the "stimulus package" for the same reason we call the governor "Beverly" instead of "Bev."