U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge will focus on trade matters and oversight issues in his first term on the influential Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives.

Etheridge, a Lillington Democrat, is the first North Carolinian named to the committee since 1953. The committee is the source of all tax bills and has jurisdiction over Medicare and Social Security, Barb Barrett reports.

Etheridge was named today to the subcommittees on Trade and Oversight.

The oversight panel will give Etheridge a position to help shape the economic recovery plan being pushed by President-elect Barack Obama. Etheridge this week wrote Obama asking him to including Etheridge's school construction proposal in the plan.

On the trade subcommittee, Etheridge said he wants to not only enforce current agreements but make sure new agreements support North Carolina's workers and products.

U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge has been appointed to a powerful House committee.

The Lillington Democrat was appointed late Wednesday night to the Committee on Ways and Means, which plays a key role in federal legislation on taxes and health care.

He will be the first North Carolinian to serve on the committee since 1984, and the first Democrat since Rep. Robert Doughton's stint ended in 1953.

"Serving on the Committee on Ways and Means will allow me to work closely on the issues that are directly affecting North Carolina families during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression," Etheridge said in a statement.

The committee oversees issues as diverse as Social Security, unemployment benefits and Medicare and has sole jurisdiction over tariffs and other methods of raising revenue. It played a key role in the 2008 Farm Bill.

Etheridge, a former state schools superintendent, says he will work on providing federal support for local school construction, keeping taxes low, expanding health care and ensuring trade agreements are fair.

Nearly 4,000 agency laptops have been loaded with security software to protect confidential information, the state Department of Health and Human Services says.

The agency had been under pressure to meet state security standards after a laptop theft in late October exposed tens of thousands of residents to identity theft.

The agency laptop had residents' Social Security numbers on it when it was stolen from an employee who had it on a training trip in Atlanta. The laptop had not been loaded with software that makes data incomprehensible to unauthorized users.

The state's chief information officer said the agency had violated state security standards.

Nearly all laptops assigned to employees are now loaded with the encryption software, Karen Tomczak, DHHS chief information officer said in a Wednesday letter to Ann Garrett, the state's chief information security officer.

It cost $101,085 to encrypt 3,829 machines. About 273 laptops that are not being used have not been encrypted. They do not contain any personal or confidential information, Tomczak wrote.

Two laptops assigned to visually-impaired employees have not been encrypted because they need a different kind of software, Tomczak wrote. Those computers contain no personal information.

The state is paying for fraud alerts for residents whose information was on the stolen laptop.

Another laptop was stolen from a DHHS employee's home last weekend. The laptop was encrypted and contained no personal information, a spokesman said.

North Carolinians think that Democrats are better able than Republicans to address many of the major issues facing the United States, according to a new poll by Elon University.

The poll of of 797 North Carolina residents from Oct. 27-30 found that North Carolinians have more confidence in Democrats to deal with health care, education, energy independence, the financial crisis, Social Security, taxes and home foreclosures.

There was only one issue - the war in Iraq - where North Carolinians felt more confident about the Republicans.

"As the economy dominates the news, it appears to be benefiting the Democratic candidates," Hunter Bacot, director of the Elon University Poll, said in a statement. "The other side of this equation is that citizens are holding the Republicans accountable for the state of the economy."

The Elon poll does not screen for registered or likely voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

A more detailed breakdown after the jump.

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A mailer criticizes U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole on Social Security.

Majority Action, a liberal 527 group, sent a mailer to North Carolina voters criticizing a plan Dole backed in 2002 to allow young workers to invest a portion of their Social Security contributions in personal savings accounts.

"Elizabeth Dole's plan to privatize our Social Security and invest it in the stock market is a real gamble these days," it says.

The mailer shows dice with the Social Security logo on them and the front page of The N&O from a day when the stock market plunged.

"$18.6 billion flows into the North Carolina economy from Social Security each year, supporting nearly 1.6 million residents," it reads inside. "Elizabeth Dole wants to eliminate that guarantee and risk our retirement in the stock market."

A new ad from Democratic Senate candidate Kay Hagan criticizes U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole for her stance on Social Security.

After this election, North Carolina will stop using Social Security numbers to verify new voters.

On Thursday, The New York Times named the state as one of several using Social Security numbers despite federal laws requiring that the numbers be checked only if no state-issued identification is available.

The Social Security database is plagued with errors which could force some qualified voters to provide additional identification — adding an unnecessary barrier to voting.

The need for more identification could cause confusion Nov. 4, an Election Day expected to bring unprecedented numbers to the polls. State officials say that by Election Day they expect to have registered more than 800,000 new North Carolina voters this year.

About 218,000 were also taken off the rolls, so the net gain would be about 600,000 voters.

Since last October, 400,000 Social Security numbers have been checked, and State Board of Elections Director Gary Bartlett said that typically more than 40 percent are kicked back. (N&O) 

Democratic Senate candidate Kay Hagan's criticized Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole's support for privatizing Social Security today, saying the current market crisis would have placed the program in jeopardy.

"I'm absolutely opposed to privatization," Hagan said at a news conference at state Democratic headquarters Wednesday. "Elizabeth Dole campaigned on privatization of Social Security in 2002. George Bush took her on the road with him in 2005 to show that you can campaign for privatization of Social Security and actually win."

Hagan raised the issue at a time when the stock market has been in free fall and people are worried about the declining value of their retirement savings.  There are 1.6 million Social Security recipients in North Carolina, a powerful voting bloc, Rob Christensen reports.

"Where would we be in the last two weeks if Social Security had been privatized?" said Jerry Cooper, executive director of the N.C. Assisted Living Association, who appeared with Hagan.

The Dole campaign Wednesday accused Hagan of "lying to scare seniors" and said it was a campaign tactic that Democrats used nearly every election.

More after the jump.

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U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole criticized Democratic rival Kay Hagan's record on illegal immigration at an N.C. Bar Association debate in Atlantic Beach on June 21, 2008.

What she said: "My opponent has voted to make it easier for illegal immigrants to get North Carolina driver's licenses."

The background: In an effort to encourage illegal immigrants to get car insurance, the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles decided in 1998 that applicants establishing residency for a driver's license could submit a broad range of forms of identification, including papers issued by the Mexican government.

The looser standards led to reports that immigrants from other states were getting North Carolina IDs, then using those to get licenses back home.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, concerns about fraud and national security led state lawmakers to toughen standards for driver's licenses. Republican legislators sponsored bills that would have required a Social Security number, making getting a license impossible for illegal immigrants.

But Democratic leaders in the state Senate sent those bills to die in committee, so neither Hagan nor any other senator voted on them. Instead, they opted to require applicants provide either a Social Security number or an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, which is given to all U.S. workers regardless of immigration status.

The measure, which Hagan supported, did not make it impossible for illegal immigrants to get a license, though it did make it more difficult. Over the following four years, the number of licenses issued without proof of citizenship dropped by roughly half.

Measures to toughen standards further also died in committee over the next several years. Then, in 2006, the legislature ordered the DMV to stop accepting taxpayer ID numbers, essentially making it impossible for illegal immigrants to get a license. Hagan supported that measure as well.

A Dole spokesman, Hogan Gidley, argued that the state Senate should have adopted the tougher standards earlier, and said it was still easier to get a driver's license in North Carolina than in other states after the 2001 vote.

"Social Security numbers should be the standard, and anything less than that is making it easier," he said.

Is the claim true? No. In 2001, Hagan voted to make it harder for illegal immigrants to get licenses, and in 2006 she voted to make it impossible. It's fair to say that Senate Democrats — Hagan included — could have backed stronger standards, but that's not the same thing as voting to "make it easier."

As many as 221,000 illegal immigrants got driver's licenses between 2002 and 2006.

Between Jan. 1, 2002, and Aug. 23, 2006, the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles required either a Social Security number or an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, which is issued to all U.S. workers regardless of immigration status.

Not all residents applying with taxpayer ID numbers were illegal immigrants, but the number of taxpayer ID-backed licenses is the best approximation since the DMV does not track immigration status.

Here are the numbers of licenses issued with taxpayer IDs:

2002: 41,881
2003: 73,926
2004: 50,555
2005: 34,888
2006: 19,732

The number of licenses issued under the 2002-2006 standards is thus a little more than half the number issued under the looser standards in place from 1997 to 2001, but substantially more than it would have been if the stricter standards had been adopted sooner.

Before 2007, North Carolina licenses were valid for five years, so the 2002 licenses have already expired. Since the legislature did not recall old licenses when it got rid of the taxpayer ID number, there are roughly 140,000 licenses issued under the old standards still in use.

The last of those licenses will expire in August of 2011.

Previously: What did Kay Hagan's 2001 vote do?