Lessons from the session.

• Author: Hood, John
• Position: FREE&CLEAR - Economic conditions of North Carolina.

Whether or not you agree with the policy decisions of Gov. Pat McCrory and the General Assembly, it would be difficult to dispute that the 2013 legislative session was one of the most spectacular events in the state's political history.

Controlling the governorship and legislature for the first time since Reconstruction, Republicans enacted bills on a broad swath of issues. As far as I can tell, North Carolina adopted more free-market and conservative reforms than any other state has done in a single year. Here is just a partial list:

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Tax reform. While reducing or eliminating dozens of tax breaks and exclusions, lawmakers replaced the multirate state personal-income tax, which topped out at 7.75%, with a flat 5.75% and slashed the corporate income-tax rate from 6.9% to as low as 3% (if revenue-growth targets are met). At a stroke, North Carolina's business-tax climate improved from 44th to 17th, according to the Tax Foundation, a conservative-leaning Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

Budget reform. Lawmakers improved the state's balance sheet by shoring up reserves, speeding up repayment of $2.5 billion in unemployment-insurance debt and imposing a debt limit that forces future legislatures to submit bond packages to voters for approval, a constitutional principle politicians have evaded since 2000. Giving McCrory the go-ahead to pursue competitive contracting for Medicaid services makes it more likely future legislatures can devote a higher percentage of revenue to public investment rather than consumption.

Regulatory reform. Legislators followed up bills passed in 2011 and 2012 by, among other things, requiring that existing state rules undergo review every 10 years. Regulations that no longer comply with state law or produce more costs than benefits automatically will expire.

Education reform. While increasing General Fund spending on K-12 public schools 4.8% over last year's authorized budget, lawmakers focused on structural changes to North Carolina's education system. These include replacing teacher tenure with multiyear contracts, introducing merit pay, assigning schools letter grades based on performance, strengthening charter schools and offering private-school scholarships to as many as 13,000 students with special learning needs and from families with below-average household incomes.

Transportation reform. Lawmakers rewrote the state's funding formula for highways and other transportation infrastructure...