NO, THE SKY ISN'T FALLING.

• Author: Hood, John
• Position: FREE + CLEAR

NORTH CAROLINA'S ECONOMY IS ACCELERATING. DEFYING PROGRESSIVES' PREDICTIONS OF A FALTERING STATE.

As a kid, I always loved hearing the story of Chicken Little. I enjoyed the rhyming names--Turkey Lurkey, Goosey Loosey, Ducky Lucky and so on. Though the fowls' fate as a meal for Foxy Loxy struck me as regrettable, I saw the tale as a useful warning against letting panic get the best of you.

In the 2005 Disney film version of the story, there was a clever twist: Chicken Little turns out to be partially right. Something really does land on his head, and it turns out to be a panel from a spaceship. He and his friends end up saving the day, and the audience realizes that perhaps people ought to perk up whenever someone exclaims, "The sky is falling!"

Cute film, bad message. The original story had it right. Extraordinary claims of impending doom and gloom require extraordinary evidence, which is usually lacking. Politics is full of Chicken Littles, irresponsibly warning of great calamities unless "something is done"--or unless voters defeat their rivals in the next election.

Lately, we've seen many Chicken Littles in North Carolina politics. Remember back in 2014, when progressives predicted a state budget deficit in the hundreds of millions of dollars? They took a few months of data early in the fiscal year, extrapolated that the fiscal sky was falling, and then looked very foolish when North Carolina ended up with a series of healthy budget surpluses.

Remember when progressives predicted that North Carolina's new conservative policies on taxes, regulation, spending, education, unemployment insurance and other issues would damage the state's economy? That didn't happen, either.

Since these policies were...