DL Open Thread: Monday, June 1, 2026

Looks Like JFC Has Wrapped Up The FY ’27 Budget:

The budget writing Joint Finance Committee’s mark-up hearings add $65 million in general funds to Gov. Matt Meyer’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2027.

It takes the state’s spending growth rate to 6.3%, surpassing Meyer’s goal of keeping spending growth under 5%.

The additional dollars are spread across several departments and projects, notably allocating an extra $35 million to the Department of Education, in part to cover grant funding for substitute teachers and the Wilmington Learning Collaborative.

Joint Finance Committee’s chair Sen. Trey Paradee (D-Dover) said he’s “excited about some of the targeted additions that (the JFC markup) made and restoration of certain spending that we’ve made in the area of education.”

Meyer’s recommended budget cut the WLC funding by about 80%, down to $2 million. The JFC added $3 million for the group, which works across three districts in Wilmington to improve student outcomes.

The JFC markup also added more than $11 million to the Office of Management and Budget to help give state employees a 3% raise.

Paradee said this is a bump from the 2% suggested in the Governor’s budget recommendation.

He pointed out that each percentage point added here increases spending by$10.9 million.

JFC also approved increasing state retiree payroll by one quarter of 1%. This will add $6 million in spending for the state.

‘Both Arbitrary And Cruel’.  Yes, we’re talking John Carney’s rousting of the homeless:

Wilmington Mayor John Carney addressed his decision to close the city’s only officially sanctioned homeless encampment during a signing ceremony for the fiscal year 2027 budget.

Some have called the decision “cruel” because city officials are kicking the residents out of the park after encouraging them to go there. They are also blasting the city for failing to develop a plan to help people at the park find alternative housing options, like emergency shelter beds.

Among those who have denounced the evictions is the newly established Wilmington City Council subcommittee on homelessness, which recently sent a letter to Carney opposing the camp’s closure.

“The approach taken by your administration in addressing homelessness, including this most recent decision to abruptly evict residents, appears both arbitrary and cruel,” the letter stated.

Carney said those who say his decision was cruel “don’t understand the issue.”  (Meaning, he does?)

The mayor reiterated that the Christina Park tent village was always meant to be temporary, and that nonprofit organizations and the Wilmington Police Department have been giving people at the park alternate housing options.

The budget doesn’t include emergency shelter beds. Carney said that’s what park residents need, which in his view, is not a city responsibility.

“They’re not in a position where they’re going to be able to compete for the projects that we’re trying to do to stabilize neighborhoods,” Carney said. “That’s where the state and federal assistance is really critically important.”

Which, as Carney, or presumably at least someone in his administration knows, is not coming.

Local housing and criminal justice advocates have been protesting Carney, trying to get him to support rent stabilization and increase emergency and transitional shelters, and permanent supportive housing units.

The mayor, so far appearing to be unconvinced, criticized their tactics.

“They were protesting in front of my house this morning at 7:30 [a.m.], banging on trash can lids and with a microphone, waking up the neighbors,” he said. “Which just strikes me as not a good way to have a conversation over priorities.”

He’s right.  The only way to have a conversation with Carney over priorities is in the corporate boardrooms of Buccini/Pollin. Sadly, housing advocates are not invited.

Idle Thought: Perhaps we are getting the Sesquicentennial Celebration we deserve.  It’s not like we don’t look like a democracy in decline.

Example:  Here’s who have paid for the hole in the ground at the White House:

Some donors on the list attended a dinner at the White House on 15 October. They include Microsoft, Coinbase, Palantir, Lockheed Martin, Amazon and Google.

Also present and on the list was Shari and Edward Glazer, who, together with their siblings, own both the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Manchester United.

The list also includes:

• Altria Group Inc
• Apple
• Booz Allen Hamilton Inc
• Caterpillar Inc
• Comcast Corporation
• J. Pepe and Emilia Fanjul
• Hard Rock International
• HP Inc
• Micron Technology
• NextEra Energy Inc
• Ripple
• Reynolds American
• T-Mobile
• Tether America
• Union Pacific Railroad
• Adelson Family Foundation
• Stefan E Brodie
• Betty Wold Johnson Foundation
• Charles and Marissa Cascarilla
• Harold Hamm
• Benjamin Leon Jr
• The Lutnick Family
• The Laura & Isaac Perlmutter Foundation
• Stephen A. Schwarzmann
• Konstantin Sokolov
• Kelly Loeffler and Jeff Sprecher
• Paolo Tiramani
• Cameron Winklevoss
• Tyler Winklevoss

Don’t forget, kids: Corporations are people.  In the Good Ol’ USA, at any rate.  Just like the Founding Fathers envisioned.

Remember the War in Iran?  It’s still going on:

The US said it struck Iranian military sites at the weekend and Iran said on Monday it had targeted a US base in response, the latest exchange of attacks amid negotiations to end the three-month-old war.

The US and Iran have sporadically exchanged strikes since their planned ceasefire took effect in early April, as diplomacy aimed at a more durable agreement drags on. A similar exchange occurred last Thursday and was described in near-identical terms by both sides.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Monday it had targeted an airbase used by the US for an attack on southern Iran, without identifying which base. It is assumed to be in Kuwait, which said it had intercepted missile and drone attacks on Monday morning. In a statement, the Kuwaiti foreign ministry said it reserved the right to take “all necessary measures” to defend its territory and security.

August: The month where the excrement hits the fan?:

Every generation gets a moment when somebody quietly says, “You might want to stock up.”

In the 1970s, it was the oil shocks, gas lines and the sudden realization that trouble on the other side of the world could reach all the way into the American driveway.

In the pandemic years, it was toilet paper, medicine, baby formula, meat, parts, packaging, yeast and flour1 and empty shelves where normal used to be.

And now here we are again, standing in the brief, strange pause between the shock and the shelf.

Because war has entered the supply chain.

The war with Iran is not just a war over missiles, oil fields, tankers and shipping lanes. It is a war over the invisible calendar that moves modern life from the ground to the refinery, from the refinery to the factory, from the factory to the warehouse and from the warehouse to your pantry.

The shelves are full right now because they are full of yesterday.

The gasoline in your tank began its journey months ago, before it moved through crude production, tankers, ports, refineries, pipelines, terminals, trucks and finally your local station. The fertilizer used to grow this season’s crops was bought and used up months ago. The plastic packaging around your food, medicine and household goods was made before the price shock fully worked its way into the cost of making plastic.

What you’re looking at today is inventory from a world that no longer exists.

The question is not whether shortages and price spikes are coming. The question is whether you buy before it lands on your doorstep.

The products on store shelves in June and July were ordered, manufactured, packaged, shipped and warehoused before the war disrupted one of the most important trade routes on Earth. Businesses don’t replace all their inventory overnight. They sell through what they already have.

August is when many of those pre-war inventories begin running low.

That doesn’t mean every shelf goes empty on August 1. It means the cushion starts disappearing. The old inventory gets replaced by new inventory carrying higher transportation costs, higher chemical costs, higher fertilizer costs, higher energy costs, or in some cases, no replacement inventory at all.

August is when yesterday’s world begins leaving the shelf.

That’s why the people who prepared won’t look like survivalists. They’ll look like people who happened to stock their homes before everyone else got the memo.

Just thought you’d like to know.

What do you want to talk about?