The Truth Party | October 15, 2026
I woke up this morning, October 15th, and read an article in the Greensboro News & Record that absolutely blew my mind.
The headline?
“634 Pages of Frustration.”
And let me tell you something. Frustration doesn’t begin to describe it.
Apparently, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a 634-page state budget back in July.
Six hundred and thirty-four pages!
Now, I’ve been around for 69 years. I’ve spent 42 years in business. I’ve managed budgets, negotiated contracts, dealt with accountants, lawyers, bankers, and all kinds of financial documents.
And I can tell you one thing.
If somebody walked into my office and handed me a 634-page financial document and said, “John, you’ve got two hours to read this, understand it, and approve it,” I’d tell them to get the hell out of my office.
But apparently, that’s how we run the state of North Carolina.
And here’s where it gets interesting.
Tuesday night, there was a candidates’ forum right here in downtown Greensboro at The Pyrle.
Republicans and Democrats running for the North Carolina House and Senate were there.
And guess what?
They were all complaining about the same damn thing!
The budget process.
Republican John Blust, who’s been in the legislature under both Democratic and Republican leadership, described how a handful of people get together behind closed doors and decide what goes into the budget.
Then they hand it to everybody else and expect them to vote.
He even talked about budgets being delivered at 3:30 in the morning, practically still warm from the printing press.
Think about that.
These are the people we’ve elected to represent us.
They’re supposed to be looking out for our interests.
And they’re being asked to vote on hundreds of pages of spending decisions without having a reasonable opportunity to examine them.
What the hell kind of government is that?
Democratic Representative Amanda Cook said she received the final budget the morning of the vote.
She had to rely on staff members who had reviewed earlier drafts.
And she ultimately voted against it.
Now, I don’t blame legislators for needing help understanding a complicated budget.
That’s what professional staff are for.
But there’s a big difference between relying on expert advice and being denied sufficient time to make an informed decision.
And that’s the problem.
We’re not talking about buying a new copier for the office.
We’re talking about billions of dollars in taxpayer money.
Your money.
My money.
Everybody’s money.
And apparently, the process is so screwed up that members of both political parties are complaining about it.
Now, here’s something else that caught my attention.
The corporate income tax.
North Carolina has been moving toward eliminating its corporate income tax by 2030.
Eliminating it!
Zero!
And Democratic candidate Steve Luking called that criminal.
But here’s the fascinating part.
His Republican opponent, Sam Page, also said he doesn’t believe corporate income taxes should be eliminated.
Page made a simple observation.
Corporations use public resources.
They use roads.
They use infrastructure.
They use services.
And they ought to help pay for them.
Well, hallelujah!
A Republican and a Democrat agreeing on something!
Somebody call the Guinness Book of World Records!
Now, those two candidates may disagree about exactly what the tax rate ought to be.
That’s a legitimate debate.
But they’re agreeing on a fundamental principle.
Corporations benefit from public investment, and they should contribute to supporting it.
That’s a conversation worth having.
And it’s exactly the kind of conversation I’ve been trying to encourage through the Truth Party.
Because somewhere along the way, we’ve gotten ourselves into this ridiculous situation where every political issue has to be a Republican issue or a Democratic issue.
Why?
Why can’t it just be an American issue?
Why can’t we look at something, figure out what’s working, figure out what’s broken, and fix the damn thing?
Which brings me to another part of this budget.
Education.
According to the article, the budget increased teacher salaries by an average of 8%.
Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?
Eight percent!
But wait a minute.
Democratic candidates Shelley Headen and Amanda Cook pointed out that experienced teachers weren’t necessarily getting those increases.
A lot of the money was concentrated toward the bottom of the salary schedule.
Now, I’m all for paying beginning teachers better.
But what about somebody who’s been teaching for 25 years?
Somebody who’s dedicated their entire professional life to educating our children?
Don’t they deserve consideration, too?
This is why you have to look beyond the headline.
Because an average doesn’t tell you how the money is actually distributed.
And this is precisely why legislators need time to examine the details.
Now, Republican Representative Alan Branson defended the budget.
He pointed to teacher raises and reductions in personal income taxes.
And those are legitimate policy positions.
But that’s what makes this whole thing so frustrating.
We ought to be debating the merits of these decisions instead of debating whether our representatives had time to read them!
And there’s something even bigger going on here.
I’ve spent the last several months building the Truth Party.
And one of the fundamental principles of the Truth Party is accountability.
Not Republican accountability.
Not Democratic accountability.
Government accountability.
Because here’s what I’ve come to understand.
The biggest problem in American politics isn’t necessarily that we disagree.
It’s that we’ve built systems that make it incredibly difficult to have honest, transparent conversations about those disagreements.
A few people make decisions.
Everybody else is expected to fall in line.
And the public finds out what happened after the fact.
That’s not how representative government is supposed to work.
Now, I’m also running for mayor of Greensboro.
And one of the things I’ve been doing is going around town interviewing residents.
My goal is to talk to a thousand people.
Four simple questions.
What do you like about Greensboro?
What don’t you like?
What would you change?
And what would you like Greensboro to become?
And you know what I’m discovering?
People have some really good ideas.
Ordinary people.
People who aren’t politicians.
People who aren’t lobbyists.
People who aren’t sitting in conference rooms making decisions for everybody else.
They just want somebody to listen.
And that’s what government ought to be doing.
Listening.
Explaining.
Being transparent.
And making decisions in the open.
Now, I understand that state government and city government operate differently.
But the principle is exactly the same.
When you’re spending the public’s money, the public deserves to know what you’re doing.
And the people voting on that spending ought to understand what they’re approving.
That shouldn’t be controversial.
That shouldn’t be partisan.
That should be common sense.
So here’s my proposal.
Let’s establish a few basic principles for government budgeting.
Publish proposed budgets in a format ordinary citizens can understand.
Give elected representatives sufficient time to review the final documents before voting.
Make significant last-minute changes visible to the public.
And require a clear explanation of where the money is coming from and where it’s going.
Is that really asking too much?
We’ve got artificial intelligence capable of analyzing enormous quantities of information in seconds.
We’ve got technology that can make complicated financial documents understandable to ordinary citizens.
And we’re still handing legislators 634-page documents and telling them to hurry up and push a button?
Are you kidding me?
It’s 2026!
We can do better than this.
And here’s the part I want everybody to remember.
At that forum in Greensboro, Republicans and Democrats agreed that something was wrong with the process.
That’s important.
Because it tells me there’s common ground.
And common ground is where progress begins.
We don’t have to agree on every tax rate.
We don’t have to agree on every spending priority.
We don’t even have to agree on what government’s role ought to be.
But surely we can agree that the people making decisions about our money should have time to understand those decisions.
Surely we can agree that taxpayers deserve transparency.
And surely we can agree that government ought to work for the people instead of the other way around.
That’s what the Truth Party is about.
That’s what I’m trying to accomplish here in Greensboro.
And that’s why I’m talking to strangers every single day.
Because I believe the answers are out there.
They’re not necessarily sitting in Raleigh.
They’re not necessarily sitting in Washington.
They’re sitting in coffee shops.
They’re walking down Elm Street.
They’re teaching our children.
They’re working in hospitals.
They’re running small businesses.
They’re ordinary Americans who want their government to make some damn sense.
And maybe it’s time we started listening to them.
Six hundred and thirty-four pages.
Two hours to read them.
Billions of dollars at stake.
And somehow, we’re supposed to call that responsible government?
I don’t think so.
I’m John Eagleton.
I’m 69 years old.
And I’ve got a question.
If Republicans and Democrats can agree the system is broken, what the hell are we waiting for?
Let’s fix it.
That’s the truth. And that’s the Truth Party.
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