Rep. Mike Schietzelt has four boys at home, and he jokes that if he doesn’t keep them fed, they’ll start eating the drywall.
But groceries are getting expensive, and even his family’s kitchen counter is looking a little bare these days.
It’s a problem he’s hearing about constantly as he knocks on doors in northern Wake County. Voters are worried about the cost of living, property taxes and whether new data centers will send their power bills through the roof.
I sat down with Schietzelt for the latest Longleaf Politics podcast to talk about what state lawmakers can actually do about these problems, and whether Republicans have done enough.
Schietzelt doesn’t let Washington off the hook. He’s critical of President Trump’s tariffs and the economic fallout from the war in the Middle East, both of which he believes have made life harder for families already struggling with higher prices.
But he also makes a pretty good case for what Republicans have accomplished in Raleigh. We talked about the gas tax, electricity costs and his successful push to keep tolls off Capitol Boulevard.
There’s a lot more to Schietzelt than policy, though.
He grew up poor, raised by a single father who worked two jobs. A donated trumpet helped change the course of his life, eventually leading him to college, a career performing on cruise ships and service in the Marine Corps. He never expected to end up in politics.
And despite everything he’s seen during his first term in the General Assembly, he’s still remarkably optimistic about what government can accomplish.
“You have to be practical,” he told me. “But you can’t let practicality morph into cynicism.”
We covered a lot of ground in this conversation, from his father’s extraordinary military service to what he’s learned about getting things done in Raleigh and why he wants another two years representing northern Wake County.
