What Will ‘Obamacare’ Mean for You?
THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT IS ABOUT TO BE A BIG PART OF YOUR WORLD The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, has already begun to take effect on the nation’s taxpayers and economy. Over the next year, as The Nerve reports today, South Carolina employers will be faced with serious – and [...]
The State Budget: What Are You Buying?
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR PURCHASES THIS YEAR? The state budget isn’t a foregone conclusion, and for the most part it’s not some legal obligation – like a mortgage payment – that can’t be altered or reduced at will. The state budget is a transaction in which the citizens pay for certain services, [...]
What’s South Carolina’s Biggest Employer?
IT’S NOT WHAT POLITICIANS TELL YOU What industry would you guess is the biggest employer in South Carolina? Listening to State House politicians, you might think the answer is one company, Boeing. Or you might think tourism is the number one employer in the state. In reality, government is the single largest employer in South [...]
Does S.C. “Live within Its Means”?
TECHNICALLY, YES. IN EVERY OTHER WAY, NO. Twenty-four billion is a large number. No one has ever seen 24 billion dollars all together, so it’s difficult to imagine an amount of money that large. But apparently, according to South Carolina’s lawmakers, it takes this mind-bending amount of money to run the state for one year. [...]
Another Useless Attempt to Cap Spending
IT’S WON’T CAP SPENDING IF GOVERNMENT GETS TO KEEP THE MONEY Yet another legislative session is about to pass in which there was some talk about controlling state spending, but nothing done. Back in February, House members introduced a bill that aimed to limit state spending by capping General Fund (GF) appropriations. Specifically the bill [...]
The Answer to Road Funding: Tax Hikes?
THE LATEST PROPOSAL TO FIX OUR ROADS ASSUMES STATE GOVERNMENT DOESN’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY Last week, H.3412 was placed on the Senate calendar for consideration. Originally the bill would have merely shifted revenue from the sales tax of motor vehicles – currently dedicated in part to the Education Improvement Act fund (EIA) – to the [...]
Why the State Budget Grows … No Matter What
FINES AND FEES GO UP WHEN TAX REVENUES ARE DOWN … AND WHEN THEY’RE UP, TOO For the last decade, the majority party in both chambers of the legislature has frequently claimed to espouse the principles of limited government and spending restraint. It’s striking, then, that in no sense has government been limited during these [...]
Liberty, Equality … and Corporate Welfare
HOW ECONOMIC INCENTIVES COMPROMISE AMERICA’S MOST IMPORTANT VALUE Equality and liberty are not always compatible and in some cases directly opposed, but there is one notion of equality that is a necessary component of liberty, and that is “equality of opportunity.” Although this term is used differently on opposite sides of the political spectrum, advocates [...]
Boeing Bond Deal Needs Explanation
WHY THE RUSH TO PUT FUTURE TAXPAYERS 120,000,000 MORE DOLLARS INTO DEBT? The news broke this week that Boeing plans to expand its existing North Charleston campus to include an information technology “center of excellence.” The expansion, according to a company spokesman, will create 2,000 jobs. State lawmakers quickly announced plans to issue $120 million [...]
The Health Care Debate in South Carolina
A SNAPSHOT OF WHERE WE ARE Obamacare by Another Means While the governor and Speaker of the House are promoting what they call an “alternative” to Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid, the truth is that their plan amounts to virtually the same thing. It’s true that the House recently objected to outright Medicaid expansion via the [...]