Year: 2009

South Carolina student performance on the 2009 SAT dropped by 9 points to a lowest-in-the-South average score of 1452, according to an S.C. Policy Council analysis of the 2009 College…

South Carolina’s performance on the ACT college entrance test dropped this year to an average score of 19.8, which ranks 46th in the nation. In 2008, the state’s average score…

Online check registers are an essential tool to make government spending decisions transparent and allow the public to see how their tax dollars are spent by government officials. In February,…

Citizens earning more than $32,879 rank amongst the wealthiest half of U.S. taxpayers and paid more than 97 percent of all income taxes in 2007, according to new IRS data…

Proposals now before Congress seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States through a “cap‐and‐trade” system, under which U.S. producers would receive tradable permits to emit greenhouse gasses.…

As the Budget & Control Board prepares to meet next week to discuss how to respond to the state’s current revenue shortfall of $92 million, they might consider making some…

When plans for Innovista, the University of South Carolina’s 500-acre research campus, were rolled out in 2005, it was touted as a can’t-miss project that would become a driving force…

In spite of a change in rules in January 2009 requiring recorded votes on contested pieces of legislation, the S.C. General Assembly did not record votes on most of the…

2009 General Assembly Voted Anonymously 75 Percent of the Time The South Carolina General Assembly recorded its votes on 532 out of 2,116 bills considered during the 2009 legislative session,…

The General Assembly voted Wednesday to override Governor Sanford’s veto of those parts (IA and III) of the budget (H 3560) that spend disputed federal stimulus dollars, with the Senate…

This year’s budget debate has not only been one of the most contentious in state history, it has produced the second-largest state budget in history ($20.7 billion), an increase in…

Legislation under consideration by the South Carolina Senate would raise the cigarette tax by 700 percent and cost the state more than 4,100 jobs, according to a dynamic analysis conducted…

The Senior Center Improvement Program was created almost 20 years ago to finance improvements to 74 senior centers through South Carolina, but nearly a decade after the original projects were…

As South Carolinians across the state prepare for the April 15 tax filing deadline, a Policy Council analysis of the state income tax system finds that more than 30 percent…

South Carolina taxpayers currently face serious long-term financial challenges based upon a review of the July 1, 2008actuarial report of the largest statewide pension plan – the South Carolina Retirement…

Federal government spending comes with costs; it should not be accepted as the free-lunch it is frequently considered to be. Every dollar the government spends must first be removed from…

By: Donna Arduin Arthur B. Laffer, Ph.D. Wayne H. Winegarden, Ph.D. Ian McDonough Click here to view the PDF version of this report.

Download the .pdf version here. The state of South Carolina spends approximately $21 billion each year. This is three times higher than the state budget figure frequently cited publicly. This…