H.3525 bears many similarities to H.3413 and S.409, two other bills introduced this session to create a regulatory framework for transportation network companies (TNCs), that is, companies that provide personal transportation arranged…
THE HOUSE FOUND MONEY FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS PROJECTS, BUT NOT FOR CORE SERVICES The recent House-passed FY16 budget is the largest of the three versions of the budget released this…
FOR HOUSE LAWMAKERS, ROAD FUNDING IS ABOUT BUILDING NEW ROADS, ‘ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT’ – AND JUST ABOUT ANYTHING BUT FIXING THE STATE’S CRUMBLING ROADS AND BRIDGES. Lawmakers are quick to bemoan the state of…
More often than not, state regulation – especially licensing laws – has little to do with protecting the public and everything to do with insulating currently entrenched businesses from competition.…
H.3374 would rename the Local Government Fund the “Local Government Revenue Sharing Fund” and would delete a requirement that the fund be appropriated an amount not less than 4.5 percent of…
• A pair of omnibus ethics bills now in the General Assembly purport to end legislative “self-policing.” • They don’t. • Instead, both bills perpetuate a system in which lawmakers…
MAJOR ETHICS BILLS ARE MOVING IN BOTH HOUSE AND SENATE. EACH HIDES PROVISIONS THAT WOULD LEGALIZE UNETHICAL CONDUCT ON THE PART OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS, AND PUNISH CITIZENS FOR CHALLENGING THEM. [download…
THE HOUSE PLAN HAS THIS IN COMMON WITH THE GOVERNOR’S: IT ASSUMES WE HAVE A REVENUE PROBLEM. Nearly a week after the governor released her plan to fix South Carolina roads,…
MEET THIS YEAR’S GIANT ‘ETHICS BILL’ The legislative session has only just begun, but somehow lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee are already poised to pass an omnibus ethics reform bill.…
THE GOVERNOR DOUBLES DOWN, PHONES IT IN Update* Budget documents prepared by the Executive Budget Office not available at the time of initial publication reveal an even larger executive budget. The…
WHICH ONES DESERVE THE WORD ‘REFORM’? Two years ago, many, perhaps most, lawmakers dismissed the need for ethics reform. They know better now. As the 2015 session begins, already more…
THE ABBEVILLE DECISION IS JUDICIAL IMPERIALISM IN SUPPORT OF DISCREDITED POLICY The South Carolina Supreme Court issued a momentous decision on November 12. In a case that’s been going on…
. . . AND KILLS A TERRIBLE ONE During the first day of organizational session on December 2, the House voted on and approved a package of 15 rule changes…
WHAT YOUR POLICYMAKERS ARE HEARING & SAYING Two recent meetings – the House Ad Hoc Transportation Review Committee, and a York Town Hall addressed by Rep. Gary Simrill (R-York) –…
LAWMAKERS SEEM TO THINK SO. A LITTLE EFFORT MIGHT BE IN ORDER. Tax hikes are on the mind of legislators. At least that’s what the October 30 meeting of the…
NEW POWERS FOR LAWMAKERS? Much has been made of the restructuring of state government through the Department of Administration bill passed in January. Proponents of the bill have labeled it historic…
NOT AS MUCH AS IT SHOULD A recent debate between the two major party candidates vying to become South Carolina’s next Superintendent of Education failed to reveal many substantive policy…
MONEY’S NOT THE PROBLEM. PRIORITIES ARE. The issue of road funding – or, to put it slightly differently, the question of how South Carolina should fix its broken road system…
WHAT THE McDONNELL CASE TELLS US ABOUT GOVERNMENT ‘DEVELOPING’ THE ECONOMY Last week former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell was convicted of 11 counts of corruption related to his acceptance of…
IS YOUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT DOING A GREAT JOB OF MAINTAINING PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE? IF NOT . . . The Nerve recently reported on a lawyer who is simultaneously serving as a…
WHEN WILL LOCAL GOVERNMENTS PUSH BACK AGAINST ALL THIS MEDDLING? The House of Representatives returned for a special one day session on August 27 to address a mere two bills…
PROBABLY NOT WHAT CHESTER ARTHUR WOULD HAVE DONE You might have recently heard that South Carolina ended the fiscal year with a higher-than-expected surplus – a surplus big enough to…
MORE LAYERS OF GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS WON’T ADDRESS THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY. BUT SOMETHING ELSE WILL. South Carolina is among the poorest states in the nation. That’s no secret. But with a…
COMMON CORE IS EVERYWHERE – BY DESIGN. REJECTING IT WILL TAKE MORE THAN A BILL. Across the country, parents and teachers are waking up and forcing their states to reject the…
ANOTHER IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME AND GONE “Public-private partnerships” with innocuous-sounding names have become extremely popular in South Carolina over the last decade. The latest endeavor in the trend…
THE EX-IM BANK GIVES FOREIGN COMPANIES AN ADVANTAGE, COURTESY OF THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER . . . TIME TO LET IT EXPIRE In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution,…
FAKE REFORM BILLS, NO EFFORT ON OBAMACARE, MASSIVE BUDGET INCREASE Every year should be a new opportunity in a supposedly “red” state like South Carolina for lawmakers to cut taxes,…
REGULATION STUNTS OUR ECONOMY AND HURTS CONSUMERS. HERE’S WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. South Carolina, like the rest of America, is suffering from burdensome regulation on individuals and businesses.…
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK The conference committee on H.3945 (the “ethics bill”) met on Wednesday to hash out differences in the House and Senate versions of the bill before…
A GREAT IDEA…BUT A LITTLE LATE This week, it came as a surprise to many when Governor Haley called for abolishing South Carolina’s income tax. This new proposal is significantly…
BILL ANALYSIS: New Regulations for Uber
H.3525 bears many similarities to H.3413 and S.409, two other bills introduced this session to create a regulatory framework for transportation network companies (TNCs), that is, companies that provide personal transportation arranged…
House Budget: Misplaced Priorities
THE HOUSE FOUND MONEY FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS PROJECTS, BUT NOT FOR CORE SERVICES The recent House-passed FY16 budget is the largest of the three versions of the budget released this…
S.C. Going the Wrong Way on Road Funding
FOR HOUSE LAWMAKERS, ROAD FUNDING IS ABOUT BUILDING NEW ROADS, ‘ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT’ – AND JUST ABOUT ANYTHING BUT FIXING THE STATE’S CRUMBLING ROADS AND BRIDGES. Lawmakers are quick to bemoan the state of…
BILL ANALYSIS: Regulating the Funeral Industry
More often than not, state regulation – especially licensing laws – has little to do with protecting the public and everything to do with insulating currently entrenched businesses from competition.…
Reducing Obligations to Local Governments
H.3374 would rename the Local Government Fund the “Local Government Revenue Sharing Fund” and would delete a requirement that the fund be appropriated an amount not less than 4.5 percent of…
Ethics Bills Perpetuate Self-Policing
• A pair of omnibus ethics bills now in the General Assembly purport to end legislative “self-policing.” • They don’t. • Instead, both bills perpetuate a system in which lawmakers…
Ethics Reform in Reverse?
MAJOR ETHICS BILLS ARE MOVING IN BOTH HOUSE AND SENATE. EACH HIDES PROVISIONS THAT WOULD LEGALIZE UNETHICAL CONDUCT ON THE PART OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS, AND PUNISH CITIZENS FOR CHALLENGING THEM. [download…
On Roads, S.C. House Doing Its Own Thing
THE HOUSE PLAN HAS THIS IN COMMON WITH THE GOVERNOR’S: IT ASSUMES WE HAVE A REVENUE PROBLEM. Nearly a week after the governor released her plan to fix South Carolina roads,…
Senate Ethics Bill Would Take Reform Backward
MEET THIS YEAR’S GIANT ‘ETHICS BILL’ The legislative session has only just begun, but somehow lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee are already poised to pass an omnibus ethics reform bill.…
Gov. Haley’s Budget: Same Deal, More Money
THE GOVERNOR DOUBLES DOWN, PHONES IT IN Update* Budget documents prepared by the Executive Budget Office not available at the time of initial publication reveal an even larger executive budget. The…
Lawmakers File Scores of ‘Ethics’ Bills for 2015
WHICH ONES DESERVE THE WORD ‘REFORM’? Two years ago, many, perhaps most, lawmakers dismissed the need for ethics reform. They know better now. As the 2015 session begins, already more…
The S.C. Supreme Court’s New Role: Education Czar
THE ABBEVILLE DECISION IS JUDICIAL IMPERIALISM IN SUPPORT OF DISCREDITED POLICY The South Carolina Supreme Court issued a momentous decision on November 12. In a case that’s been going on…
S.C. House Passes One Excellent Reform
. . . AND KILLS A TERRIBLE ONE During the first day of organizational session on December 2, the House voted on and approved a package of 15 rule changes…
Good & Bad Ideas on Roads
WHAT YOUR POLICYMAKERS ARE HEARING & SAYING Two recent meetings – the House Ad Hoc Transportation Review Committee, and a York Town Hall addressed by Rep. Gary Simrill (R-York) –…
Roads: Is Raising Taxes Really the Only Option?
LAWMAKERS SEEM TO THINK SO. A LITTLE EFFORT MIGHT BE IN ORDER. Tax hikes are on the mind of legislators. At least that’s what the October 30 meeting of the…
How “Restructuring” Gave the Legislature More Power
NEW POWERS FOR LAWMAKERS? Much has been made of the restructuring of state government through the Department of Administration bill passed in January. Proponents of the bill have labeled it historic…
Does the Education Superintendent Matter?
NOT AS MUCH AS IT SHOULD A recent debate between the two major party candidates vying to become South Carolina’s next Superintendent of Education failed to reveal many substantive policy…
Why Raising the Fuel Tax Is a Terrible Idea
MONEY’S NOT THE PROBLEM. PRIORITIES ARE. The issue of road funding – or, to put it slightly differently, the question of how South Carolina should fix its broken road system…
Getting Politics out of Money
WHAT THE McDONNELL CASE TELLS US ABOUT GOVERNMENT ‘DEVELOPING’ THE ECONOMY Last week former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell was convicted of 11 counts of corruption related to his acceptance of…
Why “Publicly Owned” Resources Get Neglected
IS YOUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT DOING A GREAT JOB OF MAINTAINING PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE? IF NOT . . . The Nerve recently reported on a lawyer who is simultaneously serving as a…
How S.C.’s Legislature Bullies Local Governments
WHEN WILL LOCAL GOVERNMENTS PUSH BACK AGAINST ALL THIS MEDDLING? The House of Representatives returned for a special one day session on August 27 to address a mere two bills…
What Will the State Do with the Surplus?
PROBABLY NOT WHAT CHESTER ARTHUR WOULD HAVE DONE You might have recently heard that South Carolina ended the fiscal year with a higher-than-expected surplus – a surplus big enough to…
Why Another Earned Income Credit Won’t Help
MORE LAYERS OF GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS WON’T ADDRESS THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY. BUT SOMETHING ELSE WILL. South Carolina is among the poorest states in the nation. That’s no secret. But with a…
Common Core: It’s Bigger Than You Think
COMMON CORE IS EVERYWHERE – BY DESIGN. REJECTING IT WILL TAKE MORE THAN A BILL. Across the country, parents and teachers are waking up and forcing their states to reject the…
Nothing New about the New Markets Job Act
ANOTHER IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME AND GONE “Public-private partnerships” with innocuous-sounding names have become extremely popular in South Carolina over the last decade. The latest endeavor in the trend…
The Unseen Costs of the Export-Import Bank
THE EX-IM BANK GIVES FOREIGN COMPANIES AN ADVANTAGE, COURTESY OF THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER . . . TIME TO LET IT EXPIRE In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution,…
Not a Great Year for Freedom
FAKE REFORM BILLS, NO EFFORT ON OBAMACARE, MASSIVE BUDGET INCREASE Every year should be a new opportunity in a supposedly “red” state like South Carolina for lawmakers to cut taxes,…
How to Dismantle the Regulatory State
REGULATION STUNTS OUR ECONOMY AND HURTS CONSUMERS. HERE’S WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. South Carolina, like the rest of America, is suffering from burdensome regulation on individuals and businesses.…
Conference Committee Misses Mark on Ethics Reform
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK The conference committee on H.3945 (the “ethics bill”) met on Wednesday to hash out differences in the House and Senate versions of the bill before…
Governor Calls for Income Tax Elimination…In the Last Week of Session
A GREAT IDEA…BUT A LITTLE LATE This week, it came as a surprise to many when Governor Haley called for abolishing South Carolina’s income tax. This new proposal is significantly…