How Federal Funding Has Ruined S.C.’s Roads
AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT As South Carolinians hit the roads for summer vacations, they’ll have plenty of opportunities to discuss the state’s poorly maintained roadways. The potholes,…
The South Carolina Policy Council Archive
Limited Government | Free Enterprise | Individual Liberty
Lessen the dependence on DC dollars
AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT As South Carolinians hit the roads for summer vacations, they’ll have plenty of opportunities to discuss the state’s poorly maintained roadways. The potholes,…
WHERE’S THE MONEY GOING? HOW MUCH? WHAT FOR? The federal health care law known as “ObamaCare” gets more unpopular every week, but the question for citizens and policymakers is…
‘NULLIFYING’ COMMON CORE WON’T MAKE IT GO AWAY, BUT A BILL NOW IN THE LEGISLATURE WOULD GIVE TAXPAYERS SOME SAY IN THE MATTER The first step toward removing Common…
WHAT COMES AFTER THE WELFARE STATE? Today the welfare state is omnipresent in every part of the United States. The federal budget is dominated by entitlement spending, with 45 percent…
SOUTH CAROLINIANS ARE PAYING BILLIONS FOR UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE. IS THERE AN ALTERNATIVE? On Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Labor, Commerce, and Industry met to discuss a massive debt owed by…
IT’S A QUESTION WORTH ASKING Earlier this month, the Policy Council issued our annual guide to the year’s legislative session, The Best & Worst of the General Assembly. In the…
MAYBE, BUT IT MAY TAKE MORE THAN PASSING A LAW Opponents of Common Core, the nationalized set of academic standards currently being imposed on South Carolina public schools, are wondering…
OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE SUGGESTS POINTLESSNESS OF MORE GUN LAWS South Carolina, as we contended in an August commentary, doesn’t deserve its fiercely pro-gun reputation – at least, not if the criterion…
DOES THIS SOUND LIKE A CURRICULUM YOU WOULD CHOOSE? In Part I of our analysis of Common Core-based curriculum material, we discussed some problematic lesson plans disseminated by Student Achievement…
A RECENT EDUCATION OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE MEETING SUGGESTS JUST HOW MUCH POWER WE’RE GIVING AWAY “Security has asked me to advise that they are in attendance. If there are any outbursts…
WE HATE TO SAY WE TOLD YOU SO, BUT WE DID In September 2011, a week after President Obama announced that states could apply for waivers from some No Child…
GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES FOR THE STATE’S BIGGEST FARMS ARE MORE LAVISH THAN YOU MAY REALIZE South Carolina received quite a bit of rain recently, causing damage to, and a loss of…
WHAT IS IT? HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? AND WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT? Over the past several weeks, a great deal of controversy and discussions have arisen on…
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…
(WITHOUT RAISING TAXES) How do lawmakers propose to deal with the fact that South Carolina’s roads and bridges are in suboptimal shape? The governing assumption behind most answers to this…
MANY SOUTH CAROLINA POLITICIANS HAVE SPOKEN OUT STRONGLY AGAINST OBAMACARE. THEIR ACTIONS TELL A DIFFERENT STORY. In March, Governor Nikki Haley publicly stated that “as long as [she is] the…
THE PROBLEM: The new federal health care takeover will add trillions to the nation’s debt, raise taxes by $669 billion, heap burdensome regulations on South Carolina businesses, and spark sharp…
YOU’RE A TAXPAYER? SORRY, YOU DIDN’T MAKE THE PRIORITY LIST This year, the General Assembly had more than $1 billion in new revenue to appropriate. The final version of the…
The South Carolina Department of Transportation has one of the largest budgets in state government, yet it can’t afford to maintain the state’s roads. Why? Because most of DoT’s money…
Part of the Obama administration’s stimulus bill established unemployment “incentive grants” to states who “modernize” (translation: expand) unemployment benefit eligibility. Any state whose law coheres with federal standards could receive…
The James E. Clyburn University Transportation Research and Conference Center at South Carolina State University is a $107 million dollar project. The complex was intended to serve as a transportation…
Every year, South Carolina becomes more dependent on the federal government, and every year the state loses more control over its own affairs to Washington DC. The federal government has…
The federal government is trying to run the U.S. economy – and South Carolina is helping out by taking federal grants for “economic development.” Why? Because it’s free money from…
A vast number of new federal healthcare regulations are introduced in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), most of which will be enforced through state or federally run…
In a recent piece on Slate.com, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer calls a pair of South Carolina politicians “hypocritical” for, on the one hand, criticizing Obamacare's individual health insurance…
At issue, of course, is the law Now Child Left Behind (NCLB), now in its tenth year. To understand what the news is all about, you need to understand what…
What’s the Committee doing? Over the last few months (check out our video coverage), we’ve watched a roomful of policymakers and health care officials struggle to come to grips with…
More than a third of our budget depends on a source that’s headed for financial ruin. The federal government is now $14 trillion in debt and running a $1.3 trillion…
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), more popularly known as “Obamacare,” is expected to cost trillions and increase the national debt by hundreds of billions of dollars. All…
The ongoing practice of keeping state spending high, especially in the midst of the “Great Recession” that has lowered the standard of living for many South Carolinians, depends upon the…