Category: Self Governance

For decades, South Carolina lawmakers have cobbled together the state budget with little input from anyone but lobbyists and bureaucrats. Except for vetoes on the back end, the governor had…

Last session, legislative leaders argued South Carolina needed every dollar of the state’s $2.8 billion federal stimulus package to save jobs for teachers and law enforcement personnel. Faced with such…

The Budget & Control Board is the only agency of its kind in the nation – a legislative/executive hybrid with vast powers and virtually no accountability. After 61 years, lawmakers…

The Senate’s response to fiscal Sanity? Delete. The Senate is wrapping up their budget debates…So far it is $100 million more than the House version. Here’s a quick look at…

Irresponsible government spending doesn’t always happen in the open. Sometimes it’s hidden by a smokescreen of complicated budgeting practices. Take this year’s Senate Finance Budget . . . .

After the headlines, after the press releases and fanfare, where do all these investments go? Some of them go south and take millions of tax dollars with them.

For years, the General Assembly has shut the door, cut deals with lobbyists and given away billions of dollars in incentives. Here's what you can do about it.

The House budget, as passed by the full Ways & Means Committee, was finally posted yesterday. The budget (H 3700) is expected to go to the floor for a vote…

The budget is expected to hit the House floor on March 15. According to various media outlets, that budget is $5.2 billion. But as the Policy Council has written before,…

For the past few decades, states have experimented with various forms of zero- and performance-based budgeting practices as a means of making state agencies more efficient and accountable. Many states,…

The concentration of power in South Carolina’s legislature is such that the executive branch is generally unable to institute major reforms without the cooperation of the Legislature, whether stemming from…

Every lawmaker in South Carolina seems to support roll call voting. And for good reason. Citizens have a fundamental right to know how their representatives are voting. Still, legislators continue…

As the 119th session of the General Assembly begins, roll call voting remains a hot button issue. Of the 11 bills currently before the General Assembly, we’ve identified five of…

In 2009 and 2010, the House and Senate combined only recorded 25 percent of their votes. Significant laws that didn’t receive a recorded vote in the Senate range from multimillion…

Each year we review the best and worst ideas taken up during the legislative session, focusing on those bills that will either make South Carolina more free and more prosperous…

We have concluded that a formula based on supply (available revenue as measured by economic productivity) rather than demand (the perceived need for governmental services) provides the best measure for…

Want to know 25 ways we can unleash opportunity, freedom and hope in South Carolina? Here are 25 ideas taken from the pages of the Policy Council’s new blueprint for…

According to a recent actuarial valuation analysis performed for the state Budget & Control Board, South Carolina’s retirement system is carrying a$12 billion unfunded liability. These conclusions are similar to…

In 2009 the General Assembly passed legislation (H 3352) requiring all school districts to post a transaction register online, as well as a copy of the district’s monthly credit card…

As part of our ongoing review of local spending and taxation trends in South Carolina, this Fact Sheet looks at per capita county spending. Like total state spending, local spending…

The House voted yesterday to sustain 51 of 107 of Governor Sanford’s vetoes. The result is regarded as a victory for the governor, whose past veto record was lackluster at…

As the S.C. legislative session finally comes to a close this week, it’s worth asking whether lawmakers are making good use of their time – and taxpayer dollars. As the…

The total budget for FY10-2011 is $21.149 billion, comprised of $8.268 billion in Federal Funds; $7.766 in Other Funds; and $5.115 billion in General Funds. The budget is almost half…

As the budget goes into conference committee, we will be highlighting issues that currently divide the two chambers. In Part I of this series, we looked at the I-95 Corridor…

This memorandum addresses, specifically, whether S.C. House Bill H. 3047 (hereinafter "H 3047") is constitutional and, more generally, whether the changes to the method of recording votes in both houses…

In 2008, the South Carolina Policy Council (SCPC) released research showing that the S.C. General Assembly passed bills with a recorded vote only 5 percent of the time.[1] In January…

I am Dr. Jameson Taylor, Director of Policy with the South Carolina Policy Council. As you may know, the Policy Council is a non-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to safeguarding…

As we review thebest and worst restructuring legislation of 2009,it’s also time to begin to consider what ideas are likely to resurface during the 2010 session.   “Restructuring” generally refers…

25 Ways to Unleash Capitalism in South Carolina Want to know 25 ways we can unleash opportunity, freedom and hope in South Carolina? Here are 25 ideas taken from the…

When taxpayers were promised the $800 billion federal stimulus package was going to create jobs, few realized this meant more government jobs. Some government jobs – police officers and teachers,…