A BILLION AND A HALF … WAIT – WHAT? The House Ways and Means Committee has just passed its version of the state budget, and it’s been reported as a $22.7…
“ALTERNATIVE” TO GOVERNMENT SPENDING PLAN TURNS OUT TO BE LESS AMBITIOUS GOVERNMENT SPENDING PLAN. IS THERE A PLAN C? Yesterday the House Republican Caucus met with reporters about a…
CURRENT DOA BILL WOULD FURTHER FLOUT CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES [UPDATE: Late yesterday the full Senate passed S.22 by a vote of 35 to 10. The version passed by the Senate…
Earlier today the Policy Council filed a complaint with Attorney General Alan Wilson against House Speaker Bobby Harrell. The Attorney General agrees with us that the House Ethics Committee is…
INCREASED FEDERAL HANDOUTS AS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT … HAVEN’T WE TRIED THAT BEFORE? Through the heated national and state debates over health care policy and the implementation of the Affordable…
IF YOU GIVE AN AGENCY A COOKIE . . . [Note: Parts one and two of this series were published earlier this week and last week.] If the governor’s executive budget…
IF IT DOESN’T WORK, KEEP DOING IT … ? Part 2 of our series on the governor’s proposed budget of FY 2013-14 shines a light on the following four department…
JUST WHAT WE NEED: A NEW, MORE COMPLICATED INFRASTRUCTURE FUND A bill recently introduced by Senator Larry Grooms aims to create the “Palmetto Highway Improvement Fund.” The bill –…
WHY DO HOSPITALS WANT TO EXPAND MEDICAID? (HINT: IT’S NOT BECAUSE THEY’RE JUST NICE PEOPLE) Hospitals in South Carolina, both individually and under the auspices of the South Carolina Hospital…
LANDESS ASKS GOVERNOR’S COMMISSION ON ETHICS REFORM TO CONSIDER DEPTH OF PROBLEM [Note: the following is testimony by SCPC President Ashley Landess before Gov. Nikki Haley’s Commission on…
MORE OF THE SAME? The 2013 legislative session has just begun, and one of the first items unveiled was the governor’s executive budget. Whether or not the legislature will follow…
LAWMAKERS SHOULD QUIT MAKING EXCUSES AND FOLLOW THE LAW Two years ago, the Policy Council discovered a provision in state law requiring House and Senate appropriations committees to meet…
Lawmakers say it’s about accountability. The only trouble is: Their bill doesn’t achieve it. On Thursday, January 10, at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee – the subcommittee dealing…
HOW THE STATES CAN DO MORE THAN YOU THINK . . . As the 120th session of the South Carolina General Assembly kicks off, the decisions to implement (or not implement)…
CAN SOMETHING SO SIMPLE REALLY BE SO DIFFICULT? Among the state’s commentators and editorialists, ethics reform is expected to be the issue of the 2013 legislative session. What exactly…
LAWMAKERS: LET’S DELETE THE LAW WE’VE BEEN IGNORING For over a year, the Policy Council has been pointing out an important provision in state law that lawmakers conveniently ignore every…
PRE-FILED LEGISLATION, ROUND 1 GOOD: Prohibiting Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying H.3152 would make it unlawful for a state entity to spend public money on a lobbyist. Taxpayer-funded lobbying is one of the…
WHAT ARE SOUTH CAROLINA’S OPTIONS? Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (widely known as Obamacare) and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that the law is constitutional, there has…
A FEW IDEAS WORTH KEEPING FOR NEXT YEAR . . . The 2013 legislative session will begin in January, and many lawmakers and pundits have predicted that this will be…
OR: WHERE’S ALL THAT MONEY GOING, ANYWAY? State agencies submitted their budget requests earlier this month, as state law requires, and all but one higher education institution that submitted a…
…MORE OR LESS. In the 1990s, politicians spoke constantly about “the children” and/or “education.” Now they tend to talk about “jobs,” as if the whole purpose of government were to…
Before lawmakers try to “equalize” education funding among school districts, they’d better examine the premises of the proposed plan. The South Carolina School Boards Association has recently released a new…
NEXT TIME LAWMAKERS CLAIM THEY’VE DONE SOMETHING ABOUT SCHOOL CHOICE, TAKE A CLOSE LOOK If you’re a parent, you’ve probably had this experience. You give your child a minimally difficult…
HOW SOUTH CAROLINA FELL INTO GORDON TULLOCK’S “TRANSITIONAL GAINS TRAP” At a recent debate sponsored by the Policy Council on the merits of taxpayer-financed “incentives” – the headline for the…
State agencies have begun submitting their budget requests for next year. Ever wonder how government grows so much, so fast? Here’s where it starts. Major requests for budget hikes The…
State law prescribes a detailed and transparent process for how elected officials are to introduce, debate, and pass the state budget. Unfortunately, lawmakers have a bad habit of ignoring that law.…
IT’S HERE! The 2012 edition of The Best and Worst of the General Assembly, our annual guide to the legislature’s accomplishments and misadventures, is here. In it, we highlight the year’s…
IS THERE A ‘CONTROLLING LEGAL AUTHORITY’ HERE? In 1997, when Vice President Al Gore was questioned about suspicious campaign fund-raising activities, he claimed repeatedly that he didn’t know it was…
FOR A ‘FREEDOM OF INFORMATION’ LAW, OURS DOESN’T ALLOW VERY MUCH INFORMATION Want information about the way a state agency uses your tax dollars? Here’s the good news: nearly every…
The State Budget is $1.5B Bigger Than You Thought
A BILLION AND A HALF … WAIT – WHAT? The House Ways and Means Committee has just passed its version of the state budget, and it’s been reported as a $22.7…
“Alternative” Plan to Medicaid Expansion?
“ALTERNATIVE” TO GOVERNMENT SPENDING PLAN TURNS OUT TO BE LESS AMBITIOUS GOVERNMENT SPENDING PLAN. IS THERE A PLAN C? Yesterday the House Republican Caucus met with reporters about a…
Dept. of Administration Bill Gets Worse
CURRENT DOA BILL WOULD FURTHER FLOUT CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES [UPDATE: Late yesterday the full Senate passed S.22 by a vote of 35 to 10. The version passed by the Senate…
SCPC Files Complaint with Attorney General
Earlier today the Policy Council filed a complaint with Attorney General Alan Wilson against House Speaker Bobby Harrell. The Attorney General agrees with us that the House Ethics Committee is…
Is Medicaid a Job Creator?
INCREASED FEDERAL HANDOUTS AS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT … HAVEN’T WE TRIED THAT BEFORE? Through the heated national and state debates over health care policy and the implementation of the Affordable…
The Governor’s Spending Plan (Part 3)
IF YOU GIVE AN AGENCY A COOKIE . . . [Note: Parts one and two of this series were published earlier this week and last week.] If the governor’s executive budget…
School Choice This Year?
NEW SESSION, NEW SCHOOL CHOICE BILL – SAME BAD IDEA As was the case last year – and just about any year over the last decade – the current…
The Governor’s Spending Plan (Part 2)
IF IT DOESN’T WORK, KEEP DOING IT … ? Part 2 of our series on the governor’s proposed budget of FY 2013-14 shines a light on the following four department…
Road Funding: Another Bad Idea
JUST WHAT WE NEED: A NEW, MORE COMPLICATED INFRASTRUCTURE FUND A bill recently introduced by Senator Larry Grooms aims to create the “Palmetto Highway Improvement Fund.” The bill –…
Medicaid Expansion: Who pays?
WHY DO HOSPITALS WANT TO EXPAND MEDICAID? (HINT: IT’S NOT BECAUSE THEY’RE JUST NICE PEOPLE) Hospitals in South Carolina, both individually and under the auspices of the South Carolina Hospital…
Testimony before Commission on Ethics Reform
LANDESS ASKS GOVERNOR’S COMMISSION ON ETHICS REFORM TO CONSIDER DEPTH OF PROBLEM [Note: the following is testimony by SCPC President Ashley Landess before Gov. Nikki Haley’s Commission on…
The Governor’s Spending Plan (Part 1)
MORE OF THE SAME? The 2013 legislative session has just begun, and one of the first items unveiled was the governor’s executive budget. Whether or not the legislature will follow…
Why the State’s Open Budget Law Matters
LAWMAKERS SHOULD QUIT MAKING EXCUSES AND FOLLOW THE LAW Two years ago, the Policy Council discovered a provision in state law requiring House and Senate appropriations committees to meet…
What’s the Point of Restructuring?
Lawmakers say it’s about accountability. The only trouble is: Their bill doesn’t achieve it. On Thursday, January 10, at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee – the subcommittee dealing…
Protecting South Carolina from Obamacare
HOW THE STATES CAN DO MORE THAN YOU THINK . . . As the 120th session of the South Carolina General Assembly kicks off, the decisions to implement (or not implement)…
Abolishing the Ethics Committees
CAN SOMETHING SO SIMPLE REALLY BE SO DIFFICULT? Among the state’s commentators and editorialists, ethics reform is expected to be the issue of the 2013 legislative session. What exactly…
They Admit It!
LAWMAKERS: LET’S DELETE THE LAW WE’VE BEEN IGNORING For over a year, the Policy Council has been pointing out an important provision in state law that lawmakers conveniently ignore every…
The Good, the Bad, the Improvable, & the Shockingly Egregious
PRE-FILED LEGISLATION, ROUND 1 GOOD: Prohibiting Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying H.3152 would make it unlawful for a state entity to spend public money on a lobbyist. Taxpayer-funded lobbying is one of the…
The Facts on Medicaid Expansion
WHAT ARE SOUTH CAROLINA’S OPTIONS? Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (widely known as Obamacare) and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that the law is constitutional, there has…
Ethics Reform: Some Re-Gifting Ideas
A FEW IDEAS WORTH KEEPING FOR NEXT YEAR . . . The 2013 legislative session will begin in January, and many lawmakers and pundits have predicted that this will be…
University Funding Up, Graduation Rates Down
OR: WHERE’S ALL THAT MONEY GOING, ANYWAY? State agencies submitted their budget requests earlier this month, as state law requires, and all but one higher education institution that submitted a…
How to Create 10,000 Jobs
…MORE OR LESS. In the 1990s, politicians spoke constantly about “the children” and/or “education.” Now they tend to talk about “jobs,” as if the whole purpose of government were to…
More Money = Better Outcomes?
Before lawmakers try to “equalize” education funding among school districts, they’d better examine the premises of the proposed plan. The South Carolina School Boards Association has recently released a new…
Progress on School Choice?
NEXT TIME LAWMAKERS CLAIM THEY’VE DONE SOMETHING ABOUT SCHOOL CHOICE, TAKE A CLOSE LOOK If you’re a parent, you’ve probably had this experience. You give your child a minimally difficult…
It’s a Trap!
HOW SOUTH CAROLINA FELL INTO GORDON TULLOCK’S “TRANSITIONAL GAINS TRAP” At a recent debate sponsored by the Policy Council on the merits of taxpayer-financed “incentives” – the headline for the…
Here Come the Budget Busters!
State agencies have begun submitting their budget requests for next year. Ever wonder how government grows so much, so fast? Here’s where it starts. Major requests for budget hikes The…
Citizens’ Guide to the 2012 State Budget
State law prescribes a detailed and transparent process for how elected officials are to introduce, debate, and pass the state budget. Unfortunately, lawmakers have a bad habit of ignoring that law.…
Best & Worst of the General Assembly
IT’S HERE! The 2012 edition of The Best and Worst of the General Assembly, our annual guide to the legislature’s accomplishments and misadventures, is here. In it, we highlight the year’s…
Who Investigates?
IS THERE A ‘CONTROLLING LEGAL AUTHORITY’ HERE? In 1997, when Vice President Al Gore was questioned about suspicious campaign fund-raising activities, he claimed repeatedly that he didn’t know it was…
Freedom of Information?
FOR A ‘FREEDOM OF INFORMATION’ LAW, OURS DOESN’T ALLOW VERY MUCH INFORMATION Want information about the way a state agency uses your tax dollars? Here’s the good news: nearly every…