Oct 25 2008
South Carolina’s Finances
As lawmakers found themselves in the position of cutting services for autistic children, draining funds for land conservation and eliminating an advocacy program for disabled residents, they started asking the half-a-billion-dollar question:
What’s happening to the state’s money?
Is this a serious question?? What has happened to the money??? It’s been spent on crap!! How many posts have been made on this blog and others throughout the state hammering the state legislature for reckless spending? How many think tanks in the state like the Club for Growth and South Carolinians for Responsible Government have detailed all of the wasteful pork projects the legislature throws our money away on every single year? This has to be a rhetorical inquiry.
Those changes set the backdrop in a state that’s becoming increasingly dependent on the volatile sales tax that also gives $1.5 billion in exemptions to everything from furniture purchased by churches to paper used to print the news and fuel burned by shrimpers.
There is nothing wrong with depending on a sales tax for state revenue. Tennessee and Florida do not have a state income tax and rely heavily on their sales tax to provide money for the government. They’ve been existing in that form of government since day one. I do agree that South Carolina has too many exemptions in our sales tax and many of those should probably be removed.
Several lawmakers also are calling for the creation of a commission to review the more than 100 sales tax exemptions, many of which have been in place since 1951.
Quite frankly, I think everything should be subject to sales tax and we should do away with the income tax in this state. Minor adjustments can be made to the tax each year if there is a suspected revenue shortage or windfall in the near future.
Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, wants South Carolina to legalize gaming, a cash cow he said could cure all the economic woes.
I agree with Ford on this. Why the hell not? Of course, it’s not going to happen. This is a state where we still have dry towns and counties that won’t allow bars to serve alcohol on Sunday, God forbid ye be cast into the firey depths of Hell.
Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, has been lobbying for a constitutional amendment that would limit what the Legislature can spend during a given year, based on average of revenue collections over a decade.
Another good safety guard that would help the state so naturally, we’ll never see it.
Republican Gov. Mark Sanford said he thinks the Legislature simply is spending too much, and doing it recklessly. His potential vetoes of the budget cuts could bring lawmakers back on Oct. 31, with all likelihood that any changes to the tax structure will wait until next year, when a new Legislature convenes.
Sanford is right on the money as usual. People in this state are not paying attention to what their representatives are doing. They better wake up or this kind of incompetence will continue to plague this state.
You can view all of the cuts here.
