Monthly Archives: September 2014

How can we fix S.C. Roads?

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With the gubernatorial election just a few short months away, we’re looking at each candidate’s plans to fix the state’s the traffic infrastructure.

Gov. Nikki Haley has remained tight-lipped about her plan, even saying she would wait until after the election to reveal how she wants to work with lawmakers on the issue.

But Haley has been clear about one thing: any plan that includes an increase on the gasoline tax, which is one of the lowest in the country and hasn’t been raised since 1989, would be dead on arrival. Instead, she wants to find an option that does not include raising revenues.

Sen. Vincent Sheheen, meanwhile, has released a plan ahead of the election. His plan would not increase the gas tax, either. Sheheen’s plan would instead force the General Assembly to advocate 5 percent of the state’s revenue toward the state’s roads.

“The gas tax is a declining source of revenue as cars become more fuel efficient,” Sheheen has said. “Increasing the gas tax is not going to solve our transportation funding crisis. To succeed, the state must diversify funding and weave together sources to responsibly invest over the long-term. Because of historic under investment in our roads we need to create an additional dedicated funding source and issue bonds to jump start needed investments.”

 

Read the full story here http://www.wistv.com/story/26405100/what-can-be-done-about-fixing-south-carolinas-aging-roads

Scoppe: Is South Carolinians’ love affair with sales tax waning?

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In a recent poll conducted this summer for Charleston’s Post and Courier.  The poll questioned everybody, not just the 5 percent of voters who voted in the Democratic primary or the 11 percent of voters who voted in the Republican primary. 

The difference was most significant for income taxes: The Republican question that littered primary ballots asked simply if voters wanted to phase out the income tax, and of course they did. The question on the poll asked if they wanted to eliminate the income tax by increasing the sales tax. That is, it included that dirty little secret that most people don’t like to acknowledge: You can’t get something for nothing; if you get rid of one of the two major sources of funding for state government, you’re going to have make it up somehow.

Still, it’s surprising, and encouraging, that when asked if they wanted to make the trade that conventional wisdom says they will always, always want to make, given how much they hate the income tax, they said … meh. Specifically, 40 percent endorsed the swap, 34 percent opposed it, and 26 percent were undecided. That is not a rousing endorsement. It’s not even a tepid endorsement. What’s particularly surprising, and encouraging, is that pollsters didn’t get that un-endorsement after explaining the pros and the cons of the swap.

The pros, of course, are pretty straightforward: You hate income taxes; you don’t mind so much paying sales taxes.

The cons are more complicated, but oh so much weightier: The sales tax already is about as high as we can safely put it without seriously damaging our retail economy, whereas the income tax — at least the income tax that people actually pay — is not. The sales tax is becoming a less reliable source of revenue because a smaller and smaller portion of our consumer spending is subject to the sales tax, as the Legislature keeps carving out more and more loopholes and we keep buying more and more untaxed services instead of taxed goods and as we keep buying more and more stuff over the Internet and refusing to pay the tax that we owe but that the merchants don’t collect and the state doesn’t have the resources to track down.

House of Representatives votes to Override Governor Haley’s veto

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South Carolina House members are returned to Columbia on Wednesday August 27 to take up two of Gov. Nikki Haley’s vetoes, one with a direct impact for the Grand Strand. One bill being considered is intended to help South Carolina’s public libraries keep out disruptive people. The other is a local bill allowing a tax hike for firefighting in coastal Murrell’s Inlet and Garden City.

A spokesman for House Speaker Bobby Harrell said on Friday that the House will hold a special, one-day session on Wednesday to decide whether to override vetoes left over from the session that ended in June.

Both of the bills being considered are Senate bills. The Senate voted overwhelmingly to override Haley’s opposition, but those votes occurred in the last days of an extended legislative session, after the House already had gone home. An override requires a two-thirds vote in both chambers.

Governor Haley vetoed the bill that would have increased taxes for the Murrells Inlet/Garden City Fire District, saying that it would set a precedent of allowing a district to increase taxes without voter approval.

But Haley said the bill would set a dangerous precedent. “I am not opposed to the needs of a fire district, however I don’t believe in backdoor approaches to raising taxes. Taxpayers have the right to know,” she said on her Facebook page. The bill would increase property taxes by $25, on average, if passed. Hitchcock lives, owns a business, and pays taxes in Murrells Inlet and said he doesn’t want to pay more taxes, but sometimes there’s a clear need for it.

And on Wednesday August 27th the House voted 75-36 to override Haley’s veto. The law allows a misdemeanor trespassing charge against people who return to a library before their written warning to stay away expires.

 

Read the full story at http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/politics/2014/08/28/sc-house-overrides-haley-veto-library-disrupters/14722897/