The problem is far too many state officials think they can make up a $30 billion shortfall in road repairs by eliminating waste — ah, they’re doing their greatest hits.
The Department of Transportation budget is about $1.3 billion a year, $500 million of which comes from the federal government with specific instructions on how it is spent. Does anyone really believe they are going to find $600 million of waste in the remaining budget?
Well, anyone with any sense?
Sorry, but this time we’re going to have to use real money.
There are plans to raise the needed revenue — some serious, others laughable — but the best one comes from Lowcountry Sen. Larry Grooms. He wants to phase in a moderate gas tax increase and offset the pain by lowering the state income tax.
The problem?
Well, Grooms makes so much sense that some politicians probably won’t get it.
Pick the lesser poison
South Carolina’s gas tax rates 49th nationally. Only Alaska’s is lower, and since most of their roads are made of snow, they get repaved automatically each year.
The state hasn’t raised its 16.5-cent gas tax since Reagan was president. It is more than a dime cheaper than Georgia’s and 21 cents less than North Carolina’s.
Grooms wants to raise the gas tax by 2 cents a year for 10 years, eventually a 20-cent bump. But at the same time, he wants to cut the state income tax by .2 percent every year, which will lower the 7 percent rate to 5 percent.
That would offset the pain at the pump and shift a significant portion of our road bills to visitors — out-of-state travelers would pay somewhere between 30 percent and 40 percent of that money, depending on whose statistics you use.
This would result in South Carolina having a significantly lower state income tax than either North Carolina (5.8 percent) or Georgia (6 percent).
“This grows the economy,” Grooms says. “When businesses look to relocate, they look at Georgia and North Carolina and see that they have lower income tax rates.”
And a lower income tax is a much better recruiting tool than, say, having the state’s official pastime be “getting a front-end alignment.”
Read the full article by clicking the link below:
South Carolina Association of Taxpayers 