GOV. NIKKI HALEY overplayed her hand so badly by trying to hold a road-improvement plan hostage to her budget-busting tax-cut proposal that she took herself out of the game. That means what happens with the top priority for the state’s business and political communities will be decided by the House and Senate, without the governor’s input.
That’s the most obvious take-away after the House voted by a margin of more than 4-to-1 for a road-funding plan that raises taxes by nearly $400 million. Less obvious but potentially important: If the House and Senate can reach agreement on a plan that retains anywhere near that much support — not a sure thing, but there’s no legitimate reason it can’t happen, if Senate leaders are as committed to tackling our long-neglected roads problem as they say they are — this could signal a huge shift in how our Legislature does its job.
One House leader described the 87-20 vote as “a kind of a line in the sand” akin to “pulling the curtain from the guy in the Wizard of Oz.” Senate President Pro Tem Hugh Leatherman even implied that it could breathe new life into efforts to expand Medicaid to cover more of the working poor.
That’s probably a stretch — suggesting as it does that there is as much support in the House for Medicaid expansion as for fixing our roads — but still, for any student of S.C. politics, last week’s marathon debate was an astounding thing to watch.
Big surprises
There was GOP Rep. Gary Simrill beating back proposals to slash taxes more than his bill proposed to raise them, by explaining that, yes, it actually does cost money to repair roads.
There was GOP Rep. Kirkman Finlay lecturing the House on how irresponsible it would be to slash taxes when the state faced what he described, conservatively, as a $10 billion unfunded liability — and giving as good as he got when Rep. Tommy Stringer tried to paint him as a tax-and-spend liberal who thinks government is the solution to all problems.
South Carolina Association of Taxpayers 