How Do We Stop ObamaCare? Transparency.
WHERE’S THE MONEY GOING? HOW MUCH? WHAT FOR? The federal health care law known as “ObamaCare” gets more unpopular every week, but the question for citizens and policymakers is the same: What can be done about it? Many of the law’s critics contend that it can be nullified. What many advocates of this approach […]
Is Legislative Self-Policing Really a Problem?
IF AN ETHICS REFORM BILL ALLOWS LAWMAKERS TO CONTINUE POLICING THEMSELVES, IS IT REALLY AN ETHICS REFORM BILL? During a brief debate on H. 3945 – a bill most legislators and the governor characterize as meaningful ethics reform – Senator Luke Rankin (R-Horry, and Chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee) referred to the process of […]
Contract, Clarity, and a Return to Sovereignty
HOW TO STOP FEDERAL COERCION – INCLUDING OBAMACARE – AND ENACT FREE MARKET REFORM [PDF of full report here; a briefer version of the report here.] For three years, policy experts, citizen groups, and politicians have argued for multiple approaches to either blunting the effects of ObamaCare or abolishing it altogether. The Affordable Care Act […]
Best & Worst of the General Assembly is Here
WONDER WHAT YOUR LAWMAKERS WERE UP TO IN 2013? IT’S ALL HERE. Our annual guide to the year’s legislative session, The Best & Worst of the General Assembly, has been published. To download your electronic copy, click here. As in years past, we covered a large number of bills. Although it’s not feasible to analyze […]
The Bull Street Deal: Extreme Caution Advised
WHY TAXPAYERS DESERVE DETAILS – NOT VAGUE TALKING POINTS AND HIGHER TAXES On June 25th, the mayor of Columbia, Steve Benjamin, unveiled what’s being commonly called the “Bull Street Development Deal.” The deal would involve the city committing to an estimated $70 million for infrastructure, two parking garages, and a minor league baseball stadium. The estimated economic […]
Project Conflict Watch: The SEI Response
WHY STATEMENTS OF ECONOMIC INTERESTS DON’T MATTER Earlier this year, the Policy Council launched Project Conflict Watch, an initiative asking state elected officials to disclose their sources of private income voluntarily. Many have done so, including three of the state’s nine constitutional officers. Others have yet to do so. A few have responded by saying […]
Why Ethics Reform?
2013 WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE ‘YEAR OF ETHICS REFORM.’ IT WASN’T. SO DOES ANYONE CARE? At the conclusion of the 2013 legislative session, as the Senate prepared to vote on the legislature’s only attempt to reform the state’s ethics code – the bill was killed – Senator Luke Rankin (R-Horry) made the claim that […]
The Ethics Reform That Isn’t
CLEARLY, LAWMAKERS HAD GOOD REASONS TO KEEP H.3945 SECRET The talk this week has been mainly about the ill-named ethics reform bill being debated in the South Carolina House. It’s ill-named because, despite a strong provision requiring income disclosure, the bill actually weakens ethics laws in several areas. The most obvious problem with it, […]
Boeing Bond Deal Needs Explanation
WHY THE RUSH TO PUT FUTURE TAXPAYERS 120,000,000 MORE DOLLARS INTO DEBT? The news broke this week that Boeing plans to expand its existing North Charleston campus to include an information technology “center of excellence.” The expansion, according to a company spokesman, will create 2,000 jobs. State lawmakers quickly announced plans to issue $120 million […]
Half Time Ethics Report
It’s the beginning of April and lawmakers‘ two-week furlough is almost up, leaving us at roughly the half-way point of the 2013 legislative session. This was supposed to be the Year of Ethics Reform, but is it? Below is a “half-time report” detailing what’s been done already and what’s yet to be done. While some […]
