The Nerve

Legislators: stop fussing with education By HANNAH HILL $12,007: That’s how much South Carolina spent on average per K-12 pupil in fiscal year 2014-15. Earlier this week the Education Oversight Committee’s Melanie Barton and the Revenue and Fiscal Affairs office’s Frank Rainwater explained to lawmakers how those dollars are collected and divvied up among South […]

Time to bid ORS adieu By HANNAH HILL During this week’s legislative energy committee meetings, executive director of the Office of Regulatory Staff (ORS) Dukes Scott stated that the statutory duties of the ORS conflict at times. The ORS is the entity tasked by state law to “represent the public interest of South Carolina” before […]

On spending, how about self-discipline? By BRYCE FIEDLER The state Comptroller General’s office released its annual budget report this week, giving citizens insight into the sources of state revenue and how that money was spent as well as suggestions for future spending. Here’s the bottom line: The government needs to spend less. According to the report, […]

Somebody wasn’t doing something By HANNAH HILL Earlier this week the House speaker and the Senate president pro tem each created special legislative committees in response to the abandonment of the V.C. Summer nuclear project. Speaker Jay Lucas said in his press release that “The only responsible path forward is to comprehensively study the issue,” […]

Now we’re up a creek with Santee Cooper By HANNAH HILL When the multi-billion V.C. Summer nuclear reactor project was scrapped this week, the question on everyone’s mind was “Who’s going to pick up the tab for this?” SCANA, SCE&G’s parent corporation, wasted no time in asking the Public Service Commission’s permission to pass the […]

Not peachy-keen on tax-credit schemes By HANNAH HILL Tax credits can be some of the worst policies a government can pass. Taxes, as a rule, should be broad-based (everybody pays them) and low-rate (nobody pays much). Tax credits usually violate that principle – after all, tax cuts are different from tax favors. The former lowers […]

Consulting jobs for ex-agency heads are costly and unnecessary By ABBY NUGENT According to a contract obtained by the Post and Courier, the former head of the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, Catherine Templeton, accepted a contract with the agency just one day after she left her position in January of 2015. […]

When economic development becomes a state priority, citizens lose control By HANNAH HILL As the Policy Council has been compiling this year’s Best and Worst of the General Assembly, I couldn’t help noticing a recurring theme: economic development-related bills. Some are overt, like one that would create two new programs and a grant fund to […]

There’s always work to do By HANNAH HILL The Declaration of Independence wasn’t about revolution. Here’s what it says: “We hold these truths to be self-evident… that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men… that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to […]

With this commission, there will always be problems By HANNAH HILL When Mike Wooten resigned from the state Department of Transportation commission, he blamed the ethics provisions in the gas tax hike bill just passed by the General Assembly, saying “The new law basically states that commissioners cannot apply for permits from SCDOT, so, if […]