The Nerve

By RICK BRUNDRETT When S.C. lawmakers in 2009 first approved massive taxpayer-backed funding for aerospace giant Boeing to build an assembly plant in North Charleston, the state estimated it would spend nearly $34 million over 15 years for worker training. But over the past 10 fiscal years, the state has spent $58.3 million – an […]

  By RICK BRUNDRETT E.&J. Gallo Winery, a multibillion-dollar global corporation, will get at least $25 million in assistance from the state of South Carolina to locate a plant in Chester County – plus could receive tens of millions more in taxpayer-backed incentives over decades, records released to The Nerve show. And the California-based wine […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT If only the Carolina Panthers could win as easily as it gets taxpayer money. Last month, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced that the S.C. Department of Transportation (SCDOT) was awarded a nearly $34.6 million “Infrastructure for Rebuilding America” (INFRA) federal grant to build a new interchange on Interstate 77 near the […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT       S.C. politicians routinely love to make promises about massive corporate investment and multitudes of new jobs in the Palmetto State. But the secretly crafted written agreements offering taxpayer-backed incentives in exchange for those promised jobs and investment often don’t live up to the official hype. Last month, The Nerve detailed how for […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT All we wanted was the truth. Over the past several decades, South Carolina legislators and governors, as well as local governments, collectively have given away billions in incentives to countless corporations. Cash, land, tax breaks and free job training have been thrown at companies in exchange for the promise of jobs. Taxpayers […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT Spending more tax dollars on tourism advertising and incentives for manufacturers are among proposals to jump-start South Carolina’s economy, which took a severe blow with government-imposed shutdowns following the coronavirus outbreak. The recommendation for increased tourism advertising is contained in a final report released last week by “accelerateSC,” an advisory committee created […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT More than four years after officials announced that Volvo would locate in South Carolina, the state Department of Commerce won’t reveal the estimated amounts of certain public costs and benefits identified in analyses of the $1.1 billion project. The Nerve reported last month, based on Commerce records obtained under the state open-records […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT When S.C. officials announced in 2015 that Volvo would locate its first U.S. plant in rural Berkeley County, the total incentives offered to the Swedish car maker were pegged at about $200 million. An investigation by The Nerve, however, found more than $250 million in incentives spent or offered so far by […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT At the end of the 2014 regular legislative session, lawmakers slipped in a budget proviso funneling $75,000 through the state tourism agency for the Carolina Panthers’ summer training camp at Wofford College in Spartanburg. Then-Gov. Nikki Haley vetoed the proviso, writing in her June 11, 2014, veto message, “The National Football League […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT The S.C. Department of Commerce says it didn’t formally offer any taxpayer-backed incentives to lure Amazon’s second national headquarters to the Palmetto State, but instead provided general incentives information to counties if any of them wanted to compete for the project. Commerce spokeswoman Adrienne Fairwell told The Nerve on Tuesday she didn’t […]