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In 2008, the Policy Council released a report showing lawmakers passed laws with recorded votes just 5 percent of the time, and that South Carolina had among the weakest legislative voting requirements in the nation. There were no good excuses for that, so legislative leaders came up with some bad ones, including “it costs too much” and “it’s a waste of time.”
Citizens didn’t buy any of it then, and they buy it less now. The public is rightly convinced that legislators cannot be trusted to record their votes unless they are forced to by law. Lawmakers eroded their credibility when they passed rules in 2009 to “fix the problem,” then continued to vote off the record 75 percent of the time.
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Legislative leaders are creating hysteria over the stimulus, threatening to fire teachers and police officers if Governor Sanford doesn’t cave and let them spend millions of onetime dollars on recurring programs. They even want to pass a bill to force the governor to sign for the money.
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Some lawmakers in South Carolina have forgotten whose money they are spending.
Somehow they’ve come to believe that they are not accountable to taxpayers for every dollar they spend. Every dollar. That means voting on the record for every tax and fee they intend to levy and justifying every expense. Every expense. It seems obvious that lawmakers should recognize—and acknowledge with their actions—these simple, but important facts. It’s equally obvious that too many lawmakers either don’t get it, don’t care, or think we won’t notice. We noticed. |
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"Jobs.” It’s the mantra for lawmakers who insist on perpetuating a failed policy of government driven economic development. “We’re bringing jobs to South Carolina.”
Never mind that there’s ample evidence that state-driven economic development doesn’t work: Two decades of special interest economic deals have produced one of the weakest economies in the nation, with the 4th highest unemployment rate.
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The South Carolina Policy Council has had a busy January launching our new Web site, and if you haven’t had a chance to check out our latest work, please do so. It’s called “The Nerve,” (www.thenerve.org) and it’s where government gets exposed.
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In December, we usually wrap up the year and talk about our accomplishments.
We certainly have a lot to brag about – thanks to your support, we were able to rock the foundations of the status quo. We dominated the news with our transparency reports, and sent a strong message to Columbia that we want change.
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November 2009 marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a monumental testament to the power of the human spirit that was in no small part brought about by an American president, who spoke for a unified nation when he said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” We’ve been told that some of that president’s advisors urged him to tone down his rhetoric. |
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