Let’s see, South Carolina tax dollars being spent to pay individuals to lobby for state institutions of higher learning. I can certainly see where federal and state money is getting harder to come by these days, but I also wonder why the board of directors are not stepping up and taking on that role. Isn’t that one of their tasks traditionally? Perhaps instead of spending eighty to a hundred thousand dollars a year on a lobbyist, these institutions should tell their board members to get it in gear, or step aside and make room on the board for people who can get the job done. Why, with the savings, the schools could probably pay for three or four more professors.
September 24, 2009
August 31, 2009
May 24, 2009
Pay Day Lending
Let’s get a few things straight.
The pay day lending industry in our state are bottom feeders. They charge upwards of 400% interest on their loans. They fray the base of our society and make our state weaker.
When I read that they have a strong lobby within our state’s legislature I am sickened. Any politician defending these bottom feeders should be run out of office and out of our state too, as far as I’m concerned.
Loaning money in our state should be capped at 30% above prime, a return any real investor would be more than happy to get. The present plan to unnecessarily expand government by implementing a state run pay day loan tracking database should be scrapped.
May 1, 2009
Megadumps
It is good to see our elected officials taking steps so that South Carolina does not become the trash dumping ground for the whole eastern seaboard.
DHEC has passed new regulations making it more difficult for these megadumps to be built here. I would like us to go further and make it absolutely impossible for them to be built here. Let’s think to the future shall we, or at the least we should have some basic self respect.
South Carolina is no dumping ground. At best these places would be a short term revenue generator for these counties, and in the long run would ruin whole areas with toxic pollution in the ground and in the ground water, making it more difficult for these areas to generate wealth for themselves in the future.
DHEC says it can’t unapprove the megadump in Marlboro County. Sure it can. Or how about the legislature pass a law that simply says we do not accept any trash from outside our borders? They could still build it and Marlboro County could be the dumping ground for our own state’s trash, but that would be it. By the way, the company wanting to build this particular dump is not even a South Carolina based company.
I’ll say it one more time: South Carolina is no trash dumping ground. Period.
March 29, 2009
State debt, Government
Well, with all the expansion of government spending and cutting of taxes over the last decade in our state, I just assumed that South Carolina had paid off any outstanding debt at the state level.
So imagine my suprise when our governor asks the federal government if we can use 700 million dollars of federal money to pay off state debt.
It is time for the South Carolina legislature and the governor, whoever maybe in office, to get better at managing our states affairs. Much better.
South Carolina citizens demand a lean yet strong state government, aimed at providing excellent services and infrastructure, with a tax structure that does not overly burden, but that keeps us ahead of the game, meaning paying off our debt(ourselves) and eventually funding our own rainy day, or sovereign fund. Government waste and fraud have to become things of the past by necessity.
We can neither afford a fat, bloated government loaded with pet projects and other unnecceary spending, nor a weak underfunded central government which is unable to keep its own britches from falling around its ankles. With all the push me-pull you antics going on, what we’ve ended up with is a wasteful, bloated government that still can’t keep its pants up, and that should be unacceptable- to the governor, to the legislature, and to the people.
January 29, 2009
January 27, 2009
Pay Day Lending Bill
Well, instead of simply putting a limit on the interest that pay day lenders can charge in our state, Bobby Harrell, Harry Cato and Bill Sandifer are set to increase our state’s bureaucracy by setting up a state run database to track who has loans with the companies, in order to limit customers to one loan at a time. Increasing the size of government to monitor who has a cash advance loan seems, oh, I don’t know, wrong?
One lender based in South Carolina currently charges interest of 391.07% APR for a two week loan, in case you want to know the kind of numbers that are used in the industry. Perhaps capping the rate they charge, with due allowance for the capital risk involved, would be a far simpler solution.
January 16, 2009
Senator Robert Ford Proposals
I see Senator Ford is in the news today, introducing bills to legislate a dress code and music lyrics.
If he has his way South Carolina will have the best dressed video poker players in the world, all listening to Perry Como.
I’m sure our esteemed legislative bodies need to be focusing on real legislative and government issues on right now.
January 13, 2009
Sanford and the Unemployment Commission
Well, I have to hand it to our Governor. It was a joke, saying he would not request the federal money to fund our states unemployment commission, but it looks like he might be successful in getting the four person board eliminated and the director put directly under the executive branch. That’s not bad.
What needs to be looked at though is why the fund was losing money in 2007, and a proper funding formula put in place for the future.
December 17, 2008
South Carolina Wind
Looking at a wind map of the United States, you can see that our state, in the far northwestern corner, just happens to have a small swath of world class wind that is there for the harvesting.
It would be a small part of our state’s energy mix, but we should move to create as large a wind farm as possible there, without delay.
