Category Archives: National News/Commentary

New photo ID law makes it harder to vote in South Carolina than anywhere in the country

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By Becci Robbins
SC Progressive Network

You could forgive voters for being confused about South Carolina’s photo ID law. Debate on the bill went on so long their eyes glazed over years ago. It’s hard to be as charitable to Gov. Nikki Haley, who twists the truth every time she defends the law she helped push through.

The governor argues that if we need a photo ID to buy Sudafed or to board a plane, we should need one to vote. Sounds reasonable, but neither pharmacies nor airlines require a state-specific ID, as this law does. And to get a SC photo ID you need to produce a birth certificate. For some people, that’s a problem.

Finally, we are number one! Sadly, it’s in voter suppression.

These documents aren’t enough for Delores Freelon to vote.

The National Conference of State Legislatures has identified seven states as having the most restrictive photo ID requirements for voting: Georgia, Kansas, Texas, Indiana, Wisconsin, Tennessee and South Carolina. All require voters to show a photo ID, but states vary in what kind and how hard it is to get.

  • In Georgia, if voters are already registered, they automatically get a new photo ID voter registration card.
  • In Kansas, voters can use a driver’s license from out of state, any accredited college ID, or government-issued public assistance cards. Voters over 65 may show expired ID.
  • In Texas, you can get ID to vote with your concealed weapons permit, your boating license, insurance policy or beautician’s license. Or you can vote a provisional ballot if you will incur fees in order to vote. Voters over 70 are exempt.
  • In Indiana, those without a photo ID get their provisional vote counted by claiming the fees to get the required documents were a burden.
  • In Wisconsin, voters can use any state driver’s license, Social Security card or student ID.
  • In Tennessee, a driver’s license from any state allows you to vote.
  • In South Carolina, voters must produce a birth certificate to get the state-issued photo ID required to vote. No exceptions. (If you vote a provisional ballot, that won’t count unless you present your state-issued photo ID within three days.)

Numbers are hard to project, but it is clear that some of the nearly 200,000 registered South Carolina voters who don’t have their papers in order will not be able to vote in the next election.

Even though there are no cases of the kind of fraud this law is purported to prevent, our cash-strapped state will spend at least the $700,000 supporters say it will cost to implement. Opponents say it will cost two to three times that much to educate poll workers and the public about the new law. The governor has said you can’t put a price on the sanctity of the vote.

She should tell that to Delores Freelon, a Columbia resident and registered voter who won’t be able to vote in the next election because she has a Louisiana driver’s license and can’t get her birth certificate from California in time. What about the sanctity of her vote? What about Ms. Kennedy in Sumter, whose birth certificate lists her first name as Baby Girl, meaning she’ll have to go to court to get her papers straight in order to get a photo ID? Or Larrie Butler, who was born at home in Calhoun County in 1926 and is being told he needs records from an elementary school that no longer exists in order to establish a birth certificate?

Stories like these are coming in from around the state. The SC Progressive Network, which for 15 years has been advocating for voting rights, is fielding calls from people with questions about the new law or having problems meeting the ID requirements.

The lucky ones will still get to vote, but only after jumping through hoops and paying fees at various state agencies. Some will have to amend their birth certificates by going to court, at considerable cost. People without a car, a computer or short on money are simply out of luck. The disenfranchised will be primarily seniors and the poor. Many of them will be people of color who have voted all their lives.

The Network is working to educate the public about the new law.

This quiet whittling away of the vote is no accident. It is, in fact, the point. It’s the pattern being repeated in GOP-controlled legislatures across the country.

In South Carolina, we have a brief chance to challenge this law. Because of our state’s history of disenfranchising people of color, ours is one of seven states that must get pre-clearance from the US Dept. of Justice (DOJ) before new voting laws can go into effect. Once the state attorney general files the case, DOJ has up to 60 days to consider whether the law suppresses the minority vote.

The SC Progressive Network is gathering statements to forward to DOJ documenting voters’ experiences. We need volunteers around the state to help find citizens who will have a hard time meeting the new voting requirements. If you want to help, call the Network at 803-808-3384 or see scpronet.com for details.

See video clips of Delores Freelon and Larrie Butler telling their stories.

Another casualty of the SC voter photo ID law

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Delores Freelon will not be able to vote in the next election because she can’t meet the requirements of the new photo ID law in time. She is one of nearly 200,000 South Carolina voters who don’t have a current, state-issued photo ID at risk of being disenfranchised. Please help us get this law thrown out. Call 803-808-3384 or see scpronet.com for details.

Southern states seek end run around Justice Department over redistricting

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By Chris Kromm
Facing South, Institute for Southern Studies

If you’re a Republican legislator eager to redraw your state’s political lines to your party’s favor in time for the 2012 elections, but fear opposition from a state Democratic attorney general and the Obama Justice Department, what to do?

Sneak little-noticed language into the bottom of a budget bill that allows you to bypass your redistricting foes, of course — even if it could end up costing your state time and money in the process.

At least that’s the approach favored by GOP lawmakers in the battleground state of North Carolina, and based on a similar strategy used in Texas and other Southern states this spring.

N.C. House Republicans hoped their plan would largely fly under the radar of Democrats and the media. But it was unintentionally made public last week, when a microphone was left on during a closed-door GOP caucus strategy session, causing the proceedings to be directly broadcast to the state press corps.

The plan revealed by mic-gate: Instead of submitting North Carolina’s redistricting plan to the Department of Justice — where it needs pre-clearance because 40 of the state’s counties are covered by the Voting Rights Act — the GOP law would allow the state’s Legislative Services Commission to directly present the plan to a district court in D.C.

That would allow the Republican-drawn lines to bypass being approved by the Department of Justice, which would merely be an opposing party in the case if it has objections.

The leaked audio has House Speaker Thom Tillis describing the plan, which he also warned was “extremely sensitive” and shouldn’t be publicly discussed:

The plan all along has been to submit this to the courts, rather than the Department of Justice, since this will be the first redistricting plan under the Voting Rights Act submitted to a DOJ controlled by Democrats, let alone Obama.

Just as important, the Republican measure would allow lawmakers to remove the state attorney general — in this case Democrat Roy Cooper — from representing the state.

As Jason Kay, a lawyer for Tillis and former staffer of the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law — one of several conservative groups largely backed by Raleigh retail millionaire Art Pope — was caught openly mocking Cooper in the session:

[The Republican bill] allows the client [the state legislature] to have control over the attorney in the litigation … We could fire [Roy Cooper] or we could ask him if he’s just so confused and conflicted that he’s not able to represent his client effectively anymore.

Kay’s candid comments are especially interesting given the role his previous benefactor, Republican donor Art Pope, has played in the redistricting battle. As Facing South revealed last fall, an outside group in part coordinated by Pope funneled $1.25 million from the Republican State Leadership Committee in 2010 with the express purpose of helping N.C. GOP candidates take over the legislature in time for redistricting. Art Pope’s family foundation supplied nearly all of the money for Kay’s salary when he worked at the right-wing N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law.

A Costly Strategy

The idea isn’t original: Texas Republicans filed a similar bill in April allowing the state to take their redistricting plan directly to court and bypass the DOJ — although the Texas version allows their attorney general, a Republican, to represent the state in court.

It’s also all clearly within the law. But one reason most states haven’t used the option is because, aside from drawing criticism from Democrats and civil rights groups, going directly to court has two major drawbacks: It’s expensive and usually very slow.

“[Going to the Justice Department] is more informal,” election law expert Rick Hasen told Facing South. “You don’t need to hire a lawyer.”

If North Carolina does go straight to court, it will face all of those court expenses, including hiring a lawyer — most likely Thomas Farr, a Republican attorney who has handled redistricting cases before and is considered the likely choice for the GOP’s scheme.

Indeed, state GOP house leader Rep. Paul “Skip” Stam joked in the secret meeting that “Y’all [Republicans] need to be raising money for our outside counsel for after session adjourns.”

But if Farr or another Republican-friendly attorney is hired through the Legislative Services Commission, North Carolina taxpayers — not just GOP lawmakers — could end up picking up the tab.

Ironically, the straight-to-court strategy has another possible drawback: It takes more time. “The DOJ process is much (much) faster,” according to Justin Levitt, who runs the very useful All About Redistricting website from his perch at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

That’s why Louisiana and Virginia, in addition to taking their redistricting cases to court, are simultaneously seeking approval from the DOJ for their plans, in hopes of getting them approved more quickly.

What’s more, the proposed North Carolina law wouldn’t stop Attorney General Roy Cooper from filing suit against the redistricting plan if he felt it violated the state constitution.

In other words, the N.C. GOP’s once-secret redistricting scheme will likely be expensive, time-consuming and won’t stop Democrats from presenting legal obstacles to their plan.

“It’s more political theater than substance,” reasons Justin Levitt. Especially now that everyone in North Carolina knows about it.

South Carolina is giving away more corporate tax breaks, while cutting aid to the jobless

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By Pat Garofalo

Wonk Room

“The South Carolina state Senate … is cooking up a budget that includes $100 million in corporate tax breaks … Already, the state has reduced its benefits under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program by 20 percent to $216 per month, which is just 14 percent of the poverty line.

And as The Huffington Post’s Arthur Delaney reported, South Carolina is also looking at cutting its unemployment insurance system: ‘The South Carolina State Senate gave preliminary approval last week to a bill that would reduce state unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 20 weeks…'”

More here.

Progressive Network launches campaign to stop photo ID law, calling it a dressed-up poll tax

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By Becci Robbins
SC Progressive Network Communications Director

Gov. Nikki Haley today signed into law a bill that will mandate people have a photo ID to vote.

The SC Progressive Network and other voting rights advocates have been fighting this unnecessary law for four years, arguing that it is a solution in search of a problem.

“This law will prevent thousands of South Carolinians from voting,” said Network Director Brett Bursey. “There is no evidence of anyone ever having pretended to be someone else at the polls. The clear intent of this law — passed by a Republican party-line vote — is to suppress the vote of poor people and minorities, who historically vote Democrat.”

“The people here celebrating the signing of this bill – Gov. Haley, Rep. Clemmons, Sen. Peeler – none of them have ever experienced the racial discrimination that kept many people in Orangeburg from voting,” said Rep. Bakari Sellers (D-Orangeburg). “Racial discrimination is not something from the distant past, and this bill insures it will happen in the immediate future.” Sellers’ father was shot during a protest against segregation in Orangeburg in 1968.


Members of the SC Legislative Black Caucus speak against the bill. More photos here.

The SC Election Commission found that 178,175 citizens have voter registration cards that do not have a state- issued photo ID. The top 15 counties, by percentage of voters without photo ID, all have a majority of minority population that historically vote Democrat. In Richland County alone, 18,865 voters do not have state-issued photo ID.

The Progressive Network will be gathering affidavits documenting the difficulties and expenses of those attempting to get photo IDs. These affidavits will be submitted to the US Justice Department as it considers whether the law disenfranchises minority voters. There is a 60-day window to present comments. Due to a history of racial discrimination, South Carolina must have all laws that affect voting rights “pre-cleared” by the US Justice Department.

While three other pre-clearance states (AZ, GA, LA) have gotten Justice Department approval for their photo ID laws, the laws in these states are not as restrictive as South Carolina’s. The other states allow voters to obtain photo IDs with documents ranging from tax forms to payment stubs.

“We are calling on people who don’t have photo IDs to begin the process of getting one now,” said Network Co-chair Virginia Sanders. “We need to document the difficulties and expenses within the next 60 days, so don’t wait until the next election time comes around.”

The Dept of Motor Vehicles requires a birth certificate, or other government-issued ID, in order to obtain a state-issued ID card. DHEC requires a state- or federal-issued photo ID to get a birth certificate.

“We are working with a group in Sumter County that has already found eight registered voters having serious difficulty getting a photo ID,” Sanders said. “Some don’t have a birth certificate and weren’t born in a hospital. Others are being told they will have to go to court to get their names changed if it was misspelled on their birth certificate. The legal hoops they have to jump through are expensive. This is, in effect, a poll tax.”

DHEC advises citizens they can go online to “VitalCheck” to get a copy of their birth certificate. To use this service, one has to have a computer, email address, phone number and one of four major credit cards. The average cost for this service is $30.

Anyone having difficulty in obtaining a photo ID should contact the SC Progressive Network at 803-808-3384 or network@scpronet.com.

SC workers should remember their labor history

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By Hoyt Wheeler, West Columbia

Unions are in the news. Protesters by the thousands contest the repeal of public employee bargaining rights in Wisconsin and Ohio. Legislators in South Carolina continue to propose new ways to prevent the growth of union rights in our state. But is this good public policy?

Since the 1880s, South Carolina has pursued a strategy of industrial development that has emphasized offering cheap, docile labor to employers.

The paternalism of the textile companies was benevolent, but only if the workers avoided acting together in opposition to management. That was met by strenuous and often brutal repression. This is the historic legacy of industrialism in South Carolina.

Today S.C. employers have suppressed the efforts of most employees to gather together to collectively assert their rights and interests through labor unions. Those who dare to express disagreement with anti-union practices and laws are subjected to pressure and, if possible, punishment. Our governor declares herself committed to opposing unions. Yet the right to bargain collectively is internationally recognized as a fundamental human right, giving workers dignity at the workplace and the prospect of a decent income. It is the polar opposite of the old practice of human slavery that has long poisoned South Carolina’s society and culture.

A symptom of the great power of our union-averse corporate community is the spate of anti-union legislation making its way through our Legislature. Last year we had a state constitutional amendment that provided that all matters of employee representation would be decided by secret ballot, despite the fact that the federal authority takes precedence in labor matters. A bill currently making its way through the Legislature would exempt S.C. employers from complying with a proposed federal requirement that they post a notice informing their employees of their legal rights regarding unions. I believe such laws violate the U.S. Constitution.

But what would be the consequence if these attempts to stave off unionization were to fail? Well, to begin with, union workers make more money than non-union workers, and are much more likely to have good health insurance and a solid pension. This would be good for the unionized workers, which in turn would create a demand for more products and services in the state. Instead of benefits trickling down from the wealthy, the prosperity of the many would percolate up to benefit all of us. Perhaps more importantly, collective bargaining agreements guarantee just treatment to employees. Without a union contract, an employee can be fired unless she can prove discrimination on the basis of race, sex or other prohibited grounds. A unionized worker can be terminated only for proven just cause, or laid off if there is no work available.

With the possible exception of an odd case such as Boeing, which may be in violation of federal labor laws, I would argue that stronger unions would not inhibit industrial development, the holy grail of S.C. politics. South Carolina can no longer compete on cheap wages, because even S.C. workers will not work for the wages that are paid in India or China.

My experience in a half-century of working, teaching and researching in this field convinces me that competent managers can work quite effectively with a union. Managers, quite understandably, do not like to share power with their workers’ representative, but no one has a stronger interest in the welfare of a business than the rank-and-file workers who are tied to their community and their job. Union officers hold office by the consent of the workers or their elected officials, and must reflect the views of the members. The bugaboo of dreaded union “work rules” are, in fact, negotiated conditions of work jointly arrived at between employers and unions.

South Carolina is a beautiful state with a wonderful climate and kind, generous and hard-working people. Our economy would profit greatly by the increased pay, benefits and security that unions can offer. Unions have the potential to help transform our state into a leader in the positive aspects of an economy and society instead of being a leader in negative statistics and a laggard in positive ones.

Hoyt Wheeler, a retired attorney and professor living in West Columbia, serves on the executive committee of the SC Progressive Network. Among his writings are The Future of the American Labor Movement and Workplace Justice Without Unions.

Irreparable human deficit looms in wake of budget cuts

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By Riane Eisler and Rene Redwood

A financial debt can be paid back. But the debt we’ll owe our children if investments in health, nutrition and education are slashed is irreparable. Investment in human infrastructure – providing the human capacity development for optimal economic productivity and innovation through both government and business investments – is essential for success in the post-industrial economy, and this should be our policymakers’ guiding economic principle.

It’s up to us to ask the hard questions: Why are we being told we can’t raise taxes on the rich, but must cut wages for teachers, nurses, child-care workers and others on whom our future depends? There is no evidence that lower taxes on corporations and millionaires “raise all boats,” or that massive cuts in social services have ever helped people in developing nations rise from poverty. The opposite is true. It is countries like Canada, Sweden, New Zealand and Finland that have made commitments to caring for future generations that have risen from poverty to prosperity. And today nations such as Brazil, South Korea, and other “emerging advanced economies” are heavily investing in their people.

Why are we told that cutting social programs is the road to prosperity, when our past prosperity was the result of the very opposite?

At the beginning of the 20th century, the United States was what we today call a “developing country.” Except for the super-rich, our general living standard was abysmal: child and general mortality rates were extremely high, as was poverty. Then we invested in prenatal and child health care such as vaccines; abolished child labor; mandated not only primary, but also secondary public education; and promoted college education through the GI Bill for returning soldiers. These kinds of government expenditures, along with Social Security, Medicare, Head Start and other government programs to care for and educate our people had a huge return on investment for our people and nation.

Today, largely as a result of retrenching in such public expenditures, the U.S. has higher child mortality, maternal mortality and poverty rates than any other developed nation. According to a 2007 UNICEF study, the U.S. ranked 24th of 25 developed countries with children living below the national poverty level. By comparison, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Spain topped the list. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that poverty afflicts roughly one in six American children—some 13 million youths, a figure that’s expected to rise as poverty trends continue to soar.

In 2009, more than 4.4 million single mothers earned wages below the national poverty level and were barely able to supply their children with basic needs. That number of women had increased 6.7 percent compared to the previous year, according to census figures. The kinds of cuts now proposed—especially cuts to programs to help impoverished families with children—will push us down even further.

By contrast, investing in education, health care, child-care and eldercare drastically reduces unemployment, poverty, public assistance, spending on prisons — and at the same time provides a trained work force and higher tax base. According to a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, 37 percent of Americans believe job creation/economic growth is our nation’s No. 1 issue, and only 22 percent named the deficit/government spending as the top. What’s more, while Americans find some budget cuts acceptable; they adamantly oppose cuts in Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and K-12 education.

That’s because most of us know that our most important assets are our people. If we don’t invest in human infrastructure, we cannot be economically successful.

We urgently need a realistic long-term perspective on how national and state deficits are calculated. The human capital deficit created by cutting social programs will be irreparable. By contrast, benefits to individuals, families, businesses and society at large from investment in human infrastructure will accrue for generations.

There’s an old saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Our priorities should be exactly what the “deficit hawks” are putting on the chopping block. Cutting those programs is criminal behavior, not sound policy.

Riane Eisler is president of the Center for Partnership Studies and author of The Real Wealth of Nations and The Chalice & the Blade. Rene Redwood is CEO of Redwood Enterprise in Washington, D.C.

State trends: hostility to abortion rights increases

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Through March 31, legislators introduced 916 measures related to reproductive health and rights in the 49 state legislatures that had convened their regular session. (Louisiana’s legislature will not convene until late April.)

By the end of March, seven states had enacted 15 new laws on these issues, including provisions that:

  • expand the pre-abortion waiting period requirement in South Dakota to make it the most onerous in the country, by extending the time from 24 hours to 72 hours and requiring women to visit a crisis pregnancy center in the interim;
  • expand the abortion counseling requirement in South Dakota to mandate that counseling be provided in-person by the physician who will perform the abortion and that counseling include information published after 1972 on all the risk factors related to abortion complications, even if the data are scientifically flawed;
  • require the health departments in Utah and Virginia to develop new regulations governing abortion clinics;
  • revise the Utah abortion refusal clause to allow any hospital employee to refuse to participate in any way” in an abortion;
  • limit abortion coverage in all private health plans in Utah, including plans that will be offered in the state’s health exchange; and
  • revise the Mississippi sex education law to require all school districts to provide abstinence-only sex education, while permitting discussion of contraception only with prior approval from the state.

In addition to these laws, more than 120 other bills have been approved by at least one chamber of the legislature, and some interesting trends are emerging.

As a whole, the proposals introduced this year are more hostile to abortion rights than in the past: Fifty-six percent of the bills introduced so far this year seek to restrict abortion access, compared with 38% in 2010. Three topics—insurance coverage of abortion, restriction of abortion after a specific point in gestation and ultrasound requirements—are topping the agenda in several states.

At the same time, legislators are proposing little in the way of proactive initiatives aimed at expanding access to reproductive health-related services. This stands in sharp contrast to recent years, when a range of initiatives to promote comprehensive sex education, permit expedited STI treatment for patients’ partners and ensure insurance coverage of contraception were adopted. For the moment, at least, supporters of reproductive health and rights are almost uniformly playing defense at the state level.

The Guttmacher Institute works to advance sexual and reproductive health in the United States and worldwide through an interrelated program of social science research, policy analysis and public education designed to generate new ideas, encourage enlightened public debate and promote sound policy and program development. Learn more at Guttmacher.org.

Activists to “Mob the Lobby” Monday, March 14

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South Carolinians preparing to rally at the State House to demand a moral budget on Saturday plan to return Monday, when the House starts debate in a special session. Supporters of a moral budget will be asking legislators to cut special-interest tax breaks before cutting critical public services.

“I’m afraid they plan to ram through an immoral budget,” said Rep. Joe Neal, a member of the House Budget Committee. “They have the votes to do it.”

Rally sponsors are urging their supporters to return to the State House on Monday to “Mob the Lobby” to tell lawmakers: Stop the cuts. The money’s here. Fund a moral budget.

“We didn’t get into this mess overnight,” said SC Employees Association Interim Director Joe Benton. “We won’t solve it with a single rally. We need to come back on Monday. This is a longer commitment to doing what’s right for all South Carolinians.”

To help Mob the Lobby, the public is invited to wear red and gather in the State House lobby 11:30 a.m. Monday, March 14. See scpronet.com for details.

The budget is a moral document

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Dr. Holley Ulbrich
Senior Scholar, Strom Thurmond Institute

A budget is a moral document. It expresses our values and our priorities as South Carolinians. It reminds us that each of us, four million plus South Carolinians, has needs to be met and gifts to offer the world.

One of our most deeply held American values is justice. We try to do that work of justice and compassion as individuals and through congregations and other private organizations. But the task is enormous. These scattered and individual efforts are not enough. Fifteen percent of South Carolinians lives in poverty—the 9th highest rate in the country.

Our underfunded schools are failing to develop our children’s talents and prepare them to become self-supporting, contributing members of society. We are not taking on those reciprocal responsibilities to one another as fellow citizens of South Carolina. The budget is an expression of our obligations to one another, and at present our budget demonstrates a lack of commitment, a failure to pay more than lip service to our shared values.

To treat everyone justly and fairly, we need to provide them with both freedom and opportunity. Freedom is not just freedom to, it is also freedom from. The four freedoms—freedom of speech and religion, freedom from want and fear—are all essential to human flourishing. Our children will not have that freedom and opportunity without providing them an adequate education for a demanding 21st century economy.

Those who cannot earn enough on their own—the disabled, the sick, the elderly, the children in single-parent homes where working mothers can’t earn enough to meet their needs—do not have freedom from want and fear, or opportunity to escape from poverty. Prisoners who are overcrowded and lack access to exercise and education have little or no opportunity to re-enter society as productive human beings leading meaningful lives.

The failure to maintain the state’s infrastructure, especially transportation infrastructure, will make it increasingly difficult to attract and retain business firms to provide employment opportunities for our workers, who still suffer from one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.

Yet our state General Fund spending per person, adjusted for inflation, is lower than it was 10 years ago-$1,156,compared to $1,229 in the 1999-2000 budget. The 2010 budget per person was at the 1984 level in constant dollars. We are asking our teachers, our prisons, our colleges and universities, our health services and public safety officers to do more with less, and do it with 21st century technology.

Is there another way? Yes.

The budget is a moral document not only on the spending side, which displays our priorities for all to see, but also on the revenue side. How much are we able and willing to contribute to meeting the needs of our fellow citizens? By any measure, our state and local tax system has failed to reflect our shared values of justice, of freedom, of compassion, and of opportunity. Instead, we have focused on tax cuts and failed to update our antiquated revenue system, standing idly by while our tax base continues to erode.

Taxes are low in South Carolina, and getting lower. South Carolina ranks 47th out of 51 states (including the District of Columbia) in taxes as a percent of income and 51st in taxes per capita. Yet low taxes have not succeeded in the supposed goal of attracting and retaining industry, because business firms care about more than taxes. Business location studies show that firms care about an educated work force, an adequate transportation system, a consumer market that can afford to buy their products and services, and quality of life for the firm’s employees.

South Carolina’s sales tax system is eroding rapidly. One factor in that erosion is tax cuts over the last 10 years. Changes in the income tax that allow unincorporated business to file at the same 5% rate as corporations and eliminate the bottom bracket (which affects all taxpayers) on the individual income tax have cost the state more than $200 million a year. State-funded property tax relief has been a major drain on the state’s revenue.

The homestead exemption for the elderly and the original relief on the first $100,000 of owner-occupied property takes is one drain on state revenue. The shortfall in revenue from the extra penny of sales tax to fund additional relief to homeowners under Act 388 is a second source of drain on the General Fund- $124 million in the current fiscal year. Together, these three state-funded sources of property tax relief are reducing revenue available for public services by about $546 million a year. Added to the two income tax changes, these tax breaks just about cover the shortfall in the current budget.

In addition to the legislative changes above, there are some problems with the revenue system that slow the growth of revenue so that it cannot keep pace with growth of population and inflation. Growth of sales tax revenue lags behind growth of personal income, in part because South Carolina has failed to follow the lead of other states in responding to the change in how households spend their money. In 1970, 45% of consumer spending was for tangible goods, which is the base of our sales tax. Today that share has fallen to 30%.

The average state taxes 57 kinds of services; South Carolina taxes only 36. The sales tax base needs to be updated to reflect the change in how we spend our money, as the Tax Realignment Commission has recommended.

We also need to address updating our excise taxes and revenue losses from such tax breaks as the sales tax cap on cars, boats, motorcycles and airplanes.

The income tax also has some structural problems. Only about 40% of South Carolinians pay any income tax. Some of us are too poor to pay income tax, but some are too old. South Carolina has the most senior-citizen-friendly income tax in the nation, according to a Georgia State study a few years ago. A family of two adults over age 65 that can take advantage of pension provisions, Social Security and the age-related deduction could have an income of more than $60,000 a year before having to pay any income tax. There are also some 53 credits available to reduce one’s income tax liability.

Unlike spending, tax breaks never come up for a scheduled annual review. They just continue from year to year, eroding the revenue base that needs to be shored up in order to continue to fund essential public services. The covenant that South Carolinians have with each other includes not only the services that we wish to ensure for all citizens but also the commitment to pay for them. Our legislators need to look closely every year at tax provisions that may have made sense 10 or 20 years ago but are never subject to review and reconsideration.

This document prepared in collaboration with Dr. Holley Ulbrich, Senior Scholar, Strom Thurmond Institute; Alumni Distinguished Professor Emerita of Economics, Clemson University