By fitsnews – January 4, 2008
LET THE S.C. LEGISLATIVE PANDERING BEGIN, PEOPLE
FITSNews – January 4, 2008 – Just as we predicted last month, the first issues-based shot out of the box from South Carolina’s Democratic … errr, Republican leadership this year is about illegal immigration, specifically Speaker Bobby Harrell‘s announcement today that the House GOP caucus will unveil a “comprehensive immigration reform package” this coming Monday on the State House steps.
Eager to deflect attention from their abysmal economic, education, health care and spending record, South Carolina’s GOP leaders are wasting no time kicking off the smoke-and-mirrors campaign, hoping you’ll “pay no attention” to the multiple disasters behind the curtain.
We don’t want to be too hard on Speaker Harrell, because let’s face it, he’s not in control. After all, if a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, we wouldn’t have elected a Democrat to the Supreme Court or appointed another one to head up our most influential agency (and given him a pay raise, to boot). But that’s just the tip of the iceberg …
If a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, we wouldn’t have grown government by 41% over the last three years, or passed some bogus tax shift that doesn’t create one new job and then tried to pass it off as real tax relief.
If a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, our top two budget-writers (this guy and this guy) probably wouldn’t have earned such shitty ratings on a pro-business government report card. Or doled out millions in pork under the ruse of a “competitive grants” program.
If a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, we probably wouldn’t have preserved an overtly-racist, totally-inefficient 1895 structure of government, or for that matter left thousands of our neediest children trapped in the worst public school system in America.
In fact, if a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, legislators might actually demand something beyond smoothly-worded failure from our media whore Superintendent of Education before deciding to jump on his monopolistic preservation bandwagon. We might also take the time to investigate a legitimate scandal in his backyard as opposed to inventing a non-scandal just because we don’t like the governor.
If a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, we might actually start leveraging our most important competitive asset instead of continuing to get our asses handed to us by the competition (we’re actually talking about you on this one, Governor Sanford).
If a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, maybe somebody would’ve had the balls to investigate our State Supreme Court for its brazenly-political bar exam shenanigans instead of merely slapping them on the wrist via some new deck chair reshuffling legislation.
If a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, maybe we wouldn’t allow legislators to make millions of dollars off of the flawed workers’ comp system that they helped create, or afford them the opportunity to make millions more by letting them file class action lawsuits against an industry they simultaneously want to regulate.
If a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, maybe our state’s workers would be skilled at something other than stacking boxes for minimum wage. Which means maybe we’d have some fast-growing companies or high-paying jobs, for a change, so that perhaps people’s paychecks could start keeping up with government growth.
Maybe then more people would have health insurance. Maybe then we wouldn’t lead the nation in violent crime. Maybe then we wouldn’t have to continue being the nation’s dumping ground for nuclear waste.
This stuff isn’t rocket science, people – if you cut taxes, the economy grows. Which means state revenues grow. If you give parents real choices, public education improves. And if you stop tolerating a scandal-plagued, 19th-Century government, it might actually start working for you instead of sucking you dry every chance it gets.
Of course our Republican leaders have said for the last decade-and-a-half that they’re “pro-business,” “against wasteful spending,” “for the children” and “in favor of bringing efficiency and accountability to government.”
Unfortunately, their record on all fronts is a direct contradiction of each one of those principles.
Shucks, though, let’s just forget about it and talk about immigration …
