S.C. SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE GETS HIS BOONDOGGLE IN HOUSE BUDGET
FITSNews – March 17, 2008 – It’s difficult to find good fiscal conservatives in either chamber of the S.C. General Assembly these days (or ever, really), but House Speaker Pro Tempore Doug Smith has typically been one of the good guys. That’s why we were incredibly disappointed to learn that Smith squirreled away $1.25 million for a so-called “Spartanburg Center for Ethical Leadership” in the budget passed last week by the S.C. House of Representatives.
Apparently this latest example of well-intentioned pork is designed to educate incoming state legislators on “the fundamental importance of leadership, creativity and service within the context of ethical values.” And while correctly presupposing a lack of such ethical awareness on their part, we have to agree with the S.C. Policy Council‘s take on this program, namely that it’s a perfect example of something government has no business funding.
Buried deep within the state’s higher education budget, Smith’s little pet project was discovered by a handful of fiscal conservative legislators last week, but the powerful Speaker Pro Tempore managed to shut down an effort to have it removed from the House spending plan.
That’s too bad. South Carolina already spends about 16% of its state budget (compared to the national average of 10.5%) supporting a bloated, wasteful and inefficient higher education system, and it’s precisely this kind of crap that makes the problem worse, not better. With higher ed spending in South Carolina receiving some long-overdue scrutiny these days after Clemson Univerity’s secret slush fund was revealed over the weekend, our hope is that the S.C. Senate will take a hard look at getting rid of this boondoggle. Of course with a midget Leninist dictating the Senate budget, we won’t hold our breath.
