Inside Your Government’s Pyramid Scheme

By now, we’re used to government officials spewing meaningless drivel in an attempt to separate taxpayers from their money.

It’s pretty much par for the course in South Carolina, which continues to lurch leftward by leaps and bounds as our state’s “Republican” leaders seek total government control over economic development in this state.

In fact, ever since their latest adventure in socialism was unveiled, we’ve been eagerly awaiting the particulars behind all the “pyramids, pillars and pipelines” of government intrusion endorsed by House Speaker Bobby Harrell, Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman, Senate President Glenn McConnell and House Ways & Means Chairman Dan Cooper.

Seriously, other than duplicating the economic development efforts of the S.C. Department of Commerce and siphoning money from entrepreneurial start-ups, what exactly does this highfalutin “Knowledge Sector Council” plan on doing?

Believe it or not, this “Bolshevik Blueprint” actually exceeded our wildest expectations … at least in terms of the sheer audaciousness and absurdity of the bullshit they’re trying to pass off as “economic development.”

According to the minutes of the group’s organizational session (held in September at a swanky private club in downtown Columbia), these “Knowledge Sector Council” clowns are far dumber – and yet far more dangerous – than we ever anticipated.

“The original high-level concept for the Knowledge Sector Council is to increase teamwork and outcomes between organizations involved in Knowledge Economy development through expanded awareness and communications,” says S.C. Research Authority President Bill Mahoney, who led this meeting of the socialist minds.

Wait … come again?

If you type that mumbo-jumbo into your handy-dandy “Bureaucratic Translator,” you’ll find that what Mahoney actually said was that a bunch of overpaid state employees are getting together to better coordinate ripping you off.

Of course, before venturing into such an exciting discussion, Mahoney felt it necessary to provide a little background on the group, which is basically a carbon copy of the University-controlled S.C. Research Authority (SRCA):

Prior to SCRA’s Executive Committee retreat on May 21, ’08, SCRA fielded a request from the State Legislative leadership to create a simple (brief text and visuals) model of the Knowledge Economy. The request was expressed with a very open ended requirement, but it was generally understood that the model would be utilized to communicate about the Knowledge Economy.

During its meeting on May 21st, the SCRA Executive Committee reviewed initial versions of text and visuals for the model that were being prepared for the Legislative leaders. At about this same time, it became clear that the Legislative leadership intended to use the model in an open letter to economic development principals across the state, calling for the formation of a Knowledge Sector Council. It also became clear that the Legislature was asking SCRA to lead this formation, due in part to SCRA’s collaboration management business model, and in part due to its execution of the SC Launch program.

That language is particularly ironic, because an “execution” is precisely what befell the SC Launch program earlier this year, when Mahoney and his SCRA goons deprived this S.C. entrepreneurial fund of about $8 million so they could ostensibly fund additional higher ed spending.

That’s a double-tap to the back of the head, people … mob-style.

Anyway, as if we had any doubt that this whole thing is nothing more than an elaborate scheme to pump more money into our research universities, Mahoney makes it perfectly clear who’s going to be in charge of the operation:

The VP’s of Research from Clemson, USC, and MUSC have been meeting quarterly with the SCRA CEO since June of 2007. This regular collaboration has resulted in significantly increased transparency, cooperation, and shared results between those organizations. This group has named itself “the 4 Officer Team.”

Awww … how cute. They’ve got a name for themselves.

In fact, naming stuff seems to be epidemic among this group, like the whole “innovation pipeline” thing.

From whence such genius?

Bill Mahoney explained that the Innovation Pipeline visual was inspired by President Jim Barker (CU).

Ahhh … good to know.

In fact, we’ll keep Barker in mind the next time one of our founding editor’s bowel movements needs to be described as a “Cable of Competitiveness.”

But what’s truly scary about this plan isn’t all the stupid names, or the fact that these taxpayer-funded, six-figure salaried blowhards are sitting around stroking each other’s “pipelines.”

The real danger is the recklessness lurking just beneath the ridiculousness.

As noted in yesterday’s Greenville News, for example, these jokers actually want to raid the S.C. retirement fund and bypass state procurement code so they can erect additional monuments to government-sponsored incompetence.

These unheard of proposals evidently evolved out of this group’s frustration with “a regulated approval process with regard to capital and leases” and “lack of significant bond financing options.”

They call it “more efficient capital allocation.” We call it a death sentence for South Carolina taxpayers.

Make no mistake what’s happening here, people.

This group is saying that nobody in the private sector will support its plans financially but that South Carolina taxpayers should be put on the hook for the costs associated with its grandiose visions – with no accountability whatsoever.

In other words, let’s hand over the keys to our economy to the same idiots who have been running it into the ground for years … and then make sure that there’s absolutely no way we can monitor what they’re doing with all that money.

Hitting the nail on the head perfectly, here’s what S.C. Policy Council President Ashley Landess told the Greenville News about such an entity:

“Underneath all the fluffy, incomprehensible rhetoric is a very dangerous plan,” she said. “If it was just a bunch of bureaucrats sitting in a room entertaining themselves with pyramids and pipelines and pillars and taking credit for visuals, that would be one thing. This is way past that. They want to invest the people’s retirement, they want to build more buildings and waive the procurement code.”

Oh … and how will we know whether or not this Soviet-style “Command and Control” apparatus is even working?

According to the group’s own discussion of relevant “metrics,” we won’t.

That’s because not surprisingly, none of these government pencil-pushers has even the foggiest conception of what running a successful “Knowledge Sector Council” entails – certainly not when it comes to producing actual results:

No consensus was reached as to the measurement for knowledge economy success, since it was agreed that individual metrics have skews and dependencies which could make them misleading, or unachieveable. Selecting or designing metrics raises challenges because there are so many indices and surveys already in existence. There was agreement that each participant needed to measure and communicate about metrics of importance to their portion of the innovation pipeline. Those metrics should be in terms meaningful to average citizens and to politicians.

So to recap … these morons have no idea what they want to achieve, or even if it can be achieved, but they agree it’s essential to “communicate importance” to citizens and politicians.

Good God.

One thing is clear, however. The “Knowledge Sector Council” holds out little hope for the hundreds of thousands of children trapped in our state’s equally inefficient (and expensive) K-12 education system, which in case you’ve forgotten boasts the worst graduation rate in the entire country.

The knowledge economy may not be able to help the 700,000 or so high school dropouts in the state find employment, but it might help that population somewhat by addressing health disparities.

Wow … we’re not experts or anything, but somehow the promise of “somewhat addressing health disparities” doesn’t sound to us like it’s going to do a whole helluva lot for all those discarded souls that the educrats claim to care so much about.

Guess the government’s commitment “to the children” exists only so far as it can draw down government funds under the illusion of educating them.

Once they’ve relegated generations of these kids to minimum wage jobs, Y-O-Y-O, people.

Here’s some free advice for all of these government clowns … capitalism.

Yeah, we know … it’s a foreign concept these days, but businesses actually do go where they’re wanted, and the best way to bring high-paying knowledge sector jobs to South Carolina is to dramatically lower our tax burden, reform our abysmal regulatory and legal climates, get rid of excess government (not create more of it) and try some market-based education and health care reform for a change.

The very last thing we need to do is give these government goons a blank check to go and buy a bigger wrecking ball.

Seriously, people. Of all the harebrained schemes ever conjured up by our state’s totally bass-ackwards, borderline retarded government, this is by far the most dangerous and potentially-debilitating for our citizens.

It’s incompetence on steroids. Insanity on parade. An invitation to government corruption and waste on an unprecedented scale.

Without exaggeration, the plan put forth by this so-called “Knowledge Sector Council” needs to be stabbed in its heart … repeatedly … until it is no longer breathing.

Below is the “Bolshevik Blueprint” in its entirety … and while we don’t play this card often, we actually hope you’re pissed off enough after reading it to call your lawmaker and make damn sure they’re not supporting this in any way, shape or form.

If they are, you should not only tell them that they’ve lost your vote … you should immediately file the paperwork to run against them.

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