“Do-Nothing”

Five short months ago, S.C. lawmakers promised huge changes in the way South Carolina conducted its business.

There would be transparency.

There would be tax reform.

There would be spending caps.

There would be government restructuring.

There would be election reform.

“This is a challenging time for our state and, as legislators, we need to do everything we can to make sure government is helping and serving,” House GOP Leader Kenny Bingham said in unveiling the House agenda back in January.

“By reducing red tape for businesses, capping government spending, and reforming our tax code, we are trying to make government work better and more efficiently for all South Carolinians,” he added.

Sounds good, right?

Of course it does. It’s supposed to sound good.

Meanwhile, the rhetoric coming from the State Senate was even more promising.

“We can make South Carolina a more attractive place to do business,” Senate GOP Leader Harvey Peeler in unveiling the Senate’s agenda. “We know what creates jobs and stimulates our economy. Lower taxes grow our economy. An educated and trained workforce, a strong infrastructure and healthy workers grow our economy. Most importantly, compromise, teamwork and a coordinated strategy grow our economy. But sometimes government itself stands in the way of getting the job done. We realize that we will not be able to meet our funding needs and create jobs until we reform government.”

Months later, however, none of these “reforms” have passed.

Sure, lip service was paid to the transparency issue through a “rules change” prior to the start of the legislative session, but clearly Republican leaders (who are still raising taxes on voice votes) balked on all of the substantive reforms they promised to pass.

In all fairness to Bingham and Peeler, they really aren’t the problem.

Sadly, they’ve both been reduced to spouting this ridiculous rhetoric while big government “Republicans” like Senate President Glenn McConnell, House Speaker Bobby Harrell, Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman and House Ways & Means Chairman Dan Cooper systematically rape and pillage the taxpayers of the state.

As those “four horsemen” of South Carolina’s ongoing economic apocalypse continue to increase spending and grow government, the role of “GOP Majority Leader” in both chambers has become painfully, pathetically clear – provide the real powerbrokers with the cover they need to keep advancing their high tax, big government agenda.

In other words, if the “Majority Leaders” talk about reform enough, maybe the public will be fooled into believing some of it actually transpired.

Of course, there’s only so much cover that can be provided when none – we repeat, none – of the promised reforms came to pass.

Oh, and when one final, last-minute opportunity to address these reforms was squandered because of one lawmaker’s personal vendetta.

Amazingly, the only shared “agenda item” to make it through both chambers of the legislature this year was a backdoor tax hike that was thankfully stripped of its most pernicious provisions by a group of conservative lawmakers in the State Senate.

As for real tax relief, or for that matter spending caps, transparency, government restructuring … oh, and the GOP platform plank of parental choice … nothing was accomplished.

A great big black hole.

And in the annual “Columbia two-step,” House leaders blame the Senate while Senate leaders blame the House.

Gov. Mark Sanford’s office – which is routinely attacked by lawmakers for “doing nothing,” and for “governing by press release” – took note of the hypocrisy.

“One of the first news releases we sent out this year praised the State Senate for the reforms included in its agenda,” said Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer. “What’s been incredibly disappointing is that even though we have disagreed on the budget and the stimulus funds, the bills we are supposed to be in agreement on haven’t made it to (the governor’s) desk.”

Just like it was last year … South Carolina’s “Republican” legislature was all talk again this year.

And once again, the joke (and the tab) is on us.

WEB EXTRAS

2009 House Agenda

2009 Senate Agenda

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