The Other Side Of The Sembler Fight

By FITSNews || We’ve written extensively – some would say nauseatingly so – on the cabal that has coalesced behind a $134 million handout for a wealthy, out-of-state GOP developer looking to build a “Mega Mall” in Beaufort County, S.C.

Obviously, we oppose this bill vehemently, just as we oppose any legislation that involves government giving one company an unfair competitive advantage over another company – using millions of tax dollars, no less.

The deal that state lawmakers are bending over backwards to give former GOP fundraiser Mel Sembler is indeed “crony capitalism,” as State Sen. Tom Davis puts it, and there’s no way around the fact it stinks to high heaven.

Specifically, there’s the developer’s poor track record involving “public-private partnerships” and the questionable legality of the incentives that are being offered to his company.  More relevant to our opposition, however, is the fact that the proposed facility will cannibalize sales from local retail establishments.

Our chief reason for opposing it, though?

It’s simply not fair to the people who’ll be forced to pick up the tab.

Honestly, what gives lawmakers the right to hand this company $134 million on the one hand, while on the other hand refusing to cut taxes for thousands of individual taxpayers and small businesses in South Carolina?  Particularly when they know that a) families are struggling to make ends meet right now and b) small businesses create 95 percent of our state’s jobs.

It’s precisely this top-down “government knows best” approach to economic development that has failed out state so monumentally in the past, because it’s a repudiation of fairness and free markets, pure and simple.

Having said all of that, we call it straight around here, and when information comes our way that some of the people who are on “our side” of this debate aren’t exactly playing it on the “up and up,” well, we’re going to bash them every bit as aggressively as we’ve bashed Sembler.

Specifically, we’re a little bit concerned with some local “economic development” folks who are involved in this fight.

People like David Tigges, who is the chairman of the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce – an organization that is fighting against the Sembler deal with one hand, but pushing for a tax hike on local residents with the other.

From the Hilton Head Island Packet:

The chamber is pushing a bill that would allow Beaufort County municipalities to impose a sales tax of up to 1 percentage point to pay for tourism marketing and tourism-related capital projects.

Town Council members, however, recently have said they are concerned about the chamber’s repeated requests for more public money in addition to the more than $1 million a year (the organization) already gets by law as the town’s designated marketing organization.

In the most recent case Tuesday, the council approved a chamber request for a $300,000 special allocation from a reserve fund set up so the town can market itself after a disaster. Council members cited the recession as a grave-enough emergency to justify using the money.

The (C)hamber’s Visitor & Convention Bureau gets about 72 percent of its $3.59 million annual budget from public sources.

Say what? Seventy-two percent of its budget from public sources?

Obviously, FITS readers are very familiar with this sort of shakedown from our ongoing coverage of the big coastal campaign finance scandal up in Myrtle Beach.  They’re also familiar with the uber-liberal bent of the S.C. Chamber of Commerce, which has never met a tax hike or government program it didn’t like.

Seriously, people … when did so many of these ostensibly “pro-business” groups become nothing but taxpayer-funded, big government apologists?

Well, let’s ask Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber CEO Bill Miles, who made $344,251 last year – a nine percent raise from the previous year. Not bad “work” if you can get it, right?

Anyway, what does any of this have to do with the Sembler fight?

Well, the firm that lobbies state lawmakers on behalf of Beaufort County (i.e. against Sembler) is the McNair law firm – an outfit which has also been retained to lobby for one of Sembler’s major competitors, Tanger.

Who is McNair’s CEO? None other than David Tigges, the Hilton Head-Bluffton Chamber board chairman.

Ummm … conflict of interest, anyone?

Not to mention possible taxpayer-funded lobbying?

Sheesh.

No wonder they’re trying to jack taxes …

Ironically, a few years ago McNair was working in favor of a retail incentives proposal for a politically-connected coastal developer – a case that went all the way to the S.C. Supreme Court, and resulted in a victory for McNair’s client.

It certainly looks as though the McNair firm’s position on such legislation has shifted, no doubt as a result of who’s paying them.

Oh well.  Here at FITS our position has not – and will not – shift: Handouts for “Mega Malls” are bad public policy.  Period.

It’s just a shame that the coalition fighting against this deal has opened itself up to some legitimate “crony capitalism” questions, too …