By FITSNews || For those of you who didn’t read the fine print, a sliver of the $136 million cigarette tax hike approved by the S.C. Senate on Wednesday was diverted from the ill-conceived “Obamacare Trust Fund.”
Ordinarily, we’d say that’s a good thing … although there’s nothing really “good” about either the House or Senate cigarette tax hikes. For example, neither plan includes long-overdue agency restructuring, fraud protections or eligibility reform, and neither plan incorporates offsetting tax cuts elsewhere in the state code.
Also, every penny of this tax hike will be eaten up by Obamacare premium increases over the next few years, begging the question “where will lawmakers raises taxes next?”
Yeah … sooner or later we’re all going to be on the hook.
Anyway, as bad a taxpayer investment as the so-called “South Carolina Medicaid Reserve Fund” is, it’s got nothing on the mini-boondoggle that lawmakers attached to the bill.
According to an amendment adopted prior to passage of the tax hike, lawmakers routed $2.7 million to the S.C. Department of Agriculture “to cause the marketing and branding of South Carolina agricultural crops or produce as being grown in South Carolina when offered for sale in retail establishments.”
That’s right, people … the “Palmettovore” campaign is back! And amazingly, the S.C. Senate wants to blow more of your money on this ridiculous government-funded marketing subsidy for one of the state’s most liberal PR firms.
What is a “Palmettovore?”
It’s a colossal waste of taxpayer money, that’s what it is.
Where does it go, you may ask? Well, this estimated $2.7 million appropriation – which is recurring funding (i.e. funding that’s devoted to this source for the duration of the proposed tax hike) – happens to be just enough to cover the annual Palmettovore PR bill with Chernoff Newman, the left-leaning Columbia, S.C. public relations firm that is running both the “Palmettovore” and “SC Grown” ad campaigns.
Amazing … the same agency that’s bitching about “budget cuts” to public education is secretly pocketing $2.5 million so a bunch of Fruit of the Loom characters can dance around on the State House steps?
As we’ve said in the past, we’re all for South Carolinians purchasing “homegrown” food, people. In fact we purchase S.C. grown food whenever we can (i.e. whenever it makes sense fiscally).
But forcing taxpayers to pick up the marketing tab for this effort?
That’s patently unfair … unless of course you think that government should pick up the marketing tab for every other “homegrown” industry and/or business in South Carolina.
By Pat Hendrix April 1, 2010 at 4:13 pm
Yep, seems dumb. I also don’t like the idea of picking up a portion of the tab for flood insurance, but I noticed you had no objection to that taxpayer handout.
Curious.
By Emile DeFelice April 2, 2010 at 6:18 am
Thank you, Will – you get it. This is the tip of the iceberg. First, to their credit, the SCDA mission is to market SC farm products – written sometime in the late 1800′s, no kidding. At least for once they are doing a little of that, juvenile as it may be. Still, their new 85 million dollar market and the rest of the SC State “Farmers” Market system is nearly all food from California, Florida, Texas, Mexico, and S America, a subsidized food system. Commissioner Hugh Weathers comes by it honestly – his ‘agribusiness’ interests are also underwritten by the US taxpayer in the form of millions of dollars in subsidies over the years. Seriously, a pair of brothers with Rolex watches and fancy houses farming the handout system – wtf? RINO hall of fame.
The SCDA probably could be reduced by about half if not more. Get out of the market business immediately. Deliver the food testing piece to DHEC where it belongs. Focus on growing new farmers, identifying and preserving prime farmland, and reducing/streamlining government obstacles to farming the free market.
The Chernoff Newman angle is a story within itself – but I’ll let you do that digging.
Y’all come down to the All-Local Farmers’ Market any Saturday morning year round. Fresher! Finer! http://www.stateplate.org
By Skidmarks April 2, 2010 at 8:45 am
Get rid of those fruits for Eat Better, Move More as well.