By FITSNews || How many times have you heard a politician or government official claiming to have “saved” you money?
It happens all the time.
In fact, it happened six weeks ago in South Carolina when the House of Representatives “saved” $261 million by sustaining several dozen budget vetoes issued by Gov. Mark Sanford.
Of course if you bothered to read the fine print, you’d know that none of this money is going back to the taxpayers. It’s staying in the black hole of state government, where it will be used to pay for next year’s spending. Even Sanford, who has built his brand around free market reforms and taxpayer savings, acknowledged that his budget vetoes had merely created “set aside money” that would “effectively reduce next year’s budget shortfall from roughly $1 billion to less than $800 million.”
Huh?
So … do any of these so-called government “savings” ever save money?
Short answer? No, although true fiscal conservatives in the S.C. General Assembly are hoping to do something about that. Specifically, they are looking at the possibility of creating a new vehicle for sending surplus state revenue (and revenue from vetoes and other government “savings”) back to the taxpayers.
“The whole idea behind a spending cap is to take that surplus revenue and put it back into the private sector,” says S.C. Sen. Tom Davis (R-Beaufort), who is pushing for the creation of what he calls a “taxpayer rebate fund” in connection with spending cap legislation.
Davis says that previous efforts to limit government spending in South Carolina have failed because there is no mechanism to return money to the taxpayer.
“A spending cap that doesn’t put money back into the free market isn’t doing its job,” Davis says. “We need that second step.”
Davis isn’t alone in his efforts to create this “second step,” either.
S.C. Rep. Eric Bedingfield (R-Greenville), a leading fiscal conservative in the S.C. House, told FITS that he is considering filing companion legislation this December based on what Davis proposes. Also, Rep. Tracy Edge (R-Myrtle Beach) told FITS that the idea of a taxpayer rebate fund will appear in some form or fashion in a comprehensive reform blueprint that he’s preparing in advance of the next legislative session.
The importance of creating such a fund cannot be overstated.
In addition to any annual surpluses, such a fund could also become the destination of choice for other government savings and efficiencies. No longer would agency “savings” be automatically routed back into government, lawmakers would have the option of putting the money into the rebate fund.
What do you think? Should lawmakers return surpluses and savings to the taxpayers? Or should they continue to spend that money?
Vote in our poll … and be sure to post your thoughts in our comments section below …
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By Florida Watching July 12, 2010 at 11:50 am
FITS – This is boring as crap. You may get 5 comments at most. Gotta post Palin’s tits or Nikki’s legs.
That’s it buddy……don’t lose your fan base. People come here for sleaze,gossip and titilation…… not intellectural stimulation.
By Florida Watching July 12, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Hey – Can I help you? Post pictures and stuff to your articles….what kind of access and passwords do I need? I could add some spice to this oatmeal you are slobbering. And what happened to accident investigations? Slamming your new mayor?? SubZeroIQ? Balsak? Dude…….you are slipping.
By carl the greenskeeper July 12, 2010 at 12:20 pm
“When I got to Tibet I told ‘em that I was a looper, a jock, you know, a caddy, so on the first day, who do they give me? The Dali Lama himself, the bald head, the flowing robes, the grace. So we step up to the 1st tee and I hand him the big dog and he smacks it into a 10,000 foot crevasse. Big hitter, The Lama. So, we’re finishing up 18 and I can see he’s going to stiff me, so I says Hey! How about a little something, you know, for the effort? He says, oh, there will be no money, but your state will sustain some budget vetoes and maybe your legislators will create a tax payer rebate. So, you know, I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.”
By Florida Watching July 12, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Cup size???
CUP SIZE???
HOW BIG ARE THEY NOW????
Quagmire: Giggity, giggity, giggity, giggity!
By David Weasley July 12, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Tom Davis is a Sanfraud cronie that sums him up.
Sheheen leads Haley in money race
http://www.thestate.com/2010/07/12/1374315/sheheen-leads-haley-in-money.html
By yarrrr July 12, 2010 at 1:35 pm
I think you guys are thinking about the problem the wrong way… and end up setting yourselves up for failure every time…
The gist of a proposal I’m going to email into the Haley campaign is to put much of the non-essential parts of government up for direct election every year and have the people to vote on what gets funded. A Competitive Grants Program on steroids with actual competition. There’s much more I’m keeping back(like forcing them all to build alternative funding mechanisms based off of their supporters).
If we had something like this, your poll might be a question on the ballot…
By Gillon July 12, 2010 at 1:38 pm
So basically you’re saying that government money spent on such free market- promoting and quality of life-enhancing projects as roads and infrastructure, education, law enforcement, the environment, the arts, aid to the less fortunate, health care, consumer protection, etc. could better be “saved” by returning it to taxpayers. What, in your opinion, would be a “good” expenditure of government money since obviously the average South Carolinian could make a far wiser use of these “savings”?
By Recovering Lobbyist July 12, 2010 at 2:29 pm
My other favorite government rationalization is that a tax deduction is somehow government spending. Like they are entitled to that money except that they have magnanamously decided to give it back to us (in other words, spend our money to give it back to us) (or maybe it is spend their money to give it back to us). A bureaucrat had to think that one up.
By Gen. Longstreet July 12, 2010 at 3:32 pm
I surely do like that young Senator Davis. Got him some good ideas. Sort of like Bobby Lee before Gettysburg.
Kind of goofy looking though. Sort of like Jeb Stuart. Or was that AP Hill? Never could tell ‘dem boys apart.
By columbia insider July 12, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Gillon, take your head out of your state bureaucratic ass and smell the coffee. Sure, government needs to spend money on core functions (such as education, roads and bridges, a civil justice system, police, corrections and the like). No one suggests it shouldn’t But it should stop there and not try to do things that are best left to the private marketplace, and in the past 20 years it has not respected that limit. A dozen years ago, the annual subsidies (tax breaks, incentives, etc.) given by state government to the private businesses who have the time and money to lobby for them has increase from $40 million a year to over $500 million — and that’s not even counting Boeing. What it comes down to is whether you believe that market forces in the private sector allocate our limited resources more efficiently than the public sector does. If what Fits says is true, Davis, Beddingfield and Edge seem to think that they do, and that government should stick to its legitimate functions.
By Genomic Repairman July 12, 2010 at 5:03 pm
If the government doesn’t spend all the money, give me my fair share of the bones back or apply it to debt services the state needs to pay down.
By Flustered July 12, 2010 at 5:53 pm
If a reduced budget were to mean an AUTOMATIC CHECK 4 U, then spending cuts would have their own constituency to do battle with special interests.
By Gillon July 12, 2010 at 6:01 pm
columbia insider, wow, that’s really some strong language from what appears to be a weak mind–that “head out of your ass stuff.” Maybe you should take a look at some of Sanford’s vetoes over the last seven years and think again when you say “no one suggests” that the government shouldn’t spend money( or at least enough to properly do the job) on core functions. Maybe you should take a look at how the Legislature has funded (or failed to fund) higher education in this state over the last decade. We have the highest tuition of any public universities in the southeast. And if you want to talk about the private enterprise and the free market efficiently allocating resources, you might take a look at the performance of banks and the auto industry, among others, over the past three years. Come back when you’ve read something more substantial than “The National Enquirer” or listened to somebody with a little more depth than Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin and we’ll talk.
By Katherine Jenerette July 12, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Rebate fund?
The first best way to save South Carolina tax payers money is to leave the money it in the pocket of the taxpayer. Eliminate the income tax.
The second best way: By law, automatically reduce the state income tax the following year by a ‘rounded up’ equivalent percentage of the so called savings. No increases without a public referendum on the ballot.
The third best way to save South Carolina tax payers money: shrink the size of the government.
The fourth best way: Still thinking…
By snodgrass July 12, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Gee whiz, Folks. You make it sound as if we have legitimate oversight in place. What do lawmakers know? They’re mostly a bunch of glorified paralegals pretending to be Zeus. They don’t really know what our agencies do, what our agencies need, or whether some of these agencies even need to exist.
I have ETV, Will. Don’t mess with me.
The taxpayers are the ones writing the checks. Every agency head in the state should have to publish a proposed budget online every year in advance and then allow the media/bureaucrats/workingstiffs to pillage and plunder them to a successful resolution.
You want accountability in SC state government? Let the taxpayers make the big decisions…and live with the consequences.
By C20H26N2O July 12, 2010 at 8:31 pm
Take a look at this bullshit Gillon and then take a guess why tuition is so high. http://www.fitsnews.com/2010/07/12/eliminate-clemson-psa/
I need my pain meds.
By eggaday July 12, 2010 at 9:08 pm
“they” , these republicans, are truthfully saying PRIVATIZE everything and make it an ownership society. You buy it if you break it kind of thing.
all of “them” need their heads examined because they are trying to create absolute anarchy.
when anrachy arrives, be sure to remember how “they” want to establish ” martial law” ( pronounced marshall law people) and the citizens of this state in no way deserve what these politicans are trying to promote with their ” free market” speel…
trust me. this state cannot afford the people who are pretending to run it. NONE OF THEM.
~~~it’s housecleaning time.
By John Steinberger July 13, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Katherine Jenrette gets it! The South Carolina FairTax Act (H.3992/S-902) eliminates the state income tax by repealing the nearly 300 exemptions in the sales tax code. We have sales tax exemptions for such items as newsprint, port-a-lets and twine – why?
We all know that LeBron James chose Miami because the state of FL won’t confiscate his income. If we eliminate the South Carolina income tax, all of the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte Bobcats players and their staffs would buy homes in York County. South Carolina will also become home to professional golfers, NASCAR drivers and entrepreneurs.
Let’s make it happen!