Lifelong Lancaster County resident Ryan Payne announced today that he will seek the Republican nomination for South Carolina House District 44.  Payne, a Heath Springs resident, graduated in 2009 as class Valedictorian from Andrew Jackson High School.  He attended the University of South Carolina at Lancaster where he graduated in 2011 with an Associate’s Degree in Science.  Payne, a Political Science major, will graduate from Clemson University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Arts this spring.  Payne has been active in state and local politics since 2008.  In 2009, he served as the inaugural Chairman of the Lancaster County Young Republicans.  He believes this firsthand experience will allow him to better serve the people of Lancaster County in the State House.

“After a person has been in politics for a few years, they can start to see how bad things are in Columbia and how we can go about changing the culture of Columbia,” Payne said.  “We need to send someone to Columbia who will have the knowledge and experience that is required to be part of the Legislative process and who will be able to fight for the people of Lancaster County.”

Payne has presented a pro-Lancaster County agenda that includes comprehensive tax reform and spending cuts to free up money to go towards infrastructure.  His economic plan revolves around a 2% cut in income taxes in order to give those residents in Lancaster County who have a job more money in their pockets each week.  This cut will also free up capital for small business owners.  He also wants to cut a variety of other taxes including South Carolina’s 10.5% manufacturing property tax.  In order to offset these tax cuts, Payne has proposed ending the process of economic incentive packages at a state level.

“I believe it is completely unfair to take the tax dollars of Lancaster County small businesses and give them to big corporations that can afford to hire a good lobbyist to get themselves a good deal,” Payne said.  “We need to treat every business in our state the same and if we can’t exempt every business from a tax, then we shouldn’t exempt any businesses.  In 1998, our state gave away 34 million dollars in incentives to big corporations.  Last year, we gave away over 1 billion dollars in incentives.  Since then, per capita income has decreased and thousands of Lancaster County residents have lost their jobs.  Clearly those in Columbia don’t know as much as they think that they do and they shouldn’t try to pick winners and losers in our economy with economic incentives.”

Payne has proposed the idea of banning any organization that receives taxpayer money from hiring a lobbyist in an effort to change the culture of Columbia.  He said, “It makes no sense to give a state agency the taxpayer’s money so that they can hire a lobbyist to lobby for more of the taxpayer’s money.”

Payne will formally announce his intention to run at a press conference on March 29^th at 2:00 P.M. in front of the Lancaster County Courthouse.  For more information please visit payneforschouse.com, email payneforschouse@yahoo.com or call 803-320-7111.

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(Editor’s Note: The above communication is a news release from a candidate for public office. It does not necessarily reflect the editorial position of FITSNews.com. To submit your letter, news release, email blast, media advisory or issues statement for publication, click here).

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Sumter Business Leader Tony Barwick Announces for State Senate District 35
Barwick: “We need to remove the roadblocks preventing South Carolina’s progress”

January 13, 2011 – Sumter, SC – Republican business leader Tony Barwick today announced his intentions to run for South Carolina Senate District 35. The seat is currently occupied by liberal Democrat Phil Leventis, and the district now encompasses parts of Sumter, Lee, Richland and Kershaw counties after redistricting. Barwick is CEO of Palmetto Pigeon Plant where he employees 65 local residents. He is also the managing partner of WTLK Group and Broad Street Developers, commercial real estate businesses driving economic growth in Sumter.

Barwick is running because too many good ideas have died in the State Senate at the hands of politicians beholden to special interest groups. He believe we need more constitutional conservatives who operate with a business mentality.

“South Carolinians are hardworking people, but we are kept back by politicians who don’t want to see change. We need leaders who understand that government is not the answer to our state’s problems. South Carolina’s economy will boom when we remove the obstacles an antiquated government structure is putting in our way,” Barwick said.

Barwick continued, “Just last year, a commission recommended a complete overhaul of our tax structure, but politicians never took it up because they’re putting the demands of lobbyists over the demands of taxpayers. Needed spending caps and restructuring bills keep dying in the Senate. I’ve learned in business that when there is a problem, you have to remove it or your business will fail. The only way to change our failing system is to change senators.”

South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Chad Connelly agreed and said that incumbent Senator Phil Leventis has been a roadblock to needed government reforms. “Senator Leventis is a roadblock for reform. He often takes the floor and filibusters for hours to kill pro-business legislation. His actions have consistently hurt our chances for economic growth and in particular, his roadblocks have decreased home ownership in our state.”

Barwick promised to support an overhaul of the state’s tax system, zero-based budgeting, spending caps and the restructuring of South Carolina’s wasteful and unaccountable state agencies. He also vowed to fight back against the federal intrusion on South Carolina’s rights including the the Obama administration’s disapproval of our Voter ID law.

Today, Barwick also announced that Gretchen Meyers will serve as his Campaign Manager and Greg Thompson will serve as campaign Finance Chairman.

Tony Barwick is a graduate of Furman High School and Clemson University. He has been a community leader serving on boards for 4H, Tuomey Foundation, YMCA and the Sumter Downtown Economic Development Board. He previously served as president of the Sumter Rotary Club and chairman of the South Carolina Poultry Foundation. He coaches JV football as the offensive and defensive line coach. Tony, his wife and two children currently live in Sumter.

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(Editor’s Note: The above communication is an email from a political candidate. It does not necessarily reflect the editorial position of FITSNews.com. To submit your letter, news release, email blast, media advisory or issues statement for publication, click here).

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In addition to mandating that all state employees in South Carolina lie through their teeth every time they answer the telephone (following her lead), S.C. Gov. Nikki “Nimrata” Haley announced earlier this week that she will be monitoring their computer activity, too.

Haley made the announcement at her cabinet meeting on Tuesday, but it was overshadowed by news of her new policy requiring state employees to answer the telephone with the greeting “It’s a great day in South Carolina, how may I help you?”

(Click here, here and here for more on that).

Sources disagree as to the extent of the “Big Sister” policy, which is reportedly part of “audit of internet usage, vehicle usage and cell phones” being prepared in anticipation of Haley getting a shiny new Department of Administration to play with next year.

Some say that the audit isn’t going to be too specific – while others claim that Haley and her staff will be provided with a detailed log of “what sites are begin accessed, by whom and how often.”

“Do you see a problem with this?” one source asked us. “We definitely don’t want state employees spending their day on the web but she seems to be drilling way down into agency business for some reason.”

Hmmmmm …

“I wouldn’t be surprised if your site ends up on the censored list,” one reporter told us.

Obviously, FITS is used to being blocked by various state agencies – including the S.C. Supreme Court, S.C. Budget and Control Board and S.C. Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation (LLR) to name a few.

Has it hurt our traffic? Not even remotely … in fact, we’ve actually noticed spikes in our readership whenever government agencies attempt to “ban” us. Also, each new government ban invariably strengthens our “afternoon surge,” when thousands of state employees who have been prohibited from viewing FITS during working hours like to log on from the comfort of their own homes.

But irrespective of whether such a ban is good or bad news for us … we have no problem whatsoever with Haley instituting it.

Wait … what?

“We’re rude, controversial, and our routinely-displayed contempt for the bounds of ‘appropriateness’ gives (agencies) ample reason to ‘flag’ FITS,” we wrote back in January in response to rumors that the Haley administration was targeting our site.

We still feel the same way. Like her or not (we’ve loved and loathed her, literally), Haley is the governor. If she wants to spend her time monitoring web usage across state government, that’s her prerogative.

Of course if we were state employees, we’d be careful … “Big Sister Nimrata” may be watching.

And whether she wants to ban us or not, this website will continue to enthusiastically support the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Administration – so long as it isn’t part of some backroom deal like the one Haley tried to cut last year with liberal S.C. Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman.

Any government restructuring legislation must reduce the size and scope of government – not expand it, as the Haley-Leatherman proposal would have done.

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After initially promising to provide documentation for her bizarre claim regarding drug use among job applicants at the Savannah River Site (SRS), S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley has now totally backed down from her controversial comments.

“I’ve never felt like I had to back up what people tell me,” the embattled governor told reporter Jim Davenport of the Associated Press (one of her few remaining ‘go-to guys’ in the local lamestream media).

“You assume that you’re given good information,” Haley continued. “And now I’m learning through (the press) that I have to be careful before I say something.”

Last Thursday, Haley told a Rotary Club in Lexington, S.C. that half of the people who applied for jobs at the U.S. Department of Energy facility failed a drug test … while the other half were illiterate.

“Down on River Site, they were hiring a few hundred people, and when we sat down and talked to them – this was back before the campaign – when we sat down and talked to them, they said of everybody they interviewed, half of them failed a drug test, and of the half that was left, of that 50 percent, the other half couldn’t read and write properly,” Haley told the group.

The only problem with that statement (other than the fact it violated Haley’s “speak no ill of SC” rule)?

It was patently false.

“Half the people who applied for a job last year or year 2009 did not fail the drug test,” an SRS spokesman told The Huffington Post – the website which first broke the story. “At the peak of hiring under the Recovery Act we had less than 1 percent of those hired test positive.”

The spokesman added that SRS doesn’t even drug test applicants – it only tests those people it winds up hiring.

Haley’s office refused to respond to the Post‘s request for comment, but on September 10 Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey told a local paper – The Aiken Standard – that the governor stood by her statements and would be providing documentation for her claim.

“The statistics came from an SRS contractor who was involved in hiring folks working on the site,” Godfrey told the paper a week ago. “It has been reaffirmed that they had a significant failure rate — for both reading and writing and drug testing — from applicants in South Carolina counties, and the actual numbers will be delivered to us next week.”

Of course Godfrey was nowhere to be found a week later – and phone calls from the paper on September 17 “seeking clarification on whether actual statistics ever existed and the identity of the personnel who Haley said she met with” were not returned.

Now, Haley is telling the Associated Press that the man who made the statement can’t back it up.

“Now they’re all backing off saying it,” Haley told the AP. “Now they don’t have the backup.”

How convenient, right?

Meanwhile, adding a “government transparency” wrinkle to this latest Haley debacle, The Aiken Standard quoted an SRS official as saying that the record of email exchanges between the governor’s office and the U.S. Department of Energy were “being kept private.”

Sheesh … is this the most incompetent, hypocritical administration this state has ever seen or what?

Obviously this isn’t the first time Haley has been caught in a lie. In fact, “Trikki Nikki” been caught fibbing so many times since taking office (click here, here, here, here, here and here for a few examples) that she’s actually managed to make our attention-starved founding editor seem credible by comparison. And when Haley isn’t lying, she’s flip-flopping, obfuscating or attempting to bury the truth – all of which runs counter to her “transparency” promises.

Haley’s aversion to the truth might be marginally more palatable if she were living  up to her “Tea Party” roots, but she’s been a disaster on that front as well – approving multiple bailouts, doling out exorbitant raises to her staff and signing off on the largest spending plan in state history.

The missteps are taking their toll, too.

According to a Public Policy Polling survey released earlier this month, only 41 percent of South Carolina voters approve of the job Haley is doing. Meanwhile 43 percent disapprove. Needless to say those are awful numbers for a politician who hasn’t even been on the job for a year.

Haley has also had several major missteps since that poll was released. Most notably, she responded to a devastating report in the state’s largest  newspaper by referring to the reporter who wrote it as a “little girl.” She’s also seen the state’s unemployment rate climb above 11 percent – and was busted skipping two days of work to take her staff on an exclusive retreat.

How low can Nikki go?

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S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley is standing by her bizarre claim that fifty percent of recent job applicants at the Savannah River Site (SRS) failed drug tests while the other half “couldn’t read and write properly.”

Talk about “selling the greatness of South Carolina,” right?

SRS is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) facility on the Savannah River that once refined nuclear material for deployment in offensive weaponry during the Cold War. The site is currently transitioning into a mixed-oxide fuel manufacturing plant that will convert weapons grade plutonium into energy for commercial nuclear reactors.

So yeah … it’s not exactly the sort of work you want stoners or illiterates performing, although SRS officials immediately challenged Haley’s contention that those were the only sort of people applying to do it.

“Half the people who applied for a job last year or year 2009 did not fail the drug test,” an SRS spokesman told The Huffington Post – the website which first broke the story. “At the peak of hiring under the Recovery Act we had less than 1 percent of those hired test positive.”

The spokesman added that SRS doesn’t even drug test applicants – it only tests those people it winds up hiring.

Haley’s spokesman Rob Godfrey refused to talk to The Huffington Post, but he fired back in the local press – saying that the governor’s statistics “came from an SRS contractor who was involved in hiring folks” to work at SRS.

“We were in a meeting at the SRS site last year, and people know that it was said,”  Haley’s office said in a statement released to The Aiken Standard. “We didn’t ask them for backup when they said it, we took them at their word.”

According to Aiken Standard reporter Anna Dolianitis, Haley’s office said that it would provide statistics to justify the governor’s claim – but failed to do so. Haley’s office also failed to return phone calls inquiring as to whether those statistics ever really existed – and if so, who provided them.

Big surprise, right?

Meanwhile … get this … email exchanges between the governor’s office and the Department of Energy over the drug testing issue “are being kept private,” according to an SRS spokesman.

Private? Private?

At this point, we’d usually make a reference to the fact that Haley campaigned on “transparency in government” and has once again fallen short on her signature issue – but let’s face it, that horse is dead. Haley has not only failed to live up to her promise – she’s well on her way to becoming the least transparent governor in South Carolina history.

Which is saying something …

HALEY CAMP: NO STATS TO SUPPORT DRUG CLAIM (AIKEN STANDARD)

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South Carolina Democrats are preparing to launch a major media offensive aimed at exposing the high salaries of GOP operatives in state government – as well as the thin qualifications these government employees presented when applying for their taxpayer-funded positions.

At a time when increasing numbers of South Carolinians are struggling to find work, Democrats are hoping to draw attention to the generous government paychecks being collected by Republican campaign staffers in the wake of the 2010 elections.

“Its amazing these folks sleep at night,” said S.C. Rep. Boyd Brown (D-Winnsboro), a lawmaker familiar with the project. “All of these clowns get elected on good government platforms, then the first thing they do is hire some flunkie at $70,000 a year and stick the working South Carolinian with the bill.”

It won’t be the first time Republican elected officials have been hit by such criticism.

S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley created a firestorm on her first full day in office when she handed out massive salary increases for her senior staff – which included several former campaign workers. Also, one of Haley’s cabinet agencies hired her former campaign manager’s wife to a $50,000 a year
“part-time” position.

More recently, S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson granted one of his political hires an extended leave of absence to work on a Republican presidential campaign – begging the question of just how necessary the position was to begin with.

A project of the recently-rejuvenated S.C. Democratic Party, the GOP salary and resume information will reportedly be released this week.

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We believe strongly that S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley’s report cards for South Carolina legislators are a good thing … or at least they could have been a good thing had the governor offered a real reform agenda on which to grade our fiscally liberal state lawmakers.

Unfortunately, she didn’t do that.

Haley’s agenda offered no tax relief, no spending cuts, no taxpayer rebate fund, no parental choice … and no real government restructuring.

She proposed several “reforms in name only,” but these watered-down proposals were more about scoring political wins than they were helping taxpayers.  The sad truth is that Haley never offered anything resembling the sort of fiscally conservative, free market reforms that South Carolina desperately needs if it ever wants to move forward (not backward) economically.

Pretty weak considering Haley is viewed on the national stage as a “Tea Party darling.”

Making matters worse, Haley perpetuated our state’s failed top-down approach by signing off on the largest budget in South Carolina history (and yet just six weeks after this budget went into effect she was forced to beg Washington, D.C. for a bailout to pay road contractors).

Anyway, while Haley is getting her report card from the people of South Carolina (here, here and here), she has yet to publish her legislative report cards.

Of course that’s not stopping her from shilling for a new Congressional report card that’s being compiled by the Heritage Foundation (a scorecard that we suspect will be about as legitimate as Grover Norquist’s “No New Taxes” pledge).

“It is time our elected officials remember they work for the people and not the other way around,” Haley says in a promotional video for Heritage Action, the political wing of the conservative think tank. “So let’s support those who do a great job. Let’s hold their hand to the fire for those that don’t.”

That’s good advice … it’s a shame Haley isn’t following it. It’s also a shame she’s squandering what could have been an effective tool for holding our state’s free-spending S.C. General Assembly in check.

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S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson is “supremely confident” that a statewide grand jury will return a criminal indictment against S.C. Lt. Gov. Ken Ard (RINO-Pamplico), sources close to the first-term Republican officeholder tell FITS.

Meanwhile, a pair of state lawmakers – one Democrat, the other Republican – tell FITS that Wilson is playing the case by the book, earning him the respect of numerous leaders in both parties.

Some Democrats have expressed concern that Wilson and Ard may have cut a deal involving the latter’s grand jury proceedings – perhaps in an effort to avoid dragging a prominent Republican fundraiser into the investigation.

Not so, say our sources …

In fact, we’re told that Wilson is not only confident in the case he’s making … but is furious with Ard’s attorneys over their refusal to shoot straight with his office at various points during the investigation.

Ard’s problems stem from a S.C. State Ethics Commission investigation into numerous campaign finance violations.

An ethics report released last month showed that Ard’s illegal use of campaign funds for personal purposes was much more flagrant than originally suspected. Also, the report revealed that Ard repeatedly provided false information to investigators – fabricating an official “economic development” pretense for a family vacation to Washington, D.C. and concocting a story about buying his wife an inaugural gown.

In an effort to make their case against Ard, Wilson’s investigators have requested a tape recording from The (Columbia, S.C.) Free Times – the outlet which broke the news of Ard’s campaign issues back in January. In addition to containing Ard’s admission that he was trying to recoup a vast amount of his “personal wealth,” this recording includes numerous instances in which Ard denies using campaign cash on personal expenses.

Obviously Ard isn’t the only South Carolina “Republican” facing campaign finance problems. Newly-elected S.C. Ways and Means Chairman Brian White has a similar issue – while S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley has habitually refused to disclose the occupation of the vast majority of her donors as required by state law.

If Ard is indicted, he would be automatically suspended from office pending the outcome of the charges against him. In the event he were to resign from office or be convicted, S.C. Senate President Glenn McConnell would be in line to replace him – although it’s unclear at this point whether McConnell would temporarily relinquish his Senate leadership role in an effort to avoid assuming the politically impotent lieutenant governor’s office.

One thing is clear, though … if Wilson wins an indictment against Ard he’s likely to become a hero to Democrats and fiscally conservative Republicans who opposed Ard last year, not to mention unaffiliated voters who are simply weary of political scandals.

If he fails to get an indictment, then he’s got serious problems with all three of those groups …

“He’s coming out of (the Ard scandal) as one of two things – a future governor or a dead politician walking,” one Democratic operative told FITS.

Hard to argue with that assessment …

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S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley refused to consider a $50 million fund transfer for the S.C. Department of Transportation (SCDOT) because the agency approached one of her political rivals with the request first, multiple sources at the agency tell FITS.

According to SCDOT officials who spoke with FITS on condition of anonymity, State Treasurer Curtis Loftis was approached before going to Haley because “he’s the most fiscally conservative member of the board.”

“We wanted a unanimous vote,” the source said. “We didn’t want a public embarassement.”

Haley and Loftis both serve on the S.C. Budget and Control Board, a quasi-executive, quasi-legislative entity that manages many of the state’s administrative functions. At previous board meetings, Loftis has publicly lambasted state agencies that he believes are wasting taxpayer dollars.

Apparently, SCDOT was trying to avoid such a public tongue-lashing – which is understandable. Earlier this year, FITS exposed a flagrant vote-buying scam at SCDOT that resulted in $344 million being wasted on non-priority road projects.

(Click here, here, here and here to read more about this boondoggle).

The fact that this agency is now coming hat in hand to the state – begging for $50 million to pay its overdue contracting bills on existing projects – well, that shouldn’t sit well with any taxpayer.

Clearly,their strategic move didn’t sit well with Haley – who has been sparring with Loftis ever since the two Republicans took office in January.

“She was livid,” one of our sources says.

As a result, Haley refused to let the B&CB consider the measure at its monthly meeting earlier this week – leading to yet another high-profile disagreement with Loftis.

“This is a lost opportunity for (Haley) to be transparent about this issue and accountable about her cabinet,” Loftis said. “These issues should be discussed in public and not behind closed doors.”

At one point during the contentious discussion, Loftis accused Haley of running a “politburo.” He also chided her mismanagement of the agency.

In addition to signing off on record spending increases, Haley has also approved two $100 million bailouts for the state’s Department of Health and Human Services (here and here) – an agency which is in her cabinet. SCDOT is a quasi-cabinet agency, although Haley’s appointment to its governing commission (like so many of her other appointees) certainly hasn’t distinguished himself as a reformer.

Loftis was not immediately available to comment regarding the matter. Haley’s office – as is its custom – refused to respond to our request for comment.

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We hear excuses every day from status quo backers in Columbia as to why South Carolina’s public education system is so atrocious.

It’s poverty, they say. Or racism. Or insufficient funding. Or it’s the fault of parents. Then there’s our favorite excuse – that the ongoing debate over parental choice has “shifted our leaders’ focus away from improving our public schools.”

Really?

Apparently, this is the status quo’s way of saying that overpaid public school educrats should be spending taxpayer time and resources pressuring their employees to lobby lawmakers against parental choice. You know … instead of doing their jobs.

(Click here and here for a few recent examples of these goons in action).

Such taxpayer-funded propagandizing has become widespread in South Carolina – with bigger sums of public resources being routed toward lobbying efforts.

Why is this happening? Because the educrat establishment in this state has made it clear that it isn’t interested in actually educating South Carolina’s children – it’s more interested in preserving political power (which has been the key to preserving its steady increases in funding).

According to state budget writers, South Carolina’s public schools will be funded at an average of $11,754 per child in the current fiscal year – a record-high amount. This money comes from taxes assessed by local, state and federal governments. Obviously, the $11,754 figure excludes revenues from bonds, investments, and transfers between funds and government agencies (which adds another $1,500 to the total).

In 2010, the state spent $11,140 per child – also a record-high amount – yet our graduation rate continued to decline. That mirrors retreating SAT and stagnating ACT scores, all of which hurts our state’s ability to compete for jobs and investment. Also, a recent report found that more than one-third of the nation’s 100 worst public schools are located in South Carolina.

What gives?

Well, for starters less than half of the money lawmakers appropriate actually makes its way into the classroom. It gets spent on huge administrative salaries, beach vacations and of course … taxpayer-funded lobbying.

Sadly, these lobbying efforts are proving successful. Last year, the S.C. House of Representatives refused to even debate a parental choice bill – with six “Republican” lawmakers in Spartanburg, S.C. joining a RINO-Democratic coalition to defeat the legislation, which failed by a single vote.

In addition to the “Spartanburg Six” – Rita Allison, Doug Brannon, Derham Cole, Mike Forrester, Steve Parker and Eddie Tallon – ten other Republicans voted to kill the measure.

The previous year, legislation that would have prohibited school districts from routing taxpayer money to fund bureaucratic advocacy groups also failed by a single vote.

Among the so-called “Republicans” who voted to keep pouring your money into these lobbying efforts? Reps. Liston Barfield, Alan Clemmons, Mike Gambrell, Nelson Hardwick, Bill Herbkersman, Davey Hiott, Chip Huggins, Lanny Littlejohn, Steve Parker, Jay Lucas, Gene Pinson,  Bill Sandifer, B.R. Skelton, Don Smith and Bill Whitmire.

South Carolina needs one vote, people … one vote to end the abusive manipulation and intimidation of a failed bureaucracy, and one vote to give parents in the Palmetto state choices that they have been denied for far too long.

One vote …

Who’s it gonna be?

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