SENATOR ALSO CALLS FOR “LONG-TERM FIX” TO INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUE
|| By FITSNEWS || Blasting the “failures of the past,” S.C. Senator Katrina Shealy said state leaders should apply “every penny” of newly certified surplus revenues to fixing roads and bridges around the Palmetto State.
“Every penny of that new money needs to go to roads – and specifically to maintenance,” Shealy told FITS. “Then we’ve got to get together on a long-term fix.”
Shealy is one of several Senators who previously embraced a gas tax/ income tax swap – although in her defense that was prior to the certification of the new revenue. Also, Shealy has been an outspoken proponent of eliminating the state’s income tax – not just cutting it.
“It’s a miracle we’ve even gotten that into the discussion,” she told FITS.
State leaders have known about the surplus funds for the past three weeks, but refused to certify the new money until Friday – hoping to ram a gas tax hike through the chamber.
The certification of the new funds occurred as S.C. Senator Tom Davis has been leading a filibuster against the gas tax hike – drawing the ire of fiscal liberals.
This website has consistently opposed raising the gas tax under any circumstances – arguing that there is more than enough revenue available to perform this core function in the state’s $25.7 billion (and growing) budget.
103 comments
Nah man…Every penny of the surplus should go to Hoe maintenance. When I run for supreme leader governor in 2018 we’ll ensure that it works like that.
Tbone – 2018
A steak on every grill and a hoe on every dick. Hoe support paid by SC.
I’m on board!
No lesser cuts of meat on dicks, only Grade A steak!
She ain’t wrong….
I have to give her credit for being right on this one.
The guys saying we should put the surplus money into DOT are the same ones saying we shouldn’t give DOT money until they fix their stuff, and also the same people that say we should rebate surplus money instead of finding things that need the extra money.
Make sure you give them that “credit” as well.
Are you saying the money needs more or better oversight with regard to how it will be spent? If so, I am in full agreement with you. I do believe given the current hysteria over our road situation, spending it on repairs, NOT new roads, beats pissing the money away on educayshun or some other venture that is either already well-funded, over-funded, or otherwise not an immediate priority.
“Shealy has been an outspoken proponent of eliminating the state’s income tax – not just cutting it.”
How is that working out in Kansas??
http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/yael-t-abouhalkah/article22593597.html
She might as well wear a shirt that says “I am here to protect “no tax” freeloaders
Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas was pilloried for enacting major tax reductions that supposedly blew gaping holes in the state’s budget because rapid economic growth didn’t instantly materialize. Put aside the fact that some of his other tax proposals weren’t enacted and that he didn’t get all the tightening on overall spending he wanted. Democrats thought they’d knock him out in 2014. Instead, Brownback won, and his tax cuts, which took effect little more than two years ago (he not only whacked income tax rates but also eliminated those levies altogether for small businesses), are starting to yield a bumper crop in prosperity. Private-sector job growth in Kansas is now outpacing that in most other states. The state’s unemployment rate is among the nation’s lowest. Just as impressive is Kansas’ employment-to-population ratio, which is well above the national average.
Forbes
REALLY?!?! You’re going with that?!?! Ya see, I thought furloughing state workers, credit downgrades, closing schools, etc. early were bad things?
Or this quote: ‘State budget analysts told legislators that no hard data support claims that Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s self-described experiment in supply-side economics is spurring job growth,The Wichita Eagle reports.’
Supply-side eco is a joke and so is anyone who would fall for it.
Kansas still has a $406 million budget hole to fill, which they can’t unless they cut much needed programs like education, which they haven’t yet and are in danger of a shutdown. Pogo is suggesting we run up the credit card and not pay the minimum payments, and when the collectors start calling, use the grocery money to pay them. Can you imagine what his check book looks like?
“. . . .which they can’t unless they cut much needed programs like education”
Education is a hoax just like climate change.
LOL
$83 / h0ur @mk26
,,,
—-http://IncentiveMilesSite.net/hoty/job/life…
… And The Governor will fill those holes, no problem.
Step away from the Kool-Aid!
That’s beer. Coors in fact.
isnt supply side economics what led to the great depression?
Actually , supply side economics under President Reagan led to the longest period of sustained growth in history.
The public debt rose from 26% GDP in 1980 to 41% GDP by 1988. Given how much “conservatives” idolize Reagan yet rail against public debt one wonders how they reconcile this fact.
Further, during the Reagan administration, federal receipts grew from $618 billion to $991 billion (an increase of 60%); while outlays grew from $746 billion to $1144 billion (an increase of 53%). According to a 1996 report of the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress, during Reagan’s two terms, and through 1993, the top 10% of taxpayers paid an increased share of income taxes (not including payroll taxes) to the Federal government, while the lowest 50% of taxpayers paid a reduced share of income tax revenue.
So, he grew taxes for the rich ad also INCREASED spending and deficit spending at that. I though true conservatives could only reduce spending without being a “RINO?
Presidents can cut taxes and spending. Only congress can increase spending and raise taxes.
LOL And the band played on . . . .
Reagan’s supply-side economics led to a major tax hike and a deficit larger than all his predecessors combined. But he sure could blow warm air up your skirt
Presidents can lower fed taxes. Only congress can raise fed taxes.
Can you explain? I ask from ignorance, not sarcasm…
Damn right! Remember the stories that he used to tell about his younger years, which actually turned out to be from his shitty movies?
Growth for who?
Sure, if you want to Hoover’s federal expansions as ‘supply side’.
Not.
It sure as hell has led to every Gilded Age this country has ever had and we are in Gilded Age 3.
No.
Absolutely …
(Disclosure: I was born there.)
It is working out very, very well! For Kansas taxpayers and Kansas small farms and Kansas small businesses. The Wichita Beacon has had a huge increase in “help wanted” ads. Kansas unemployment rates are dropping … Kansas business and government are projecting budget surpluses by 2016, a year early than older projections.
Fuck the roads! Let’s pass another anti-abortion bill!
If only you would have been aborted.
So now you are for abortion? You are a sick person with no principles.
I’m obsessed with Rocky and Buzz.I worship the ground that the genius Tango walks on.
I don’t like you, so I’m going to wish you were dead! How adult of me! LMAO!!! LMAO!!!
Where is ol’ GT?
Probably rotting in a trailer after drinking one too many beers one night.
His disqus account has been deleted, so all the comments he has ever made show up as deleted. It has been speculated that he is testifying on Bingham’s behalf and in order to do so he had to get rid of all evidence of having been here. At first, I thought that was someone just trying to be funny, but the more I think about it I’m not so sure it’s that big of a stretch. I know of no reason otherwise that he would just disappear the way he did.
I think he just got scared of some of the talk about Discovery possibly involving IP addys, etc. for FITS commenters. Which would NEVER happen, because it would out too many Bingamites and Kelleyites and Hayleyites. Not to mention Sodomites and Gomorrahmites.
Good ol Boz. I thought another possibility might be that you finally found him and took him out. Lately, he couldn’t stop bringing up the crap between you and TSN.Basically everything he said, he always found a way to reference it even though you were never involved in the conversation. I know nothing about it, but if we were to believe GT, you basically labeled them a terrorist organization.
The fat ass couldn’t get off the couch, Greyhound don’t run Murrells Inlet and mommy’s check in mailbox first of month.
GT is safe.
It wouldn’t happen, in my opinion, because FitsNews would no longer exist if a contributor was subpoenaed via Discovery/Bingham.How many people that contribute on Fits know Will,Bingham or anybody associated with them? I don’t. Never heard of Bingham until the lawsuit. The wheels would fall off of this site and my guess is that Will/Fits would be sued again and it would end up ‘outing’ the 10 or 12 regular contributors.
Has nothing to do with your personal vendetta against Mark Kelley and his family.I thought you worked for the mayor’s wife in Myrtle Beach? Does he know you are posting this bullshit and libeling Kelley? I used to see John in Shamrocks back in the day.
Pogo! Pogo! Pogo!
I think Nikki Haley should confiscate your paycheck! That makes me a conservative! LMAO!!! LMAO!!!
GrandTango is the smartest person I know! What does that say about me? Oh my!!!
Love is in the air.
I do love me some Pogo! And Pogo obviously loves you!
Scary, but true.
pogo (flip) is beside himself. lol
SC Blues could have been the poster child for the pro abortion crowd. This could have been prevented. LOL
Yes indeed.Excellent posts today on all threads.
Thanks.Now that Tango left I needed another sucker to agree with me to make it look like I’m intelligent.You will fit the bill nicely.LMAO!!!
Bible Thumper can be your guy on the side.
“SC Blues could have been the poster child for the pro abortion crowd”
Stupidity reigns – or should I say rains here in SC! Pro-abortion? Not me. Never had one and never been placed in the position of having to consider one, thank goodness. Never encouraged a woman to have one. But I sure do not think that I want that decision placed in YOUR hands or the hands of your good buddies Pogo and Grand Tango – I suggest you all go and get your pitiful little weenies clipped off and then there would be no chance of you creating a situation where a woman might have to consider an abortion. Please let me know when the pitiful little weenies have been clipped and then we’ll talk.
You are an abortion and my guess a disgrace to your family and community.
‘Another’ as in one that has never passed to begin with. This from the person whose best argument is “if you don’t like abortion, then don’t have one”.
LOL Who is forcing you to have all of these abortions, dear? You poor little thing – I am sure you are devastated now that your kindred spirit Grand Tango is gone! Poor baby! But do keep stalking me – shows just how pathetic you are dear.
Haha….”stalking me”…..”How pathetic you are”. Oh how many countless times Grand Tango would say those things to people. Yet, somehow, he is my ” kindred spirit”. In fact, I’m pretty sure I brought up the fact that you are exactly like him last week, citing specifically how. Now you’re throwing it out there to counter me? Come on, surely you can use logic, reason and some method of civil debate. I’ve yet to see any evidence of that from you, but I guess I can still hope you’ll come around.
You are delusional.
Yeah – stalking me – let’s see how long you keep doing it, bozo. You’ve proven it over and over
And definitely a kindred spirit with GT- you agree with him on most issues – I have never, ever agreed with Grand Tango on anything! And you seem to be some sort of authority on what he posts – what is GT’s opinion on abortion rights, huh? He posts all of the same garbage that you do, bozo.
Who are you gonna buddy up with now that he’s “left”? Pogo of course – you agree with him/her/it on most issues as well. Prove me wrong.
And what would there be to civilly debate with you? When nothing else works you simply distort and lie. You’re as pathetic a poster/stalker as any that haunts this forum.
I’ll be waiting for you Pathetic Stalker – and I am 100% confident that you will not let me down! LOL
Let’s not forget that you were the first one to respond to me. It doesn’t really matter to me one way or another but if you’re going to turn this into a debate about who is stalking who, then make sure you start there. Like I said, it doesn’t really matter, because the only reason you are bringing it up is to shut down debate. You think that claiming that I’m “stalking” absolves you of the fact that you have been wrong from the get-go. It’s exactly what GT used to do when I would call him out for the idiotic things he was saying. I’d destroy him on his rants and instead of being able to respond in any type of manner, he would just claim I was “stalking” him or tell me how “pathetic” my life was. Not a real response, just a way for him to try and change the subject to avoid confronting his lies/misrepresentations. You are doing exactly the same thing. You and him may not agree on the “issues”, but you use the same tactics when trying to debate. Neither one of you actually address real issues, you just get into a menacing power struggle worthy of a five year olds. It’s never about the truth, it’s about who can verbally out-insult the other.
I have no idea whether he and I agree on “most issues”, because I’ve never heard him espouse arguments in favor of “issues”. All he ever did was act as contrarian and espouse weak arguments against his view of “liberals”. I called him out for his juvenile diatribes all the time. I couldn’t care less whether we agreed on some things or not, just like I don’t care what his position on abortion is. It’s beside the point. It doesn’t change the fact that he is/was a deranged and menacing human being.
Every single time you have responded to me, all you have ever done is claim I “lie” or am being “dishonest”. You never say why, you just assume it must be true because you are saying it. That’s really all you do. You make unfounded proclamations. You don’t address or make points regarding what the original issue is, you just go straight to your ad hominem attacks every single time. You responded to me first and made a nonsensical argument regarding how a pro-life person should think. I destroyed your argument (without attacking you) and ever since all you have done is try and make this a power struggle by hurling childish attacks back. Now you’ve come around to saying all I do is “distort and lie” without offering any evidence, just another one of your random proclamations. I mean, seriously, what is your goal here? Do you even want to debate the truth? If not, just says so and I’ll be done. I’m not about getting into some meaningless power struggle. If you do care about the truth, try to show it. Debate the points and cut out the peripheral nonsense where everything is personal and anyone who disagrees with you is a “stalker”, “liar”, “pathetic”, etc.
You seriously need some mental health help – get a fucking life!
And this response perfectly illustrates my point. You even had to edit your response to make it even more inflammatory. Seriously, why do you even respond? You are empty and devoid of thought. It would be far better for you to just not say anything at all than to say something and remove all doubt about your incapacities. Any more empty insults you can think of that you haven’t used yet?
LOL You’ve not made a point in all the zillions of words that you’ve prattled on with on here. You’re a fucking idiot – does that work for you? I’ll be glad to add some more. How long will you continue to stalk me and perfectly prove my point? I knew you couldn’t stop and I predicted it and I am right. Continue to prove me correct, dildo.
Somewhat akin to saying that if you didn’t dig the Holocaust maybe you shouldn’t have been Jewish…
Uh . . . no. Not akin at but thanks for nothing, Michael.
Are you drinking again? That’s not even a sentence.
Not drinking I am shooting up drugs, Michael! LOL
Mrs(?) Shealy u just worry about getting your campaign pennys in order….. cause a ground swell is coming and U sir are done serving the folks of Lex County.
The funny thing about her suggesting a use for surplus funding is the fact that her zero income tax proposal would turn that surplus into a deficit. I wonder if she would have cut road funding to pay for that cut?
Senator Shealy has this one nailed. Road maintenance should be where every penny of this “surplus” goes. Gov. Brownback of Kansas is starting to turn his bankrupt state around. Conservatism has worked every time it has been tried. Liberalism never works. The proof is in the numbers. Katrina needs four more years in the senate then eight years as governor.
flip is a great guy.I was the one BANNED from the last opinion blog I destroyed.
From: BuzMartin-aka-Boz (ballyhooboz)8/4/13 12:39 AM To: JRichards /rw (JRichards33) (3 of 5) 1.3 in reply to 1.2
13.1
I am William H. Martin, a long-time SNOB commenter, now banned. Not interested in discussing banning and such here, or controversies involving personalities. Discussion of political stories that appear in The Sun New, from local to international, seem to me to be a more reasonable and desirable aim for this forum.
Afternoon Flip!
Don’t you have anything better to do with your life?
Absolutely not!
Well, he doesseem to have something that keeps him busy for much of the month of April.
Turkey Season?
But that would be cannibalism.
Gov. Brownback is the one who bankrupted his state and he is not turning it around.
Total Road Apples.
Republicans don’t care. If they can’t cut spending without coming away with a bloody nose, then they will just raise some other tax to pay for it. Still ends up being lower taxes for the rich and higher taxes for the rest of us.
As you can see from a few of the other commenters there are plenty who fall for it hook line and sinker without realizing that they are the one getting the short end of the stick.
I concur with her on this point, but if she continues to play bedfellows with Greg Hembree and Larry Martin, I really hope she is gone after 11/2016.
Not a crony capitalist, nor, a fan at all of the Volvo deal. However, if the inks dry and a done deal, the surplus really should go to paying for that incentive in cash, with the residual to the roads. That way, the state avoids uncessary interest costs from the incentive’s bonded indebtedness, it allows the legal debt limits of the State’s Econ Dev. GO Bonds to not potentially be compromised, and it allows for the wonderful continued runoff of the state’s debts, thereby potentially making a case for S&P to raise its credit rating back to AAA, which was lost in 2005. Yep, just my 2 cents.
Don’t these idiot conservatives understand that the surplus was generated 100% from South Carolina taxpayers and companies and that to use this money for roads is giving out of state drivers a free ride on our backs. I say use the surplus to pay down debt and raise the gas tax to fix the roads. About 35% of the taxes from gas come from non South Carolina citizens. Using this money for roads is quite simply a very poor investment for SC citizens!
” I say use the surplus to pay down debt and raise the gas tax to fix the roads.”
But we all signed Norquist’s pledge!
The Norquist Pledge is like a promise ring, you wear it for the status symbol and throw it away once it has served its purpose. If the GOP ever gets the White House back rest assured they will be tossing their pledges like horny teenagers ready to get laid.
Didn’t Norquist turn out to be a commie or something?
When the Republican Party’s ONLY economic policy for 35 years has been tax cuts, it becomes a hard habit to break.
Yes, we need to insert our drivers license into the gas pump and only charge those damn people from out of state a higher gas tax. We could also have toll roads and insert your license at the toll booth and drive free if a SC resident.
U Sir? You dumb ass need to go to school if you don’t know Senator Shealy is a woman…oh maybe you are related to Corbin or Kerry Wood
One and done in Lexington.
Shealy is an idiot. eliminating income tax would be a disaster in reality though sounds great to the average uninformed voter.
” . . . . sounds great to the average uninformed voter.”
It’s a great day in South Carolina!
I think I’m in love.
Ol’ Kat is pretty gilfy in my book…
She ain’t too bad on the eyes, in my book, either.
Almost has a Debbie Harry look going there…
http://according2g.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Debbie-Harry-0.jpg
Those Betty Davis eyes …
Please no music video!
See there? The Kansas Governor fixed it! No income tax on the poor, zero, nada, (about 10% of Kansas population), and a “temporary” 1/2% increase in sales taxes = budget is now in balance for 2016 (as Kansas law requires).
http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article22685154.html
(I called over there. The Governor plans to cut the income taxes on the lower brackets again, next year … And pity the dumb democrat who runs on raising the income taxes back up. … FITS: He will talk to you, too.)
its all a shell game, per the article you linked-
“Brownback said his office hadn’t determined whether low-income Kansans would end up paying more taxes overall because of the increased sales tax. Unlike many plans that have floated around the Legislature, his plan does not cut the tax rate on food”
Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article22685154.html#storylink=cpy
That is a temporary sales tax … to be modified as conditions allow next year.
(Kansas sales taxes will still be lower than SC’s.)
I think all surplus money should fund new baseball stadiums and basketball arenas. Of course we wouldn’t be able to drive cars to the venues since the roads are not drivable. ;/