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Members of the (recently expanded) South Carolina Freedom Caucus (SCFC) announced their intention to once again vote against passage of the state’s budget at a press conference held in the South Carolina state house lobby this afternoon.
Representative Jordan Pace argued the budget “is not a conservative budget” because it does not “cut the size and scope of government.”
“No agency takes a cut, they only take increases,” Pace said.
“We do not have the right priorities,” Pace added prior to objecting to a $900,000 earmark for a “podcast for the South Carolina Hall of Fame.”
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“There is no information about it, which kind of reminds me of last year’s budget, where there was $250,000, to go to a training program that had no physical address, where the member who requested that $250,000 earmark wound up representing the owner of that business in her divorce,” Pace said.
That’s a reference to GOP ways and means committee member Chris Murphy‘s infamous appropriation to a former legal client.
“There’s no accountability” Pace said.
As it stands, representatives currently make millions of dollars of earmark expenditure requests to House leadership on an annual basis to fund non-recurring appropriations in their districts. Critics argue this process allows party leadership to control how members vote by holding the prospect of funding for projects over their heads.
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SCFC members have repeatedly proposed replacing this system with one in which municipalities publicly applied for grants to fund projects – and in which grant recipients were legally obligated to spend the money as specified in their grant applications.
GOP supermajority leaders have proven reluctant to seriously consider any such proposal, and why would they? By the time legislators make it to “leadership” positions, many feel as though they’ve earned the right to take a more optimal position at the proverbial trough (of your money).
This preferential treatment reportedly caused consternation on the part of many rank-and-file members – consternation directed at House speaker Murrell Smith.
Smith “made everyone take a haircut on their member request stating there wasn’t enough money to go around, yet he sent a massive amount – estimated to be $50 million – back to Sumter” according to a lobbyist who spoke with FITSNews about the behind-the-scenes of the budgeting process.
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RELATED | MURRELL SMITH’S BIGGEST PROBLEM
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Pace didn’t argue that all of the budget was flawed, but used baked goods as a prop to illustrate why one might vote against a budget that funds many important projects.
“Here we’ve got some brownies, some delicious chocolate brownies – made of butter, flour, sugar – good delicious things,” he said.
“What if I told you that one of these has about a scoop worth of cow manure mixed into it?” he asked. “Would you still eat it?”
Pace commended the funding of raises for school teachers – and of infrastructure spending – during remarks from the House floor, but added that the ratio of “chocolate to refuse” was still too high to earn his support.
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State representative Josiah Magnuson of Spartanburg suggested legislators employ zero-based budgeting to better allocate funds – taking a page from former governor Mark Sanford‘s book.
Zero-based budgeting is a method that precisely accounts for the expenditure of every single dollar an organization spends. Georgia – which has long employed this budgeting method – writes on their state spending website that the purpose of zero-based budgeting is “to assess individual programs against their statutory responsibilities, purpose, cost to provide services, and outcomes achieved in order to determine the efficiency and effectiveness of the program and its activities.”
While the SCFC’s budget objections have traditionally fallen on deaf ears, the recent addition of multiple caucus members stands to empower the group and give it more sway in the next legislative session. Earlier this month, the SCFC picked up multiple seats in the S.C. General Assembly and eliminated multiple mainstream GOP leaders in this year’s partisan primary elections.
Count on FITSNews for continued coverage of the state’s budget process, and our ceaseless efforts to hold Palmetto State elected officials accountable for how they spend your money.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
(Via: Travis Bell)
Dylan Nolan is the director of special projects at FITSNews. He graduated from the Darla Moore school of business in 2021 with an accounting degree. Got a tip or story idea for Dylan? Email him here. You can also engage him socially @DNolan2000.
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4 comments
The teachers finally received much needed raises so that’s great.
The state budget now requires that a teacher with a bachelors degree and no experience be paid a minimum of $47,000 to work 190 days a year. For many school districts, the increase in state funding falls well short of the cost of that mandated increase.
I smell a property tax increase coming so the people can pay for the politicians re-elections. No accountability whatsoever.
Keep shining the light on the crooks in the State House.