South Carolina Senate Leader Moves Against Pork Barrel Spending

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Powerful South Carolina Senate finance committee chairman Harvey Peeler fired a shot across the bow of “Republican” leaders in the S.C. House of Representatives this week – unveiling a spending plan which contained no line items for pork barrel spending.

Only one item was listed for consideration outside of the normal appropriations process – a proposed $290 million tax cut.

“That means this budget will have zero earmarks,” Peeler said to the applause of his committee members.

Earmarks – often referred to as “pork barrel” expenditures – are spending items which are negotiated outside of the traditional budget process (i.e. agency spending presentations, subcommittee hearings, committee hearings and floor debate).

Why don’t earmarks go through normal channels? Because they typically involve requests for taxpayer money which would not withstand public scrutiny.

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“Earmarks are a bypass of the normal merit-based allocation budgeting process that open the door for individual legislators to earmark funds for their pet projects,” state representative Stephen Frank told our Dylan Nolan earlier this year.

That’s putting it politely, actually…

Frank recently created an interactive map which detailed last year’s earmark expenditures – an orgy of pork projects laden with hundreds of egregious examples of non-essential government spending.

“It’s been said that earmarks are the currency of corruption,” Frank said. “Obviously, I’m not saying that every project that gets funded is nefarious, but the process is.”

FITSNews has been a longtime critic of pork barrel spending – particularly its glaring lack of transparency. Last spring, we exclusively reported on 521 total earmarks totaling a whopping $435.2 million.

“They collectively represent a veritable ‘island of misfit expenditures’ – mostly local projects that would unlikely be funded if they were not tucked into these secretive ‘project lists,'” we wrote at the time.

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RELATED | TAX REFORM DISASTER

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Dozens of “restorations,” “renovations,” “refurbishments,” “improvements” and “preservations” were included on the list – with no discussion as to whether government should be subsidizing these structures in the first place (or the programs offered inside them).

Even worse, earmarks give legislative leaders considerable power over rank-and-file members – effectively enabling them to purchase loyalty within their respective chambers. Members who play ball with their overlords are rewarded with more power – and more of the people’s money. Those who don’t are punished.

Not surprisingly, this secretive process has helped fuel the dramatic growth of state government in recent years – including an additional $1.5 billion in new spending in the proposed 2025-2026 budget.

As of this publication, state government is poised to spend a record $41.7 billion in the coming fiscal year – a staggering 80% increase over the past decade.

Needless to say this rampant spending growth – and the rampant spending growth which preceded it – has dramatically outpaced population and inflation expansion in the Palmetto State over that same time period.

For years, lawmakers’ secretive “favor factory” operated exclusively behind closed doors. Thankfully, five years ago former Democratic state senator Dick Harpootlian and current Republican senator Wes Climer joined forces to expose it. More recently, Frank’s GOP allies in the S.C. Freedom Caucus have proposed replacing the current system with a municipal grant program – although a better solution would be to simply to cut these expenditures altogether.

If such appropriations are essential to local governments, then those local governments should fund them.

Count on FITSNews to keep close tabs on this debate moving forward as Peeler’s pronouncement is likely to prompt apoplexy in the S.C. House, where speaker Murrell Smith has relied on earmarks to keep his members in line.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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