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South Carolina legislators have been working overtime this year to pass a state budget. The “insider chatterocracy” (of which I am likely a member) has been consumed with discussing the appropriateness of the legislature funding infrastructure and improvements in our cities and counties, a very small portion of a very large state budget.
State funding of local improvements has been referred to in the press by a variety of terms including “earmarks,” “local investments,” and “projects.” But the appropriate term is “local government funding.”
I, for one, find the entire conversation extremely odd. Our counties and cities are creations of the state government – and were created to deliver the most core governmental services to our citizens. Of course, funding local improvements is part of what our state government should do. South Carolina has funded courthouse construction, local streets, and the like for more than 200 years.
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Cities and counties provide services like fire and police protection, sidewalks and streetlights, water and sewer, and much, much more. Local governments are a core part of state government, even more so than colleges and universities (as important as they are). No one seems to complain about state government funding specific improvements for colleges or universities or other similar arms of government. So why the false outrage when we fund the actual governmental agencies that deliver services closest to ALL the people.
Without our cities and counties, core needs of our citizens would not be met.
And the General Assembly is the constitutionally appropriate body of government to decide how the state budget is spent, including the funding of local governments and local government improvements. Article X of the South Carolina Constitution says gives the power of the purse to the legislature.
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RELATED | STATE BUDGET PROCESS RAISES CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS
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This power was vested in the legislature for a reason. Unlike the executive branch and the bureaucrats that make it up, legislators live and work in their communities with the taxpayers whose tax payments fund our state government. Allowing an unaccountable executive branch to make appropriation decisions is exactly what the founders of our state and nation rejected.
Why in the world would anyone think it is okay to fund buildings and athletic facilities at colleges and universities but not the cities and counties who deliver core governmental services? And why in the world would we allow the executive branch to make appropriation or funding decisions when that power was specifically rejected by our founders?
If there is one thing we have seen over the last twenty years of an imperial presidency at the federal level, it is the harm that can come from giving the executive branch power over vast sums of money.
Is it appropriate for the state governmental branch of government closest to the people to invest taxpayer funds in the governments closest to the people- it’s a no brainer! Local investments by the state are its most worthwhile investments.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Vincent Sheheen is the author of A Concise Guide to South Carolina Government, a former state senator, and the Mayor of Camden.
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