|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
by WILL FOLKS
***
South Carolina attorney general Alan Wilson – the Republican nominee for governor of the Palmetto State in 2026 – is touting a comprehensive infrastructure reform plan he says will prioritize the condition of secondary roads as well as interstates.
“If you want to know what matters to South Carolinians, get off the interstate,” Wilson said. “Drive the two-lane roads people take to work. Cross the bridges our school buses use every morning. Travel the backroads our farmers, small businesses, and families depend on.”
“South Carolina doesn’t end at the interstate exit,” Wilson said, promising to focus equal energy on “rural roads, bridges and backroads.”
Wilson highlighted the Palmetto State’s glaring infrastructure deficiencies as an affordability issue, hearkening back to one of the centerpieces of his successful campaign for the GOP gubernatorial nomination.
“Congestion and deteriorating roads cost families time and money, while wasteful government spending drives up costs for taxpayers,” a release from Wilson’s campaign noted.
***
Wilson vowed to work with his running mate, state senator Mike Reichenbach, and GOP comptroller general nominee Mike Burkhold to “audit infrastructure spending, identify waste, and ensure taxpayer dollars are producing results.” Wilson also promised a long-overdue modernization of the S.C. Department of Transportation (SCDOT).
“As governor, I’ll modernize DOT, audit how your tax dollars are being spent through my Families First Audit Initiative, cut waste, and make sure infrastructure dollars are going where they’re actually needed,” Wilson said.
If Wilson’s Republican ticket is victorious at the polls this fall, he and his allies will certainly have their work cut out for them on this front.
Prioritizing infrastructure spending has been a serious problem for decades in “Republican-controlled” South Carolina, where GOP leaders have consistently raised taxes and fees but provided little in the way of meaningful improvement in the state’s roads and bridges. In fact, previous efforts to properly prioritize infrastructure dollars toward more pressing needs have been explicitly rejected by the GOP status quo in Columbia, S.C.
Earlier this year, Transportation for America released a study tracking “how spending priorities and road conditions interact, revealing which states are prioritizing maintenance to keep systems in a good state of repair, which are catching up, and which will likely fall further behind.”
South Carolina fared abysmally on that study – one of twelve states tagged with both “bad spending” and “bad repair conditions.” Conversely, North Carolina, Florida and Georgia were among thirteen states able to maintain “relatively strong roadway conditions despite allocating a smaller share of funding to repair versus expansion compared to other states.”
***
RELATED | ‘THIS ISN’T ROAD REFORM‘
***
A big part of the problem is the Palmetto State’s antiquated governing structure – a legislatively controlled, political spoils system that prioritizes corporate welfare, favor-trading and geographic influence over legitimate infrastructure needs. FITSNews has been calling on South Carolina lawmakers to reform SCDOT and better prioritize infrastructure decisions for years – calls which have sadly gone unheeded.
Instead, GOP leaders have chosen to subsidize all manner of crony capitalist infrastructure projects – including interchanges for “economic development” projects that never wind up actually developing.
“Projects backed by powerful political leaders consistently receive ample funding – even if the underlying ‘economic development’ deals associated with them wind up collapsing,” I noted in February 2024.
Meanwhile, core needs always seem to be left unaddressed – or addressed decades too late (see here and here).
“What we have is a structural failure — a system designed in a way that almost guarantees poor results, no matter how much money we pour into it,” fiscally conservative state representative Joe White wrote in a recent column on our media outlet. “If we want better roads, we have to fix the structure that manages them.”
Wilson has vowed to “fix what’s broken, plan for the future and demand accountability for every taxpayer dollar.”
***
? 1/5 If you want to know what matters to South Carolinians, get off the interstate.
— Alan Wilson (@AGAlanWilson) September 8, 2026
Drive the two-lane roads people take to work. Cross the bridges our school buses use every morning. Travel the backroads our farmers, small businesses, and families depend on.
Those roads…
***
Those are bold promises… and the 53-year-old attorney from Lexington, S.C. and his team will be under immense pressure to deliver on them in the event he is chosen this fall to lead the Palmetto State’s executive branch of government. Unfortunately, Wilson, Reichenbach and Burkhold will be limited in what they can accomplish by the fiscally liberal S.C. General Assembly, whose “Republican” supermajorities have created the prioritization problems the state is currently facing.
As long as those leaders control the purse strings, there’s very little the executive branch can do to impose accountability over infrastructure appropriations – other than use the bully pulpit and/or the gubernatorial veto pen.
South Carolina’s latest budget routed $3.2 billion to SCDOT – an increase of $435 million (15.67%) from the previous fiscal year. Additionally, lawmakers included massive fee hikes in a standalone “infrastructure reform bill” signed by governor Henry McMaster in May – legislation which also paved the way for additional toll roads in South Carolina.
Will this investment pay dividends? Or will it be another ‘mo money, ‘mo problems situation…
Keep it tuned to FITSNews as we continue keeping tabs on the infrastructure debate in the Palmetto State… and as we continue advocating on behalf of better stewardship of taxpayer resources.
***
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.
***
SOUND OFF…
Got something you’d like to say in response to one of our articles? Or an issue you’d like to address proactively? We have an open microphone policy! Submit your letter to the editor (or guest column) via email HERE. Got a tip for a story? CLICK HERE. Got a technical question or a glitch to report? CLICK HERE.
