By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
LATE WEDNESDAY, I thought I had come up with an excuse to say something encouraging about Gov. Mark Sanford.
Such opportunities come so seldom that I didn’t want this idea to get away from me. I sent a note to my colleagues to enlist their help in remembering: “Should we do some kind of attaboy on the governor using his bully pulpit for this good cause (as opposed to some of the others he is wont to push)?” I was referring to his efforts to jawbone the Legislature into meaningful reform of our DUI law.
Moments later, I read the governor’s guest column on our op-ed page about a flat tax, which was his latest attempt to slip through an income tax cut, which at times seems to be the only thing he cares about doing as governor. This chased thoughts of praise from my mind.
For the gazillionth time, he cited Tom Friedman in a way that would likely mortify the columnist and author. His “argument,” if you want to call it that: Since The World Is Flat, folks on the other side of the world are going to get ahead of us if we take a couple of hours to pull together our receipts and file a tax return. Really. “Rooting around shoeboxes of receipts” once a year was going to do us in. (And never mind the fact that most paperwork is done on the federal return, with the state return piggybacking on that.)
Then, he argued that his plan for cutting the income tax (which was his point, not avoiding the onerous filing) was necessary to offset a proposed cigarette tax increase. The alternative would be “to grow government,” which is how he describes using revenue to get a three-to-one federal match to provide health care for some of our uninsured citizens.
Here in the real world, folks want to raise our lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax to price the coffin nails beyond the means of teenagers. Everybody who has in any way participated in conversations at the State House about the issue over the last several years knows this. Yet the governor of our state, who seems only to have conversations with himself, can ask this about raising that tax: “(W)hat for, more government or a lower-tax option?” In his narrowly limited version of reality, those are the only considerations.
But enough about that essay from an alternative dimension. What I read on the front page the next morning drove it from my mind: “Sanford: ‘Endowed chairs’ a failure.” It was about his latest attack on one of the few really smart, strategic moves this state has made in the past decade.
It’s the one good thing to come out of Gov. Jim Hodges’ execrable state lottery. (I used to struggle to come up with good things to say about him, too, but this was one such thing.) The scholarships? We were doing that without the lottery, and would have expanded them without the lottery except Gov. Hodges vetoed that bill (because he wanted a lottery).
But a small chunk of the new “chump tax” was set aside to provide seed money to attract some of the best and brightest minds to South Carolina, and put them to work building our economy. Gov. Sanford has never liked this idea, because he doesn’t like the state to invest in the future in any appreciable way apart from land conservation (which is a fine idea, but hardly a shot in the arm to the economy). He believes we don’t need to invest more in education, or research, or even our Department of Commerce, which he takes such pride in having trimmed. His entire “economic development” plan is to cut the income tax. This attracts folks who have already made their pile and are looking for a tax haven in which to hide it, and makes him a hero to the only political entity in the nation that sees him as a hot property: the Club for Growth, whose president showed just how out of touch that group is with even the Republican portion of the electorate by suggesting John McCain pick Mr. Sanford as his running mate.
The thing that made this outburst from the governor particularly galling is that on Wednesday, I had met Jay Moskowitz, the new head of Health Sciences South Carolina — a consortium of universities and hospitals teaming together to make our state healthier, both physically and economically.
Dr. Moskowitz is the former deputy director of the National Institutes of Health, and most recently held a stack of impressive titles at Penn State, including “chief scientific officer.” He made it clear that he would not be here if not for the endowed chairs program. Nor would others. He spoke of the top people he’s recruited in his few months here, who have in turn recruited others, an example of the “cascade of people that are going to be recruited with each of these chairs.”
These folks aren’t just coming to buy a few T-shirts at the beach and leave. They’re here to make their home, and to build their new home into the kind of place that will attract other creative minds. The endowed chairs program is the principal factor that convinces them to pull up stakes and make the effort. “I had a wonderful job in Pennsylvania,” said Dr. Moskowitz, and he wouldn’t have left it without believing that South Carolina was committed to moving forward on a broad research front.
He doesn’t say it this way, but it’s obvious he wouldn’t have come if he had thought Mark Sanford’s “leave it alone” approach was typical of our state’s leadership.
Fortunately, it is not. The S.C. House, led by Speaker Bobby Harrell, rose up in response to the governor’s naysaying and voted unanimously to extend the endowed chairs program.
This is a moment of high irony for me. For 17 years I’ve pushed to give more power to South Carolina’s governor because our state so badly needed visionary leadership, and I thought there was little reason to expect it would come from our Legislature.
But on Thursday, it did. And if the Senate has the wisdom to follow suit, your children and my grandchildren will have reason to be grateful.
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Have USC send a six figure check around to one of Sanford’s 6 nonprofits, and the endowed chairs will not only survive, but flourish.
All things in SC have to be gauged by Mark Sanford …in the light of how they affect Mark Sanford. Until he is paid, he will be against them…
Brad needs to get some basic facts straight.
Governor Sanford did not propose reducing income taxes. He proposes changing the tax schedule from many brackets, which are now from 1 to 7%, to a flat 4.3% for everyone.
The brackets were supposed to be indexed to inflation, but the legislature has made “temporary” adjustments for over 25 years, which has led to household just above the average income to be in the top brackets.
As usual, Mr. Sanford is trying to bring some fairness and honesty to a tax system corrupted by the legislature.
As an economist and someone who plans, locates and builds new enterprises for corporations, I think anything over 3% is non-competitive with other states. 3% would bring in all the money the state ran on just a few years ago, so they obviously do not need any more money.
“This is a moment of high irony for me. For 17 years I’ve pushed to give more power to South Carolina’s governor because our state so badly needed visionary leadership, and I thought there was little reason to expect it would come from our Legislature.”
… I’ve always thought this was a gaping hole in your Power Failure crusade, Brad. Both branches of government are so personality driven that true power shifts on the basis of political ambition, not governmental structure. Given the disappointing nature of past governors (I’d count Dick Riley as the last good one), it would seem that even you would have serious doubt about elevating power of the governor’s office. … It may be perfectly true in theory that our Legislature holds too much power, but we haven’t had a governor deserving of more in decades. In truth, the Legislature has protected us from the greed and incompetency of most.
Sanford is the poster child for leaving the balance of power as is.
Amen Gordon, amen.
Complete disclosure, by members of the general assembly, executive and judicial branches, lobbyist (including the laughable group called “business consultants”) would take care of most of these problems.
And let’s not forget the Senate and House caucuses and the ever popular 501c3’, 501c4’s and 527’s.
Face it…we are given the government that is bought and paid for by special interest. We cannot expect a different outcome until the paymasters are actually the citizens of SC…not people with narrow self-interest so valuable that they are willing to pay huge amounts of money for the outcomes they desire.
Mark Sanford could start this disclosure-fest tomorrow if he would disclose who and why his shadowy nonprofit groups has been given millions of dollars by out of state special interest groups. But of course he won’t…he can’t…because then the public would know who is really in charge of the governor’s office.
What higher calling could the State have than to POUND away every day for disclosure…calling names and showing correlations between large givers and governmental actions?
PS…with Mark Sanford and his Republican crony’s at the helm, the South Carolina Ethics commission felt comfortable REMOVING from its website all campaign disclosure statements from prior years . Yes, that is right…now to find out who gave Mark Sanford campaign checks one have to drive down to the ethics commission and search the records by hand.
It is a step back to the 80’s for Sanford and his band of crooked republican friends and associates.
We must demand disclosure…by everyone. And demand it now.
“This is a moment of high irony for me. For 17 years I’ve pushed to give more power to South Carolina’s governor because our state so badly needed visionary leadership, and I thought there was little reason to expect it would come from our Legislature.”
-Brad
I’ve tried my best to point out how much the last round of government restructuring failed utterly to bring about better government. The breathtaking inefficiencies that piece of crap legislation created are legion. That disasterous legislation pushed by the State Newspaper did none of the things they said it would do. And all the failures of Campbell’s folly were never addressed by the State. Now Brad belatedly, in a sort of sheepish way, recognizes that additional restructuring will only paper over the idiocy of our state’s government. Hallaluah! This is an epiphony of sorts. Brad tacitly admiting that he may have been wrong.
rolo … here’s an anecdote that may put some of your frustrations in a historical context.
H.L. Mencken, the famous Baltimore newspaper satirist and social commentator of the early 20th century, famous for his coverage of the Scopes “Monkey Trial,” which he named, was once asked if knew anything about The State newspaper of Columbia, SC.
Mencken allegedly replied, “I know their first editor was shot, and they haven’t had one worth shooting since.”
The State actually had heroic beginnings of current historical interest. It was founded by the Gonzales brothers in 1891 for the specific purpose of challenging the government of “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, whose statue remains on our State House grounds. By 1903, Tilman had become so enraged by The State that he shot its first editor, N.G. Gonzales, on Gervais Street in broad daylight before dozens of witnesses. … SCTV and the NYTimes archives have great accounts of the original shooting and Tilman’s trial, easily found on Google, if you’re interested in knowing more.
The State hasn’t satisfied people such as yourself for over a century. With no disrespect to Brad, the newspaper industry and journalism itself have changed too much for an editor to become “worth shooting” today.
There certainly is nothing new under the sun. I do not mean to paint Brad as a bad guy. Quite the contrary, I admire him. But the levers of power are numb to real change as those with power tend to want to keep it. Thus….they fiddle with the edges of the status quo.
But the “information age” SHOULD have changed all that. Research that used to take teams of people a long time can now be done in minutes. CCTV, cell phones with cameras and recorders, email, searchable databases…all of these things should allow the press to be even MORE active, but the opposite has happened.
It is clear to me that the leadership of the press is oppressed by their lack of imagination more than the terrible corporate leadership. This is not new…look at the US auto industry in the 80’s and 90’s. They just lost the ability to dream, and to strive for the goals that seem the farthest. Because of this, outlets like WISTV are nothing more than chatty crime blotters, and the State reverts to obituaries and TV schedules to carry its ad campaigns.
It is sad. Its effect on our culture is devastating. But is does not have to be this way. It can change. It just takes men like Brad to say…I will do it. The Bible says” to whom much that is given, much is required… to the men and women of the 4th estate, much is given…and so their responsibilities are clear.
As a smoker I’m tired of all the B.S. reasons you give for raising the cigarette tax. You don’t like cigarettes and you long for the day when they are abolished. Just be honest if you have the power to do it just do it!
Kids who will pay $5 to $10 for one pill, Who will pay $50 for a bag of pot, who will pay $20 for a piece of crack will think twice about paying $5 or $6 dollars for a pack of cigarettes?
This won’t hurt me at all I will just quit! But I will remember and When you want me to help you with something then I will just say no!
The people who will lose in the long run will be the people whose social programs depend on this tax for support when this tax goes bust.
Also, if anyone thinks that taxing or eliminating cigarettes will save health care then you are too pathetic to laugh at.
Finally, I admire an honest disagreement but I despise a con artist!
rolo … we covered a lot of this ground over the Christmas holiday. People like Brad no longer work in an environment conducive to the kind of journalism you expect. You’ll note Brad often mentions that he exists in a state of overload, understaffed and overworked. The same is true of the newsroom. It’s easy to blame journalists, but lazy they’re not. The State had over 210 people in its newsroom when I was an editor there. It’s less than half that now. Investment in people produces good journalism, and those days are gone.
“But enough about that essay from an alternative dimension.”
Yes, a flat tax would be a radical concept in the modern world.
Imagine it. Everyone, no matter how productive or successful, getting equal protection under the law. The government, having grown its 100th head and 10,000th tentacle, actually sucking the life from each person proportionately.
But, no, Brad would make sure we discriminate against those who have the sense to invest wisely. And so righteous does he believe his tax-and-spend myth is, he would dare to call a more frugal concept of government an alternative dimension.
Government grows, but never shrinks. However big it becomes, it will always be that size or bigger. Entitlements come, but they never go.
Brad would have government use taxes to shape behavior, when actually, eliminating tax-and-spend strategy shapes behavior more appropriately.
Increasing tax rates as income rises has government fighting the work ethic. Every entitlement takes another shot at the work ethic, too. The work ethic is THE backbone of our society.
But Brad sees the tried-and-true as an alternative dimension, when he lives in the alternative dimension, the Fourth Estate.
God help us all.
“But enough about that essay from an alternative dimension.”
Yes, a flat tax would be a radical concept in the modern world.
Imagine it. Everyone, no matter how productive or successful, getting equal protection under the law. The government, having grown its 100th head and 10,000th tentacle, actually sucking the life from each person proportionately.
But, no, Brad would make sure we discriminate against those who have the sense to invest wisely. And so righteous does he believe his tax-and-spend myth is, he would dare to call a more frugal concept of government an alternative dimension.
Government grows, but never shrinks. However big it becomes, it will always be that size or bigger. Entitlements come, but they never go.
Brad would have government use taxes to shape behavior, when actually, eliminating tax-and-spend strategy shapes behavior more appropriately.
Increasing tax rates as income rises has government fighting the work ethic. Every entitlement takes another shot at the work ethic, too. The work ethic is THE backbone of our society.
But Brad sees the tried-and-true as an alternative dimension, when he lives in the alternative dimension, the Fourth Estate.
God help us all.
When no other topics are available, the standard fallback piece blaming Mark Sanford (you know, the twice elected governor) for the problems created by the Legislature.
Here’s the best part… I looked in the salary database for state employees off The State’s homepage to see what Dr. Jay Moskowitz is making. Are you ready for this? Better sit down:
JAY MOSKOWITZ
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
PROFESSOR
$355,000
No wonder Dr. Moskowitz is happy to be here. He’s the fourth highest paid employee in the state government.
355,000! Amazing!
Oh, and Mark Sanford makes $106,000.
So Doug, how much are you willing to pay for somebody who has increased endowments and research grants by millions of dollars everywhere else he’s been? Some might say that $355,000 a year is peanuts compared to what Moskowitz can produce.
Show me the money, Gordon. Show me the money.
And then show me his group’s full budget that is being paid for by the tax dollars. Then we’ll figure out if he’s worth it. That $355K is just his salary alone…
Where do I go to find the details of the money Dr. Moskowitz has brought in?
And if Dr. Moskowitz is bringing in such large sums of money into the university, how come my son’s tuition keeps going up by 10% or more per year (even when USC has just announced the largest freshman class in history)?
Well, I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but…
The Universities are the original masters of nondisclosure. By use of complicated accounting procedures which only a handful people on the planet understand, they obscure their financial practices to a degree that the State and other watch dog groups have not a clue about what is really happening.
Multiple foundations, self-directed trust, non standard accounting practices, confidentiality agreements, the dreaded 501c3’s, c4’ and other nonprofit entities, tenure, off shore banking ,undervalued assets, etc, are used to take what is an essentially governmental concern and turn it into the pleasure trove of those that build kingdoms to themselves and distribute the goodies to their friends.
The professor named should not be singled out…he is but one of many. He is only playing by the rules as they are. The State of SC could unravel this mess, but they, like Mark Sanford, are too connected to those that benefit. Sanford will moan and groan…but like everything else, he will fail to spend the political capital needed to make a difference. He rather likes his high polling numbers.
Disclose, disclose, disclose. Only then will we be in control of our governments and institutions.
I thought I was a cynic. … Do you guys trust anyone? Name someone in public office or employ that you trust. Anyone. Let’s start there.
“Reason looks out and justifies her own, and malice finds all her work is ruin.”
– Ralph Chaplin
Gordon,
I work with these people every day. I cannot express in words half of what I see and know. But the truth is, there is no sentiment for change. Those inside the system love it just like it is. Those outside the system have not a clue.
The system as it exists now serves to barter the rights and treasury of the citizens for personal glory or financial enrichment of the elected and appointed officials.
I keep hoping for leadership, whether it be Brad, or an independent reporter of even a blogger. But it never seems to come. The politicians are bought and paid for before they ever come to Columbia, so that is a hopeless cause…
And it is so obvious. Take Sanford and his nonprofits. He is raking in millions…so why do we think he is working for the average citizens? His rich out of state paymasters recieve his attention, not us.
We must demand disclosure. Simply put, when we have disclosure, many of our most significant problems will go away.
There are over 700 full professors drawing full salary and teaching no courses.
Rolo,
If “Sanford’s nonprofits” are so bad, why don’t you list all of them, and what they do, and what they spend money on that bothers you?
rolo … email or mail me everything you know that can be verified by public document. I’ll help you get it into the right hands, or do it for you.
Gordon,
I respect Mark Sanford. Leon Lott, too.
On a national level, Ron Paul’s positions on the issues are closest to mine. I donated money to his campaign, so the trust factor is there.
Try running for office sometime like I did. It might open your eyes. There’s more stuff that goes on behind the scenes than the general public ever realizes — and that’s how the politicians want it. And it all comes down to one thing – MONEY.
Tell me who you trust…
I trust the treasurer of my home county, a fellow I have known since I was young fellow, and the county administrator, who taught statistics when I was in high school, though he never taught me.
I also trust our county’s probate judge, one and one-half of seven school board members, two city councilmen out of seven and one of seven county councilmen.
Up the chain, I’ve never voted for our state rep, though he’s been in office for more than 20 years, and I nver will. I wouldn’t vote for our state senator if he paid me. Sanford seems to talk a better game than he plays, but I trust him more than I did his predecessor. After voting for Bush twice, I couldn’t say I trust him.
Come to think of it, Gordon, who should I trust? I’m sure there are some other public officials out there that I have some faith in, but their names and faces aren’t jumping up at me.
Doug,
I’ll second Leon Lott. I miss Dick Riley’s quiet integrity and fierce intellect. After that, probably Colin Powell, followed by Jimmy Carter, two honest men from opposite sides of the fence. Tony Blair of the UK, too. … I honestly can’t think of any leader today who I trust. Used to believe I was a Libertarian, but it felt like spittin’ in the wind. Had to get real.
I covered too many politicians to ever want to be one. The whole scene made me nauseous.
Question…
Is it possible, to trust anyone that has been in elected office more than…say 6 years? Is it possible that they have not been corrupted?
Seriously…can you be around all that slime, all that horse trading and inside dealing…and not be affected? I think not…what do you think?
I don’t think so, Erik. Doug’s right about the money factor. It gets them all eventually because they can’t stay in office without it. Serious campaign finance reform is our only hope. It would take special interests out of the picture once and for all if candidates didn’t have to sell their souls for campaign funding.
Brad … here’s a thread for you. Who do you trust? Who should we trust? And why.
I am in insurance and the new HMO’s for Medicaid are so bad, so stupid, so unfair, that somebody must have gotten paid, and paid a lot.
I wonder how much one gets paid to sell out for a program that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars per year (and eventually Billions). It must have been a lot!
I forgot Joe Riley of Charleston. I was a reporter there during his first administration. He’s as effective today as he was then.
Last thought … Brad, you’re the only one of us who’s actually met Obama face to face and interviewed him in some semblance of privacy. … Did you feel like he was being honest? Do you trust him?
This should lay to rest any fantasy that the State Newspaper is conservative. Today’s front page was really disgusting:
‘A better option’
State’s poorer counties prove fertile military recruiting area
Oh really? It’s a better option to join an organization that is now serving as a catalyst for the killing of hundreds of Iraqi civilians each month? The State’s ongoing fetish with everything military really makes me sick.
Dang it. I just can’t type. First sentence above should read:
This should lay to rest any fantasy that the State Newspaper is liberal.
bud … headlines are written by copy editors whose biggest challenge is to find words that fit the space allotted. There is no conspiracy to slant the news, just the daily grind of getting it done on deadline. Honest. I actually was encouraged by the recruiting story, as it had a bit of relevance to our rural condition, especially when compared to their breathless chest-thumping over the chicken plant inspections.
Gordon,
It’s funny but I was out driving around tonight trying the think of politicians who I would trust. Jimmy Carter and Colin Powell were the two names I came up with also! Other recent guys I liked were Wesley Clark and Steve Forbes.
I don’t know enough about Jim DeMint but I do like some of things he’s done since he’s been in office. As for the other Senator from SC, I wish Sanford would run against him.
That is funny, Doug, particularly since I was thinking that Jim Demint and Steve Forbes might deserve our trust, too. I don’t know enough about Wesley Clark but will pay closer attention from now on … Also was thinking on the business side about Warren Buffett and pal Bill Gates, two guys who will never go hungry but certainly have made a statement about the worth of wealth. … But I can’t go with Gates. Microsoft gutted too many competitors and stole so many of their ideas.
Gordon,
I am away from SC right now, but when I return I will send you the info that I have.
Also, needing money, or not needing money, has nothing to do with being honest. Slime covets money and power regardless of need, so please don’t think that having money makes one less likely to be involved in dirty politics.
Sometimes I agree with you, Brad, but the way you write makes me want to take the other position. You’re a jerk. You must have been the know-it-all kid who got weekly thrashings on the playground….
Now Brad takes a daily thrashing in his blog.
Most businesses try to listen to the customer, and try to learn why people don’t want to do business with them. The publishers and editors of The State just don’t seem to care that most educated, long-time residents of Columbia find their paper banal and offensive, and pretty useless and providing news about what is going to happen, rather than what already happened. The brain trust at The State arrogantly dismiss the unhappy customers.
The paper appeals to the sort of mentality that is illiterate, and then wonders why its number or readers keeps declining.
This is probably not a very good place to write this but it’s important to point out. In today’s paper Ronald Shattuck writes:
“To those who would still support withdrawal on the basis that “things could not get worse.” I would offer a historical precedent, the Carter years, when the Democratic candidate demonstrated a less than adequate appreciation of the fact that we live in a dangerous world: The Soviet invasion of Aghanistan …..”
HUH! By what warped, twisted logic did the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan hurt the security of the U.S.? This struck me as perhaps the worst possible example of an historical event used to support an ongoing foreign policy decision. Mr. Shattuck cannot possibly be serious if he thinks the Soviet disaster in Afghanistan in any way, shape or form supports our continued involvement in Iraq. The Soviets suffered many thousands of casualites and spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying, in vain, to passify a nation that they did not understand. That lesson was apparently forgotten by our current president.
If anything, president Carter was given a great gift by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The entire world saw the Red Empire for the imperialistic bully that it was. Ultimately the Soviet Union collapsed, largely because of this Russian fiasco (not because of anything Ronald Reagan did). I would submit that the Russian invasion of Afghanistan offers the best example yet of why we should immediately pull our troops out of Iraq and perhaps Afghanistan too. We simply cannot improve our security by continuing with those quagmires.
Why do you think the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, if they did not think it was of strategic importance to expand their footprint in between the major oil fields of Iraq and Iran?
Maybe this will shed some light on the argument, if not it is at least amusing to comtemplate how long this debate has been going on.
” All the measures of Government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.”
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON – 9th President of the United States
Gordon, I can’t get to it today, but remind me to come back to the "trust" question. It’s a good one. In the meantime, here’s a column I wrote on the subject back in 1995. (Looking at it after all this time, I don’t think it’s very well-written, but the basic thought I was expressing is truer than ever today.)
Now, if y’all don’t mind, back to the subjects at hand — Mark Sanford and the endowed chairs. To help you out, here’s a shorter way to state the question: Between Gov. Sanford and endowed chairs, which do you think has been better for South Carolina, and why?
Mark Sanford, hands down.
If he had gotten his way, this state would be a lot more appealing to bright students, who mostly want to get the hell out of here when they graduate.
I have no problem with private funds endowing chairs, but not the taxpayers. Most of it is hype, like this latest one in nanotechnology, when all USC has is a tiny nano program that is casting about for a focus. They have some good research going on in various departments, but what they need is better oversight and coordination of interdepartmental efforts, to leverage the individual research projects.
Let’s see. Did Sanford reduce my property taxes? Yes. Did the endowed chairs save me any money? No, not yet. Can I envision the endowed chairs saving me money in any way, shape or form? No.
Do I believe my “grandchildren will be grateful” for the endowed chairs program?
I don’t know. That probably depends on the field they choose once they grow up. The three of them aren’t really old enough to offer an opinion yet.
Seems to me, though, that the endowed chairs program amounts to a kind of intellectual carpetbagging for which we, the taxpayers, are footing the bill.
In other words, I’m paying people from other states to recruit people from other states so the lot of them can refashion South Carolina’s economy in some high-minded way to benefit me.
Why is it I think those folks will just end up bringing in people from other states to reap the profit, too?
Neertheless, the whole program will probably benefit the legislators somehow, else they wouldn’t be spending my money on it.
So there you have it. I vote for Sanford, because Brad has said before he doesn’t understand money, and if he doesn’t understand money, he can’t possibly wrap his non-partrisan mind around this.
I vote for endowed chairs, even if they return nothing economically, because they attract ideas, in the form of accomplished people, of which there can never enough.
South Carolina could attract ideas by reforming its tax system so it doesn’t run off engineers and scientists. Our double taxaxtion of technical experts and construction managers who work in several states has caused over 100,000 of them to move out of state. The average income of these people has to be over $100,000 a year, not to mention that they support the arts, environment and other things liberals claim to like.
Georgia and NC mine this state for talent, and it is not an hard sell for them.
Sanford did not reduce your taxes. A lot of people were working on that. He was just one person…but he loves to take all of the credit.
Sanford is not the only person in this state that loves lower taxes…but he loves to make you think that he is.
Sanford had the prime leadership position in SC while spending has exploded. His leadership abilities are nill. Under his watch spending went through the roof.
It happened while he was governor, Henry, and at least he applauded it from his seat on the sidelines.
Criticism of Sanford is funny, because it’s coming from people who said, “Let’s give the governor the power to make change,” and then when he couldn’t make changes because he didn’t have the power to do it, the same people are criticizing him for not doing what he never had the power to do in the first place.
Sanford hasn’t been the Second Coming, so his critics are crying, “Give us Barabbas!” Personally, I think Sanford is a godsend after Hodges.
Gordon Hirsch wrote: “The State had over 210 people in its newsroom when I was an editor there. It’s less than half that now. ”
Which would explain the reason why The State is only good for puppy training these days.
The State wasn’t so hot 30 years ago, either.