Today I got this from the S.C. Democratic Party:
Dems Challenge Nikki Haley: Where Are Your Emails?
Sanford disciple says she’s “compiling” taxpayer-funded email for release; what’s she hiding?COLUMBIA- It’s been three days since The State reported that Nikki Haley, Mark Sanford’s favorite to succeed him as
Governor, was “compiling” her taxpayer-funded email for public release, but she’s not moving fast enough for South Carolina Democrats. This morning the SCDP re-launched HaleyinHiding.com, a website devoted to holding Mrs. Haley to her own promises of transparency.
“Mrs. Haley has been refusing to release her taxpayer-funded emails for months now, so naturally I’m happy to see her even giving lip service to a position that was the heart of her primary campaign,” said SCDP Chair Carol Fowler. “Unfortunately, she’s tipping her hand by stalling and delaying. Just as with her tax returns, it’s clear that there’s something in those emails that Mrs. Haley doesn’t want us to see.”
Sigh… I guess that’s the party’s role to play in this.
Nikki, end this silliness! Release the blasted e-mails already…
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Every computer science student knows how tough it can be to compile things. Give her a break. She’s going to release them in C++!
@Kathryn:
I’d be happy if she decides “quick & lazy” and chooses Visual Basic.
I am not too concerned about her emails. I am concerned about jobs in SC.
Haley released her jobs plan this morning, but there’s something wrong with her math. A key element of the plan is reducing corporate income taxes, which she claims is 4.5% ($260 million according to her)of the General Fund. The State Budget and Control Board says that corporate income taxes are 2.3% or $129 million of the General Fund. Am I misunderstanding something here?
I’m also skeptical as to how the lost revenue will be replaced or how state spending will be reduced to compensate for the lost revenue (I’m more skeptical that such an approach works at all).
So by posting these partisan emails you’re just exposing the partisanship and not participating in it. Got it…
@Norm:
It must be more of that “fuzzy accounting” that Nikki is fond of.
Yeah, Norm… when I saw this morning via Twitter that John O’Connor was at a thing where Nikki was going to unveil her “jobs plan,” my reaction was essentially, Let me guess — tax cuts and/or deregulation. ANYTHING but have the government DO something.
Because Nikki, and Sanford (and this is not a Republican thing, but a Sanford/Haley kind of thing) simply don’t believe that government should DO… ANYthing. Which is why neither of them should be GOVERNor.
Business leaders know this, which is why they’re backing Sheheen.
I’m anxious to see whether I’m wrong about this. So far, there’s nothing on her Web site about this jobs plan she’s running around talking about today. Let me go see whether John’s posted anything yet at thestate.com…
Brad, stop being so cynical. Tax cuts are the answer to everything.
Not enough revenue? Tax cuts.
Stimulate the economy? Tax cuts.
Need more jobs? Tax cuts.
Better schools? Tax cuts.
Bad breath? Tax cuts.
Trouble with the missus? Tax cuts.
Children don’t respect you? Tax cuts.
Got a bad haircut? Tax cuts.
Wake up, Brad, and smell the tax cuts.
LOL to the cartoon… I want a Nikki Haley inaction figure to go with my Jay and Silent Bob inaction figures… Wonder if Kevin Smith trademarked the phrase “inaction figure”?
You’re being facetious, but frankly, since I arrived back in SC in 1987, that is by and large the one thing the Legislature has offered — tax cuts, tax breaks, tax exemptions. They’ve tinkered with the tax code here and there — always downward — until it’s a total mess, which is why we need comprehensive tax reform so badly.
I take it back. I said “always downward.” Not quite. The abominable tax swap of several years back, in which the homeowner property tax for supporting school operation was eliminated, was offset by the very ill-considered sales tax increase — which was in turn eviscerated by the grocery exemption.
That’s the ONLY general tax increase the Legislature has enacted since a tiny increase in the gas tax in 1987. But every year has featured much energy devoted to tax CUTS, great and small. And the assumptions that have gone into them are generally moronic. Such as the aforementioned property tax rollback (which Nikki supported and Sheheen opposed, or at least tried to amend — I forget the details at the moment), which essentially was done to please people with homes on the beach or lakes or other high-appreciation locations, while putting a MUCH higher tax burden on renters (through their landlords) and businesses. And the idea that a sales tax was going to replace that essential revenue stream was absolutely ridiculous. Not only because of the grocery exemption, but because our economy was shifting from emphasis on the things that were taxed to services and goods that were not — and that was before the bottom dropped out. When it did, sales tax revenues fell (as they do) faster than anything. This placed MORE of an obligation on the already overburdened businesses and renters to make up the difference through their rent and property tax payments.
Result: A total mess. And a predictable one. And that result has played a role in the Chamber backing Sheheen.
@David
I supposed the reverse is also true:
Not enough revenue? Tax increases and deficit spending”
Stimulate the economy? Borrow more, bailout the corporations who created the mess.
Need more jobs? Hire a bunch a census workers and also invent a new class of jobs called “jobs saved that we can’t identify but know are out there”
Better schools? Spend more even when the results remain the same.
Bad breath? Create a government commission on breath control and implement regulations on maximum number of grams of garlic to be ingested per day.
Trouble with the missus? Two options: the Bill Clinton sidestep or the Ted Kennedy roadtrip.
Children don’t respect you? Don’t ever discipline a child in school because it might hurt his feelings and we just don’t know what it’s like to be from a home like his.
Got a bad haircut? Tax haircuts.
Exactly what red tape does she want to cut? The immigration clearance part? Hmmmm
How about the parts where you have to show that your employees and customers aren’t going to burn up in a fire (Sofastore?)?
That you –ahem– pay your taxes, preferably on time?
What other red tape?
” always downward ”
Why let facts get in the way of an opinion? The state revenues have grown 50% in the past decade. If that’s “downward” I don’t want to be around when they go up.
Year SC GDP GOVT SPEND $B
1997 96.14 18.69
1998 102.94 19.87
1999 108.66 21.16
2000 112.51 23.44
2001 117.29 25.77
2002 121.58 28.10
2003 127.88 29.28
2004 131.85 30.45
2005 138.61 33.01
2006 146.48 34.21
2007 151.70 36.68
2008 156.38 39.74
2009 154.40 43.06
2010 158.36 46.66
Notice that GDP went down $2 billion in 2009 while total
government spending went UP by $3.5 billion.
In what world is that “downward’???
And at what point will you stop promoting that lie?
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downloadmult_gs.php?year=1997_2010&view=1&expand=&units=b&fy=fy11&chart=F0-total&bar=1&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=SC&color=c&local=c
100% agreement here.
Yep. Here’s John’s lede:
“COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley says she wants to eliminate corporate income taxes to boost jobs.”
She also wants to “cut red tape.”
Right smack out of the rather limited Sanford playbook. Can I call ’em or what?
Wouldn’t it have been nice if she’d shown a little thought, a little imagination, and surprised me? Made me say, “I was wrong”? But I guess there wasn’t much chance of that.
Doug, I almost didn’t approve that comment, and I’m putting you on notice now that if you EVER accuse me of lying again, I most certainly will not allow the comment.
Got that?
Now, let me ask the class — did anyone, other than Doug, reading what I wrote think for a single second that I was talking about ANYTHING other tax rates? How on Earth anyone could have thought I meant total tax revenues is completely and utterly beyond me. I said absolutely nothing to suggest in any way that I meant what Doug is saying I meant.
But this is typical of the kind of bogus reaching for irrelevant numbers to support their arguments that anti-government people resort to.
If you mean to say, “Legislators got away with their constant tax-cutting for years because the economy kept expanding, and that boosted revenues so as to make up for their cutting mania,” you would be making a true observation — an observation I would make myself. But it wasn’t relevant to the point I was making — which was to emphasize that David’s facetious point was all too true in describing our tax-cut mad Legislature.
Everybody understand what I’m saying now?
Sheesh.
That’s pretty good, Doug — there’s some truth to it in there. But the Republican Party and, as far as I can tell, candidates like Nikki Haley treat tax cuts as religion. It really sometimes feels like their answer to everything. And here in SC, high taxes are not our problem.
And on the national level, when the Republicans talk about “limiting government” or “taking our government back” they really only mean cutting taxes. They know they can’t — or at least don’t have the backbone to — seriously reduce spending and they certainly aren’t interested in reducing the scope of government in other areas (the “war on terror” and the bedroom come to mind).
So, to me, that’s really all they have. Tax cuts. That doesn’t get my vote.
@Brad
Compare GDP to Government Spending. Spending increased faster than GDP. So the size of government has grown faster than the economy. In fact, as I said, in 2009 the economy SHRUNK and government spending GREW. What part of that don’t you get?
The only way to do that is to increase taxes or raise fees.
Do you consider raising fees to be different from raising taxes?
You keep making claims about tax rates as if the government is getting smaller and smaller. It’s not.
For the mathematically challenged, here are simple numbers:
Mark Sanford elected 2002:
Government spending as percentage of GDP = 28 / 121 Billion = 23%
2009: 43 / 154 = 28%
We’re spending more for every dollar earned. If that’s coming from a legislature that is cutting taxes, I repeat, it’s not cutting downward. Play word games with “tax rates” all you want.
I want tax cuts and spending cuts. I believe Haley wants the same thing. If she doesn’t, I won’t vote for her.
FWIW, gents–Doug accused Brad of “promoting a lie” which isn’t the same thing as lying. Lying is an *intentional* misrepresentation of facts. I think Doug was suggesting that someone was intentionally misrepresenting facts, but not that it was Brad.
I think, however, that tax rates and total revenues are two totally different things. Also, what is this monolithic “government” that isn’t getting smaller? Certainly plenty of sectors funded by tax revenues have shrunk–Social Services, for example. State support for higher education….
Actually, Doug, if you pay attention, I never, ever make assertions regarding the “size of government,” because to me it is a bogus and irrelevant concept. It is a concern of anti-government people that I don’t share one way or the other. I don’t care whether the government is large, small or Mama-Bear sized, and to me it is the height of idiocy to presume that there is some “size” of government that is somehow ideologically just right. Obsessing about it is akin to debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It does not interest me at ALL.
It seems particularly silly to try to relate the “right size” of government to some completely irrelevant number measuring something else — such as the GDP. In fact, if anything, it seems fairly obvious (although I haven’t thought hard about it because this is not an article of faith for me) that in times of low growth or recession a government that is doing what it ought to do would be larger with regard to GDP when the GDP is down or slowed than when it is up — partly because to some extent you’re talking essential services, and partly because there are services necessary at such times that are NOT necessary in good times (say, more unemployment benefit payments). The transmission on a car is an analogy that comes to mind: It has to work harder and burn more gas (a lower gear) when the car is moving slowly than when it’s zipping along down the highway. But as I say, that just popped into my head; it may not bear up under further thought. It might be just as foolish as the idea that government spending should rise and fall in lockstep with GDP.
I just want it to be effective, whatever size it is. And I would never, ever presume ahead of time that there is a certain size that is right, regardless of circumstances.
Kathryn, I appreciate you trying to be a peacemaker, but I disagree. Doug was accusing me of lying. He followed up that assertion by saying, “You keep making claims about tax rates as if the government is getting smaller and smaller,” and “Play word games with “tax rates” all you want.”
How you see in that a lack of intention to accuse me of intentional deception eludes me.
“The only way to do that is increase taxes or raise fees.”
…..or to spend from other sources of money besides state tax revenues like stimulus money, other federal funding sources (medicaid,IDEA, etc.), and grants.
I didn’t hear Brad talk about the size of government at all.
@Kathryn
The government that isn’t getting smaller is the total spending by government in South Carolina. State and local. It’s growing.
If you think the total spending is smaller, please provide evidence.
@Brad
You keep talking in circles. First you said that of course the government grew because the economy grew. Then when I showed where the government grew even though the economy didn’t, your response is now “yes, that seems like a good idea.” Where do you think that extra money comes from? It’s not coming from the people who are out of work.
Let’s go back to your original statements “They’ve tinkered with the tax code here and there — always downward”. They’ve also tinkered with fees as well, always upward, right? Again, do you consider fees to be taxes?
And please identify who the “They” is in that statement. Was it Mark Sanford? or somebody else? THEY are the people Nikki Haley hopes to stop. Sanford couldn’t stop them.
@Doug– I want a much bigger government! I want all the good things we can have when we pool our resources and pull together. You are the one stuck on smaller “government”-which I gather you define as total revenues for all forms of government. This is a meaningless measure to me–a brute force rule of thumb.
Do we need more of some of the things government can provide–well-maintained bridges and highways? Do we need less of some things–sure–the City of Columbia could stop preparing and mailing the stupid quarterly four color, ten font monstrosity it calls a newsletter, for one. Maybe stop ripping up trees on Main St on the philosophy that if we could just get the streetscaping right, all would be cured….but statewide, I don’t see it.
You are like our mindless legislators and governor who want cuts for the sake of cuts, rather than deciding if *this* program or other expenditure is worthy or not.
I’d love to see some real numbers about the SC revenue situation that are adjusted for inflation and other factors including the fact that over the last decade the legislature cut over $1B in corp taxes.
Tax Cuts! That’s the solution for every challenge which we face. If you liked Sanford you’re going to love Haley. As one veteran state lawmaker recently told me, “Sanford was a real schemer, but Haley really believes that s….”
To eliminate the SC corporate income tax when over 70% of our economy is consumption, how in the world is cutting business taxes going to increase demand? Businesses will just sit on their assets as they’re currently doing. They are sitting on more cash than they have in more than a generation.
They will hire more people! Give me a break. “Tea-baggers” might want to read David Stockman’s latest comments about the cause of our current economic situation. Google it.
I found this document–there’s probably a better historical table of the state budget revenues, but I can’t find it online. The document is a report prepared in 2006 by the Strom Thurmond institute at Clemson. Of particular interest is the discussion that begins on page 3 of the document.
In 1988 the General Fund (the kinds of taxes Brad mentioned in his 4:00 PM post) accounted for 49% of the total budget. In 2006 the same revenues accounted for only 31% of the total budget.
The table on page 5 shows that revenue from Income, Sales and Other Taxes dropped from 69% to 48% of the General Fund.
Looks like they have moved downward to me.
The document makes some other very interesting findings about the tax structure in our state. It’s worth a read.
http://www.strom.clemson.edu/teams/ced/revenue/saltzman.pdf
@scout
Wherever the money ends up, it comes from the pockets of people like me in the middle class. Is it any better that the money flows up to Washington and then back down to South Carolina? I don’t think so.
Brad is totally FTW this time. Go Brad.
@Kathryn
You and I could argue all day about what our government SHOULD do. That is the basic question that our elected officials need to resolve. If our elected officials decide that we don’t need to fund the arts then that should be the end of the discussion (until you vote in people who do). The things you want to do by pooling resources together don’t necessarily represent the same view of the majority of South Carolinians.
And then after we agree on the core functions government will provide, we need to focus on execution of those objectives. We both agree that the government needs to educate the children of this state. Well, if we spend $X tax dollars on doing that and the results do not show that it is being done well, then we need to stop doing it that way and try something else.
The big government crowd wants to paint people like Haley and Sanford as “anti-government”. That is misleading. What they are is “anti-inefficient-government” and “anti-government-doing-things-that-are-not-its-responsibility”. There’s a huge difference. The focus is on cutting taxes because it hopefully will accomplish three key things:
1) Get the legislature to prioritize spending on core functions
2) Stop wasting money on inefficent processes
3) Put more money back into the pockets of citizens
To demonize that philosophy is wrong in my view.
@Kathryn
One other point. Mark Sanford ran for Governor as a strong fiscal conservative. He won. Twice. That means that the majority of South Carolinians apparently believe in that philosophy. If Haley gets voted in then its safe to assume that the majority continue to believe in that philosophy and want her to push the Legislature in that direction.
What can you do? You’ve got a candidate in Vincent Sheheen who has to make his case to the people of South Carolina. Not by saying he’s not Nikki Haley but telling us what he will do that is better for the people overall. He hasn’t done that. And he will lose if he can’t make the case of why his approach to governing is better.
If you torture numbers enough, they’ll tell you anything.
Compared to GA or NC, our revenue is down much sharper.
All I know is this state is in shambles. Because Republicans have been in charge, they should take the blame/responsibility.
At some point size really does matter when it comes to government expenditures. Too much government will crowd out investment in the private sector and have a detrimental effect on the economy. Doug is correct in that general assertion and consequently Brad’s comment that he doesn’t care what size the government is a bit pollyanish.
Having said that this is not the time to obsess over the size of the government. It needs to be large relative to GDP in order to combat the staggering job loss figures we continue to deal with. Sadly, at the state and local level, we’re doing just the opposite dropping government jobs like flys. Eventually we need to be concerned about the size of government for it’s own sake. But not just now.
Doug,
That’s fine if that’s your opinion. All I was trying to point out was that is a totally different thing than what Brad was talking about – he said tax rates have consistently been reduced over the years for the most part, and that is true, in spite of the fact that total government spending has gone up, which you correctly point out and which I definately understand that you don’t like.
I do not feel so vehemently about it.
Doug, I’m just curious – what, if any, government programs/spending do you think are/is appropriate? Do you think government shouldn’t help people, or that it should but is just doing it badly? Or something else?
You want tax cuts and spending cuts, but what kind of society do you envision that will leave us? I’m asking honestly – I’m really trying to understand your point of view, because it is quite foreign to me.
@scout
Things a state government should do:
schools (but just by providing funding to the districts and stopping all the wasted overhead like testing and giving away blue ribbons, red ribbons, and other meaningless junk)
roads – state highways, bridges
dhec
job creation efforts
courts
Let’s go through every department, every board, every commission, and every expenditure to see what a government really needs to do. Hunley Museum? Really? Money for the Okra Strut? Really? Let’s have our elected officials vote publicly on each and every line item so we can hold them accountable.
And sure a government should help people. But your definition of help is probably vastly different from mine. Help in my view is short term assistance to meet a temporary situation. Help is providing opportunities not welfare. It’s trite but I believe in helping those who want to help themselves.
The government shouldn’t be providing some people money from cradle to grave (and it does). When you give people something they come to expect it and don’t appreciate it. I can give you plenty of real world examples of this in the public school systems alone.
Leave as much money in the pockets of people who earn it so they can decide where they want to spend it. I believe people are basically good and will help others out who need it. Liberals believe people are basically greedy and feel it is necessary to make redistribution of money mandatory.
Finally we see what Doug thinks is in or out–and so far as he goes, I agree. The Hunley and various festivals–I hate festivals. Not sure what they do for the businesses where they transpire–a lot of times, the regular customers don’t patronize the businesses during the festival, and there are special festival sellers soaking up the shopping cash.
DSS?
Food and medical programs for poor kids?
Parks and beautification efforts?
Preservation of wild spaces for everyone?
SLED?
Disagree. Mark Sanford wasn’t just anti inefficient government. Mark’s problem (and Nikki’s) is that they view government as the problem. They both view working with the other side as a weakness.
It’s always amused me that people such as Mark even run for a government job. Why would you ever trust someone to run something they don’t believe in? It’s like hiring an athiest as the pastor of your church. If you do that, you aren’t going to be very efficient. Mark wasn’t efficient. He’s been a total waste.
@Barry
Actually, it would be like putting Billy Graham in charge of the PTL. When your arm is broken, you don’t bring in a doctor to put a bandaid on.
Unfortunately, Sanford believed that being elected by the citizens of South Carolina twice gave him the right to expect to implement the things he believes in. Foolish of him to not understand that he didn’t have the power to do it, only the backing of the majority. A small group of career politicians run this state.
Disagree again Doug. I’d sure bring in a doctor to put a bandaid on my broken arm if the other person wanting to see me just wanted to cut it off.
I know the Governor is a weak job in South Carolina. You know it. Any 3rd grade South Carolina history teacher knows it. Why didn’t Mark Sanford know it? Hmmmmm…..
That’s why Haley will fail before she gets started. She’s ripped herself through the General Assembly and now wants voters to believe she’ll now be able to work with the very people she’s torn into.
There is no reason to vote for Mark Sanford again.
Barry, you said,
“It’s always amused me that people such as Mark even run for a government job. Why would you ever trust someone to run something they don’t believe in? It’s like hiring an athiest as the pastor of your church. If you do that, you aren’t going to be very efficient. Mark wasn’t efficient. He’s been a total waste.”
I agree. My husband was watching a show by Bill Moyers on PBS awhile back where he was talking to an author, I think, who had done research on the conservative movement that believes that government is bad. He had found – and he had references in conservative writings – that their MO when they get in office is basically to make government run badly on purpose in order to prove their contention that government does not run things well. For example, they appoint people to heads of agencies who know nothing about running that type of agency on purpose. That at least was what this guy was saying. It was the most depressing thing I had heard in a very long time. I hate that I am so bad at remembering details. I will try to find a link to this program.
Ok, I found it. The author is Thomas Frank and his book is The Wrecking Crew. Here is a quote from him on the Bill Moyers program, he said,
“I found an interview with the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from 1928, where he said– this quote, it’s mind-boggling to me. But he really said this. “The best public servant is the worst one.” Okay? You want bad people in government. You want to deliberately staff government with second-rate people. Because if you have good people in government, government will work. And then the public will learn to trust government. And then they’ll hand over more power to it. And you don’t want that, of course. Your Chamber of Commerce. And I thought, when I first read this, “That’s a crazy idea. I can’t believe that sentiment.” And then I found it repeated again and again and again. Throughout the long history of the conservative movement. This is something they believe very deeply.”
See. I find this very scary. Here’s a link to an excerpt of that show with video and transcript: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bill-moyers-journal-thomas-frank-obamas-in
There is also a link to the full transcript of the interview from this site.
@ scout– and they thought the “Communists” were our greatest enemy!
@scout
I’m willing to accept that our government is chock full of second-rate people regardless of whether it is a Republican conspiracy or a Democrat initiative.
Well, Doug, I wonder how many “first-rate” people would enjoy the scorn heaped upon them by the likes of you, and the constant picking picking picking…. Maybe Rudyard Kipling’s “man” can bear to see the words he’s spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, but this woman would get mighty annoyed.
@Kathryn
It’s a chicken-and-egg thing… are they less than stellar because people complain or do people complain because they are less than stellar. The world may never know.
One data point to consider, how often are government employees fired due to incompetence as compared to the private sector?