Category Archives: Meetings

Energy Video I: Lindsey Graham


This is the first of three videos I’m highlighting from recent interviews with politicians who would be excellent candidates for the Energy Party, talking about our No. 1 issue.

This interview was largely, but not entirely, the basis for my column of Feb. 25.

Best line:

"The French — 80 percent of the power needs of France are met by the nuclear power industry. They are the model. I never thought I’d hear myself say this. They are the model; we should follow the French when it comes to nuclear power."

Questions for DeMint and Graham

DemintformalCongress is taking a break, so both Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham will meet with the editorial board
next week — DeMint on Monday, Graham on Tuesday.

Their offices asked for the meetings, so I haven’t thought much yet about what we’ll be talking about — not that there’s ever a shortage of topics on such occasions. I suspect that with DeMint, we’ll be talking (among other things) about his recent work with the new Democratic majority to curtail earmarks, something of which he has reason to be proud. With Graham, Grahamformalit’s likely to be Iraq, Iran, North Korea and such. For that matter, DeMint is likely to have something to say on Iraq as well.

Presidential politics will probably be mentioned, with DeMint backing Mitt Romney while Graham, as ever, will be helping his friend and ally John McCain.

It occurs to me y’all might have suggestions for other topics, or particular questions.

As Dr. Frasier Crane might say, I’m listening…

Mark Shriver

Had breakfast this a.m. with Mark Shriver, son of Sargent (and yes, for the celebrity-obsessed, brother-in-law of Arnold). He was in town to talk up the literacy programs his organization, Save the Children, is supporting in South Carolina.

Actually, he had two main points:

  • His group’s S.C. affiliate supports increasing our nation’s-lowest cigarette tax to the national average. I liked this about their position: They see the need (as does our editorial board) to raise the tax whatever it is spent on, because it will prevent a lot of teens from taking up smoking just by raising the price. He’d prefer to see it spent on health care and smoking prevention efforts, though.
  • He’d like state support for his organization’s efforts to give an extra boost to reading skills of kids in poor, rural school districts — wherever the money comes from.

He made the point that as a legislator in Maryland, he was hard-headed about making sure groups that sought money could demonstrate a return on investment, and he’s sure that the economic development boost of better-educated kids qualifies. But I don’t know; I’m inclined to think we should concentrate more on improving the schools themselves, and let private money support private efforts. (That’s not an official editorial opinion; I’d have to study this more. I’m just giving you my first-blush thoughts from the meeting.)

Interestingly, when Mr. Shriver brought up the upcoming reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, I asked what his uncle was thinking about that — seeing as how he had worked with the president to get it passed.

That led to a discussion of a difference between Mr. Shriver and Uncle Ted, who he said is more interested in finding ways to upgrade the teaching corps than in private efforts. I don’t have all the details, but I would tend to think the senator’s on the right track there.

Not to denigrate Save the Children’s efforts. They sound laudable, and I wish them the greatest of success. Our rural areas can use the help, and that’s a profound understatement.

The breakfast was set up by Ted Riley, who I learned does an almost scary impersonation of his dad, the former governor and Education secretary. I’ll have to get that on video sometime.

What does a trackback DO for me?

You may recall that not long ago, I asked what trackbacks were. I did it because I had enabled my blog for trackbacks, but I hadn’t gotten any bites yet, and I was wondering what the point was.

Laurin was kind enough to give me a brief lesson in how they work, for which I am appreciative. And I notice Tim has set up a couple of trackbacks to his site (or would that be, from his site? Obviously, this still confuses me).

But the last 13 trackbacks I’ve gotten have been spam — links to sites that sell cheap watches, gambling, and various unmentionables. It’s like wandering through a bazaar in Juarez.

This came up because Phillip mentioned an interesting post on Andrew Sullivan’s blog, and I went to it, and I noticed the trackback option, and I thought about trackbacking to it, but then I wondered: What on Earth does that accomplish that Phillip’s link didn’t accomplish? I can make links as prominent as I want — so can other people who want to link to stuff I’ve posted.

So what good is the trackback option — especially when it’s mostly being exploited by spammers? Laurin? Tim? Anyone?

Wait… it just dawned on me. Trackbacks enable me to go to Andrew’s site and place a link to mine there, right? And that depends on whether he has enabled the function, no matter what I’ve done on my site. Right? Well, I want to be generous, too, but should I be letting advertisers use my site for free promotion? I guess I’ll have to decide that.

What do y’all think? Should I keep it enabled, or what?

‘Go for it’ column

Bulb_011_1Energy independence?
We only have to decide to go for it

    “From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the moon. It’s not a miracle. We just decided to go.”
            — Tom Hanks, as Astronaut
            Jim Lovell in “Apollo 13”

By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
I REMEMBER when this country would “just decide to go” and do something that had never been done — something so hard that it seemed impossible — and then just go.
    I was not yet 16 when men first stepped into the gray talcum of Tranquillity Base, and I didn’t know that I was living through the last days of the age of heroic national effort. I thought the muscular, confident idealism of World War II veterans such as John Kennedy was the norm. JFK said let’s go to the moon. It didn’t matter that nothing like it had ever been done, or that the technologies had not yet been invented. We just said OK, let’s do it.
    We built rockets. Brave men stepped forward to sit atop them in hissing, flashing, buzzing, wired-up sardine cans. Slide-ruler nerds who feared no challenge designed all the gadgets that went into the rockets and made them fly true. The rest of us paid the astronomical bills, and suspended our lives to watch each launch, in fuzzy black-and-white. We held our breaths together as though we were the ones waiting to be blasted to glory, live or die.
    And in a sense, we were. That was us. We were there.
    Why did we stop doing things like that? Where did we lose the confidence? When did we lose interest in working together? How did we lose the will?
    Was it the bitter end of Vietnam, which caused us to swear off fighting for justice beyond our borders for a generation? Was it Watergate, which ended common trust in leadership? (I watched “All the President’s Men” with my children recently, and to help them fully appreciate the suspense, I had to stop the disc and try to explain a time in which most people could not imagine the president of the United States would really do such a thing.)
    Was it the end of National Service, which gave rise to a generation that had never pulled together in common cause, and couldn’t even imagine doing so? Was it the “I got mine” hypergreed of the ’80s and ’90s, which made shared sacrifice passe?
    I don’t know. Maybe all of the above. I do know I’m tired of it. I miss the country I used to live in.
    That country would have stayed united for more than a few weeks after 9/11. It would have rolled up its sleeves and sacrificed to make itself economically independent of Mideast regimes that currently have no motivation to change the conditions that produce suicide bombers.
    But we don’t volunteer for that today, and “leaders” don’t dare suggest it.
    What got me started on all this? Lonnie Carter, president of Santee Cooper, said several things last week that sent my thoughts down these paths. He got me thinking how easy it would be for this nation to move toward energy independence, reduce greenhouse gases and even save money. It wouldn’t even be hard, or require sacrifice or inventiveness. We have the tools. It’s a matter of attitude.
    Mr. Carter showed us one of those curlicue fluorescent light bulbs. Big deal, I thought. I’ve got a few of those at home; my wife bought them. They look goofy, and don’t fit into some of our smaller fixtures.
    But Mr. Carter said that while such a bulb costs a couple of bucks more, it uses only 30 percent of the energy to produce the same light, and lasts 10 times as long. That one “60-watt” bulb (really only 15) would save you $53 before it gave out.
    Think how much energy we could save if all of us bought them. The things are already on the store shelves, but most of us bypass them for the old unreliables. It’s a “matter of changing our habits,” Mr. Carter said.
    How about renewable energy? Mr. Carter said utilities already offer that option to customers. But while 40 percent say they would pay a little more for such greener, smarter energy, only 1 percent actually do when it comes time to check that box on the bill.
    Attitude again.
    Then there’s nuclear power. “If our country is interested in energy independence and affecting climate change,” said Mr. Carter, “nuclear is the best option.” It’s clean, it’s efficient, and we don’t have to buy the fuel from lunatics.
    The government is even offering incentives to build the new generation of super-safe plants. But there’s still an attitude problem, as evidenced in the approval process. Santee Cooper plans to build two such plants. Just getting approval will take until 2010, so the plants can’t produce power before 2015. We managed to go from rockets that always blew up to “The Eagle has landed” in less time than that. And this time, we already have the technology.
    “We need all due diligence,” said Mr. Carter. “But we don’t need to drag our feet.”
    Still worried about spent fuel? “We know how to handle it safely,” he said. We’ve been doing so for 50 years. We also know how to put it away permanently; it’s “just a policy issue.”
If we could take such obvious steps, maybe we could then start taking the “tough” ones.
    Maybe we could even put the SUVs up on blocks and reduce our gasoline consumption to the point that Big Oil — and maybe even Washington — would see that they ought to invest some real effort in developing hydrogen, or biofuels, or whatever it takes.
    Did you know that Brazil expects to achieve energy independence this year? Maybe it has become the kind of country we used to be — the kind of country we could be again.
It just takes the right attitude.

Columbia election column

Fisher has given Coble the
kind of race Columbia needed
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
WHEN KEVIN Fisher had left after energetically making his case in an endorsement interview, I said this to fellow editor Warren Bolton: “You see why I wanted him to run?”
    He nodded.
    A few minutes later, we decided to recommend the board endorse Mayor Bob Coble again.
Sound contradictory? Well, it makes sense to me. I’ll explain.
    A week before the filing deadline, I used this space to urge Mr. Fisher to challenge the mayor. After a lunch during which he had passionately expressed one point of disagreement after another with the mayor, I thought it was high time such criticism was actually aired before the voters.
    Bob Coble has some of the world’s most passive-aggressive critics. They gripe and snipe, but not one who had a chance of unseating him had tried in 16 years.
    I knew Mr. Fisher could make up for that.
    After I wrote that column, a lot of people thought I was backing Mr. Fisher. Then I wrote another column in which I said Columbia voters had a clear choice before them: Mr. Fisher, who tries hard to convince everyone he’s right; or Mr. Coble, who is happy to be seen as self-effacing but effective. That muddied the waters. Some thought at that point that I was declaring for the incumbent, but that wasn’t my intent.
    Mr. Fisher is a very effective critic of the present administration. There’s a lot he doesn’t like, and he expresses eloquently why you shouldn’t like it either. He writes a whale of a good op-ed piece; I hope he keeps them coming.
    But he’s too much like me. I’m a professional critic, and sometimes I write a marginally readable piece lambasting this or that. But I haven’t seen any groundswell of people out there demanding that I run for mayor.
    And I think I understand why. When I look at Columbia’s city council, and imagine myself trying to get that bunch of independently elected prima donnas (no offense) to do what I know good and well they ought to do… well, I reflect that I’ve picked the right line of work — one in which it’s more important to be right than to be effective. I’ll just keep on being a voice crying in the wilderness.
    Mr. Fisher should, too. He’s good at it.
    So why did I want him to run? This city is in the middle of rapid, dramatic, multidirectional change, and it would be a travesty not to have a full, lively debate about its course. I didn’t think the city could afford another mayoral election like the ones it has had the last 16 years.
    The mayor needed challenging. He’s far from perfect. Mr. Fisher is right in many ways. He has a point when he says that “Mayor Bob” is perhaps too affable and, as a result, often isn’t forceful enough to overcome the limitations of his office in this form of government.
    Mr. Fisher is plenty forceful. But he is not affable enough to get things done. There’s a delicate balance involved in working with six council members who are each as powerful as you. Mr. Coble doesn’t always strike that balance, but often does. Mr. Fisher seldom would.
    A lot of good things have happened in the last few years in Columbia, and while the mayor isn’t always the loudest voice in the room, he pushes as hard as anyone. The Vista booms; Main Street is revitalized; old enmities are set aside; strategic partnerships envision a dynamic future for the city, and make it happen.
    Mayor Coble doesn’t shout, but he testifies convincingly to his effectiveness in the past, present and future. Mr. Fisher is great at pointing out the mayor’s failings. But he doesn’t make the case for himself nearly as well.
    In the end, the mayor has risen to his first real challenge, and has defended well his claim to four more years.
    While I’m all for saying who should be elected, I stay clear of predicting who will win. But I will say this: On Tuesday, more people will turn out to vote in Columbia than in a decade of mayoral elections. Whether they favor Mr. Fisher or the mayor, they know that this time, their votes are likely to make a difference.
    If that happens, the winner will be the city of Columbia.

Right or effective?

Which will it be, Columbia
voters: ‘right’ or ‘effective’?
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
CHALLENGER Kevin Fisher talks a lot about Columbia Mayor Bob Coble. He criticizes, in great detail, a long litany of actions and inactions by the mayor. He talks about how he would have done things differently.
    The ad and PR man says that rather than lead, “Mayor Bob” sits around waiting for consensus to emerge. “He is a very nice man who makes no decision, or who makes the wrong decision, which amounts to the same thing.”
    “His main concern is, never offend anyone.” By contrast, says Mr. Fisher, “I will be looking to set the agenda and the tone.”
    “With or without a strong-mayor system,” he asserts, “I would be a strong mayor.”
    That, boiled down, is Kevin Fisher’s position as candidate for mayor in the April 4 election.
    For his part, Mayor Coble agrees that he values diplomacy. That’s because you don’t get much done “if you tell people what you think about them every single time.”
   I was once told that someday I would have to decide whether I wanted to be right or effective. There is no doubt which paths these two have chosen. Mr. Fisher is a passionate and articulate advocate of what he believes is right. He seems to have given much less thought as to how, going forward, to get things done.
    Mayor Coble is far less concerned about getting everyone to see things his way. He claims to be effective.
    The mayor has his own litanies. There is his list of “strategic accomplishments.” He says that during his 16-year tenure, the city reversed a long decline in home ownership, population and property values; became “far safer”; experienced a “renaissance” from the Vista to a transformed stretch of Two Notch Road, and much more; embraced the “knowledge economy,” building on a much-improved relationship with the University of South Carolina; and did it all with only two property tax increases, of two mils each, both for more police.
    His main goals for the future:

  • Build upon existing economic pillars, such as Fort Jackson.
  • Follow through on the “innovation economy.”
  • Keep improving “livability,” so “people will want to stay here and come here.”
  • Change the city’s form of government to make it more effective and accountable.

    In an interview last week, Mr. Fisher did not present a list of specific proposals for the future, beyond saying he would not repeat such past mistakes as:

  • An “attempted waste of 41 million tax dollars” on a city-owned hotel. It would take “unmitigated gall” to seek re-election “if I had presided over that,” he said.
  • The plan to block the view of the river with a development at the corner of Gervais and Huger. “If you put a nine-story building on Huger, you don’t have a Vista.”
  • Deciding to back Marvin Chernoff’s vision for an arts festival. “Where is that money going to come from? And what else could it have gone to pay for?”

    “Of course, the mayor is for it,” he says of one thing after another he criticizes. “Being for everything is not leadership, and the mayor is absolutely for everything.”
    Mr. Coble, in the context of talking about candidates for City Council, said, “At the debates, they at least have said what they would do if elected. I don’t think Kevin has done that…. It’s one thing to say, ‘I wouldn’t do Air South,’ et cetera. What would you do? I think that’s essential to govern.”
    (The third candidate on the ballot, Five Points businessman Joe Azar, agrees with the mayor on that, if on nothing else.)
    Indeed, Mr. Fisher’s eloquence tends to falter if you ask, “What would you do now?” An example:
He says a “compliant mayor” gave SCE&G a cheap way out of its century-old promise to provide public transit in exchange for rights to the Columbia market.
    “We let them out of that deal for what — for a few million dollars, which is already gone,” he complains. “They still have the monopoly, but we don’t have the mass transit.”
    He says the utility fobbed old equipment and a “brownfield” bus barn onto the city. Since then, “Routes have been cut back; fares have been raised. We’re getting less service for more money, and it’s still going out of business.” And how is the mayor proposing to keep it going? A new tax.
    After Mr. Fisher had gone on a while about that “horrendous deal,” Associate Editor Warren Bolton asked what, given the current situation, he would do. He seemed less certain about that. He said he would “allocate funds better,” and pursue federal money. “Finally, I would go back to SCE&G and try to cajole them, shame them, whatever word you want to use, into making an annual contribution.”
    If the utility declined such a do-over, Mr. Fisher says, he would turn to a dedicated tax source. But “that would be the legacy of Mayor Coble and the council.”
    Mayor Coble seems to accept that ultimately, the public will have to pay to have a public transit system, just like in every other city in the country. His own ruminations on the subject center around strategies for passing the necessary referendum to do that.
    Another example: Regarding the former state prison property that has stood vacant for more than a decade, the mayor is pleased that — thanks in part to the Vista and riverfront having become so much more desirable — the private sector was finally willing to take it off the city’s hands. He sees that as best.
    For his part, Mr. Fisher says it was a “tremendous missed opportunity” not to have left part of the prison standing. “Cellblock One was our Alcatraz,” a potentially huge attraction for tourists from all over who would come to be regaled with “the legends of Pee Wee Gaskins and the rest.”
    The mayor just marvels at an idea “so far out of left field. A Pee Wee Gaskins museum would never have made it.”
    So, Mr., Mrs. and Ms. Columbia Voter, which will it be — the guy who says he’s right, or the guy who says he’s effective? You’ve got 16 days to decide.

But I’ll mention it here

A colleague and I were having lunch today with Tom Davis, whose title I’m always forgetting but who was described in a recent news story as "the governor’s deputy chief of staff and his top liaison to the
General Assembly" (see why I forget it?).

Most of it dealt with the rough couple of weeks he had had with the blowup between Gov. SanfordDavis and House Republicans over his spending cap, and the defeat Sanford forces suffered over the billboard issue.

But it strayed when he admired my discipline (after all, it’s a Friday in Lent, and he and I are both Catholic) in not only abstaining from meat, but forgoing dessert. Unwilling to take undeserved praise, I reminded him of my severe food allergies, and he said something about how I was kind of like Meg Ryan’s fiance in "Sleepless in Seattle." I suppose that’s right. (You ever notice how often allergies and asthma are used in the movies as shorthand to indicate weakness of character or lack of attractiveness as a mate, which is how it was used in this one — completely at odds with my own experience, I might add? Let a character take a quick puff on an inhaler, and you know that sooner or later, he will be found wanting.)

Anyway, Tom (shown above, in a photo that doesn’t do justice to his Pullmanesque qualities, but is the only picture I have) then mentioned something about that character having been played by Bill Pullman. At that point, I  exercised great restraint by not observing how much Tom looks like that actor. I was proud of myself. I mean, you never know — Tom might have been insulted. I would never, ever wish to embarrass him or make him feel awkward in public over such a trifle.

Of course, the blog is another matter.

Must have been GOOD barbecue

Last Saturday night, I dropped by a shindig Joe Taylor was hosting at the State Fairgrounds. He was serving vinegar-and-pepper barbecue from Hemingway, and Frogmore Stew. At this event, I saw John Courson, Bob McAlister, Samuel Tenenbaum, Andre Bauer, Bob Coble, Tameika Isaac Devine, Patton Adams and…

… Mark Sanford. The governor, who isn’t famous for showing up and staying any length of time at evening social events, stuck around for at least as long as I was there. Basically, I had to split once the band cranked up and it was impossible to carry on a normal conversation with anybody.

Next thing you know, Joe Taylor is secretary of commerce.

The governor must have really liked that barbecue.

So happy together

Also today, I ran into USC President Andrew Sorensen on an elevator. In contrast to my cluelessness on my last two posts, I did manage during the short ride to determine what he was up to.

He was on his way over to what he termed an "unprecedented" meeting with Speaker Bobby Harrell.

What was so new about this? "Carolina and Clemson are talking to him at the same time," Dr. Sorensen said. "And we’re using the same numbers." Basically, he was talking budget requests.

To those of us who remember the old days of tigers and chickens fighting like
… well, like cats and birds — in the General Assembly over funds, we have already seen a remarkable degree of cooperation between the state’s three research universities (counting MUSC) in recent years.

But this sort of coordination does sound new. It will be interesting to see what comes of it.

Beyond that, what’s up with Andre and Democrats, period?

At lunch today, I ran into former Gov. Jim Hodges. And I went up to him to say hi, and we were both perfectly civil. Really, we were — I even introduced him to my boss, Publisher Ann Caulkins. He was most cordial. Ad man Kevin Fisher, with whom Ann and I were meeting (more about that later), even remarked upon it.

But that’s not what I wanted to tell you about. What I wanted to tell you about was what happened a few minutes after that. Mr. Hodges was seated at a round table with several other people at the Capital City Club. Eventually, he was joined by Andre Bauer. He made a joke to Andre — something about asking for his help with Medicare. I know it was a joke for three reasons. First, everyone at the table laughed. Second, Jim Hodges is younger than I am (even though his hair is much whiter now than in this picture). Third — and this is the really funny part — the Legislature not long ago placed the state Office on Aging under the lieutenant governor’s office, for reasons that remain unclear in spite of Sen. Jackson’s oped. The senator wrote that my colleague Cindi Scoppe was wrong to call that move "nonsensical," but still didn’t explain why lawmakers saw fit to take that function away from the governor and give it to the gov lite.

Anyway, this is an interesting juxtaposition of events. First the op-ed from Sen. Jackson. Now, we see the lieutenant governor getting all convivial with the former governor over lunch.

I knew that Andre was a determined and hardworking campaigner who would pursue anyone’s vote, but this is taking it to a whole new level.

Lake rising column

First, take action to make
the whole lake rise
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
POLITICAL NOSTRUMS often become obnoxious with excessive application. Some simply start out that way.
    For me, one that has always fit in the latter category is “A rising tide lifts all boats.”
    I’ve never denied that there’s truth in it. At least, I intuit that there’s truth in it. I’m no economist, but it’s always made sense that if you pump more wealth into a reasonably fair and open economic system, many people’s boats — if not most people’s — should float somewhat higher. Not all boats, of course, what with the poor always being with us, but there was logic in the saying.
    I still didn’t like it. It was too devil-may-care: Don’t worry about whether everybody’s boat is seaworthy; just don’t impede the tide, and assume everything will be copacetic. It’s like something one would say over drinks at the 19th hole, followed by: “I’m fine. Aren’t you fine? Well, then everybody must be fine.”
    Oh, and don’t give me a bunch of guff about “class warfare.” I enjoy a round of golf as much as the next man. That doesn’t mean I have to adopt an air of insouciance toward society’s have-nots. So the “rising tide” metaphor always left me a little cold.
    At least, it did until last week, when I heard it put another way: “The whole lake has got to rise for my boat to rise.” That implies a sense of responsibility for raising the water.
    Harris DeLoach — chairman, president and chief executive officer of Sonoco Products — said that Wednesday, when he and other state business leaders presented their “Competitiveness Agenda” for the 2006 legislative session, which starts Tuesday.
    This is an agenda with considerable juice behind it, since it is being promoted in common by the state Chamber of Commerce, the Palmetto Institute, the S.C. Council on Competitiveness and the Palmetto Business Forum.
    The groups banded together last year to push successfully for tort reform, retirement system restructuring, a measure to encourage high school students to choose “career clusters” that help them see the point of staying in school, and “innovation centers” to connect university-based research to the marketplace.
    They had less success advocating adequate funding for highways and health care, but overall, the stratagem showed what could happen when state business leaders combine their clout and let lawmakers know they’re truly serious about some issues.
    “This time last year, I’ll admit I was a little apprehensive,” said Chamber President Hunter Howard, who has carried water for his organization in the State House lobby for many a session. But once he tried a “whole new approach… going after the Legislature with really a stick kind of approach — but in a nice way,” he was pleased with the results.
    There will no doubt be those who detect an odor of self-interest whenever business people push for anything. And there’s truth in that, too. Mr. DeLoach does want his boat to rise, after all. But the encouraging thing is that he and the others leading this coalition understand that for that to happen, the water has to rise for everyone. Rather than simply saying “I’ve got mine” and being satisfied, they are pursuing policies that — whether you think they’re smartly crafted or not — acknowledge the truth that we’re all in this together: If the least of these in South Carolina are left back, so are we all.
    Take tax reform, for instance. As my colleague Cindi Scoppe noted in a recent column, the business sector is determined not to be outsqueaked by homeowners to the extent that businesses bear a disproportionate share of the tax burden.
    But there’s good in that. Lawmakers are coming back to town this week all in a sweat to get angry residential property taxpayers off their backs, which creates the danger of overreacting yet again with little regard for the stability, fairness and efficacy of the overall tax system.
    Basically, the business honchos are saying what this editorial board has said for years — that however much emotion swirls around property taxes or some other outrage of the moment, the goal should be “comprehensive tax system reform.”
    Of course, the biz types have a few things on their wish list that most of us would never think to ask for, such as workers’ compensation “reform.” (I put that in quotes because I haven’t decided whether it’s reform or not.)
    But I’m still struck by the extent to which these business leaders seem more interested than many of our politicians in doing, as Mr. DeLoach put it, “what’s good for the whole state,” seeing that as the way to benefit them all.
    Those who reflexively distrust the private sector see it as wanting nothing more from government than to cut its taxes and leave it alone. But too many aspects of this agenda give the lie to that.
    In fact, “We’re referred to as the group that wants to raise taxes,” said Carolina First Bank CEO Mack Whittle. “Well, we’re the businesses that pay the taxes” (about 43 percent of the total, asserts the Palmetto Institute’s Jim Fields). “We have to look at the road system; we have to look at education. And if it does take more revenue, then so be it.”
    So it is that you see the business community leading the charge for kindergarten for all 4-year-olds who need it.
    It is, in large part, the kind of agenda that reflects what real pro-business conservatives — the kind who have a proven ability to meet a payroll, and a realistic grasp of what it would take to provide better paychecks for all South Carolinians — see as the state’s real needs.
    What they come up with differs necessarily from what professional “conservatives” who are all theory and no practice tend to advocate. You know, the Grover Norquists, and those w
ho would play along with them.
    Am I endorsing this whole agenda? Of course not. I haven’t begun to make up my mind about significant portions of it. Others I know I’m against. For instance, while I welcome these groups to the comprehensive tax reform cause, my colleagues and I staunchly oppose some of the particulars they advocate under that umbrella — such as imposing spending caps on local government. And we disagree with their position on the powers of the Ports Authority.
    But I do like the stated attitude that underlies much of this approach. Like Mr. DeLoach, I want to see the whole lake rise.

Column on Larry Wilson’s trial balloon

A comprehensive plan for
making us wealthier and wiser
By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
LARRY WILSON, one of the chief architects
of the Education Accountability Act, came by the office the other day and offered a pretty compelling vision for what South Carolina should do next.
    The local entrepreneur doesn’t hold elective office, and doesn’t claim to speak for anyone but himself. But the ideas he put forth are worth sharing because:

  • He is a board member for the Palmetto Institute, and that think tank is expected to join with the Palmetto Business Forum, the Competitiveness Council and the state Chamber of Commerce to set forth a unified vision for how to make the average South Carolinian wealthier. Some of these ideas may crop up in that context.
  • He is also close to the new speaker of the S.C. House, Bobby Harrell. How many of these ideas Mr. Harrell buys into and how many he has told Mr. Wilson — according to Larry’s account — just aren’t feasible I don’t know.

    Nor do I know how many of these ideas my editorial board colleagues and I will go for once we sit down and study them.
    But I was sufficiently impressed by this set of interlocked proposals that it seems worth throwing out to see what others think. If not this, we need some kind of comprehensive strategy for moving South Carolina forward. We must get beyond the usual piecemeal responses to crises and interest group demands if we’re to catch up.
    The critical element that ties all of these ideas together is the unassailable fact that education and economic development are inseparable. If we don’t realize that, we’ll continue to make 80 percent of the national income.
    I don’t have room to set out everything covered in our wide-ranging discussion, but here are the most intriguing and/or appealing ideas that I heard:

EDUCATION
    Mr. Wilson wants an Education Quality Act that includes:

  • Early remediation. Third-graders scoring below basic on the PACT would attend school year-round in the fourth grade, under master teachers or National Board-certified teachers. The teachers’ incentive? Higher pay for 230 days of teaching. He would then add a grade level at a time, on up to high school.
  • Full-day kindergarten for 4-year-olds. This would be provided at “accountable, certified” public and private schools, “financed by vouchers and integrated w/First Steps.” The money might come in part from consolidating current pre-5K efforts, and be distributed in a way markedly different from the awful “Put Parents in Charge” scheme: Low-income kids would get full funding (about $4,000 apiece). The money would go to the school their parents choose. Higher-income folks would get a tax deduction (not a credit) to help with a portion of the cost. “I’m absolutely against vouchers in the public schools, by the way,” Mr. Wilson said. “But this is an area where I think it will work.”
  • An appointed state superintendent of education.
  • A BRAC-style commission for reducing the absurd number of school districts in the state. He credited this idea to Rep. James Smith, D-Richland, citing the facts that 41 of the state’s 85 districts serve only 14 percent of all students, but account for 100 percent of schools judged “unsatisfactory” under the Accountability Act.
  • A statewide salary schedule for educators, by category and qualification. This way, for instance, Marion County wouldn’t lose good teachers to Horry just because the Grand Strand county can pay so much more.

KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY
    Mr. Wilson would like to increase the lottery money going to endowed chairs from $30 million to $40 million to take greater advantage of this indispensable tool for helping our research universities to boost our economy.
    He would also push for an Industry Partners Act that would:

  • Recruit or set up companies to apply cutting-edge research going on in the state, accelerating the growth of economic clusters built around automotive innovation (Clemson), “Next Energy” development (USC) and biotech (MUSC and USC). The idea would be to market the state’s under-acknowledged assets and provide such incentives as local demonstration projects — say, running buses in the Midlands on hydrogen. The goal: to see these products manufactured here, by highly paid South Carolinians.
  • Define respective, interconnected roles for the state Commerce Department, universities, S.C. Research Authority and tech system in boosting knowledge-based enterprises in the state.

TAX REFORM
    Comprehensive tax reform, of course — the only kind worth talking about. Fortunately, while there’s a lot of talk regarding “property tax relief” as an end in itself, the climate has never been better for realigning our whole tax structure.
    Mr. Wilson calls it “tax-balancing.” He would shift the burden of financing schools to the state (the only way to standardize teacher pay and otherwise reduce the gap between rich and poor districts). A Senate panel is talking about replacing the property tax as a school funding source with a higher sales tax. But Mr. Wilson raises two caveats: Care must be taken not to raise the sales tax to the point that S.C. merchants can’t compete with the Internet and neighboring states, and the tax burden must not be shifted to businesses to the point that it stifles job creation.
    That latter point is worth considering for a reason he didn’t bring up: If only owner-occupied homes were exempted from school property taxes, gross inequality would still exist between districts rich in industry and commerce, and those without that base.
    He would also:

    “The point of all this is, it fits together,” Mr. Wilson concluded. “You can’t fix one problem without fixing the other.”
    Exactly.

Jim DeMint meeting

I’ve had trouble this summer keeping up with my commitment, stated back when I started this blog, to let you know about meetings the editorial board has with newsmakers and other guests — although I have reported the main ones. I did mention Gresham Barrett the other day, and today I’ll catch up by telling you about Sen. Jim DeMint’s meeting with us back on Tuesday. (And by the way, Demint_2the picture is not from our meeting. It’s an AP photo of the senator talking about bringing a new nuclear power facility to the Savannah River Site during a press conference in Aiken a week earlier.)

It was fairly uneventful — Lee Bandy, who was there as an observer representing the newsroom, didn’t write anything live off of it — but there were a few items of interest worth sharing:

  • First, he was fairly proud of having held the federal highway bill’s gargantuan total down to something close to what the White House had wanted, while managing to help South Carolina out in some significant ways. Since Cindi Scoppe is going to address that S.C. impact in the paper in the next few days, I’ll leave elaboration on that point to her.
  • Rest assured, Gov. Sanford — this is one Republican who is not coming after your job. Rather than criticize the governor’s performance on ecodevo, or complain that he’s hard to work with in that area, Sen. DeMint said, "We work well with him." He added that "I feel we’re poised for incredible growth in the state." Besides, "We’re not easy to reach, either."
  • He said he thought it strange that Majority Leader Bill Frist, who generally keeps a low profile on issues and works for consensus within the caucus, should choose to get out in front on stem cells, of all things. He also noted that folks keep defining the issue inaccurately: "The issue isn’t whether we do research; it’s whether the federal government pays for it." Good point, that.
  • It was good to hear him say that he’s learned a lot from traveling to the world’s hot spots and learning about foreign affairs. "You’re expected as a senator to be involved with that," he said. I’m glad he realizes that now. Last year, when I asked him to talk about America’s role in the world, he sort of blinked and said something along the lines of, "You mean, besides trade?"
  • He talked for a while about his health plan, which he said stresses "individual ownership" and portability. But the most interesting thing he said on the subject — and somehow we got onto another subject before following up with questions (something I need to do the next time I talk to him) — was this: "We’ve got to go there (meaning something like his plan), or we’re going to go to national health care relatively soon, because where we are is not going to work." At this morning’s board meeting, we were discussing that, and sort of kicking ourselves that we didn’t get him to elaborate.
  • Scared me no end by suggesting it would be possible to draw down U.S. troops somewhat in 2006. I continue to believe that would be suicidal; we need to go the other way, if anything.

I’ve been getting comments from anti-war folks upset because in my Wednesday column I said that withdrawing from Iraq now would be like "spitting on the graves of the 1,800 who have already given their lives." Well, I stand by that statement, and I add a corollary: If Republicans pull us out of Iraq in order to help themselves get re-elected, they’ll be doing something even worse than that.

Et tu, Gresham

Rep. Gresham Barrett came by our offices to visit with the editorial board this afternoon. It was the first time I’d met him (as near as I can remember), so I felt pretty bad about entering the room late and leaving early. But Friday is our hardest day of the week, and I was hours behind already.

He had come by prepared in particular to talk about the plan he’s pushing to produce nuclear power at the Savannah River Site. He expressed optimism that he’s making progress on that front.

But before I left the board room, we made sure to ask him about his comments published that day in The Greenville News.

His criticism of the governor’s performance on economic development was of course familiar, since new S.C. House Speaker Bobby Harrell had said similar things last month. (And Mr. Harrell, it should be noted, has taken that act on the road. He said the very same things at my Rotary Club recently.)

But like Mr. Harrell, Mr. Barrett downplays any notions that there’s some sort of internecine spat going on among the state’s leading Republicans. Also like Mr. Harrell, he stressed that he wants to work with the governor, not against him, on ecodevo.

"I’m not here to pick a fight with the governor," he said. "He and I agree on so many different things." Nevertheless, "This is an area that we can improve." And he stressed that he himself, and others, could do more.

Still, this is an interesting trend.

For his part, when I asked him about it on Friday, Gov. Mark Sanford had little that he wanted to say — on the record. As far as what he was willing to be quoted on, he pretty much said the same things he said before, when Mr. Harrell’s comments were in the news.

Sanford: Airbus not a “setback”

The governor called me a few minutes ago to belatedly take issue, in his mild way, with a short editorial we ran last Saturday. I drew a blank at first on the subject, since it had been over a week since I had read it, but it came back to me when I called up a PDF of that day’s page as we were talking.

The only thing that seemed to bother him was the word "setback."

"I don’t think it was a ‘setback,’" he said. "Some things are possible, some things are probable, and some things are impossible."

He said Gov. Bob Riley had told him he had thought Alabama had it sewn up from the start, and Gov. Sanford was not inclined to disagree.

He said Alabama had already shown Airbus they could take a wing off a ship and swing it into its destination inside of an hour. In South Carolina, that would have been a six-hour process, necessitating traveling a much greater distance. "We just didn’t have the infrastructure."

Still, he thought it was worth taking a shot at it. "We had a good site, but… we didn’t have anything right there at dockside."

And he didn’t consider it worthwhile to try to compensate for that (even assuming it would be possible) by offering a bigger incentive package than Alabama.

"We ain’t gonna do what, in all due respect, the last administration did, which was buy jobs."

Advance America, payday lender

The editorial board met for two hours Thursday morning with Billy Webster, CEO of Advance America, the big dog of payday lenders. He was accompanied by his board member and former Democratic state attorney general nominee Steve Benjamin, and Patsy Allston. (I’m not sure of the spelling of her name, as I didn’t get a business card.)

The purpose of the meeting was to address criticism we have aimed at his industry, particularly recent columns by Associate Editor Warren Bolton.

The essence of the presentation was this: That while there are some in his industry — and particularly among check-cashing businesses, which are often confused with payday lenders — who engage in unscrupulous practices that take advantage of the powerless and unwary, his company is on the contrary trying to elevate the industry by not only being ethical itself, but pushing for legislation that would cause all in the industry to be equally free of taint. (Mr. Benjamin elaborated on that to explain why the company is at odds with some groups pushing for more regulation: "We support regulation. A lot of people, when they say regulation, they mean prohibition.")

A second part of the argument was that there is a natural demand and market need for the services he provides ("I can’t change the demand for the product," said Mr. Webster. "I can’t solve the problem that they need the $300."), caused by a number of factors. Conventional lenders such as banks no longer do the small "signature loans" (such as for $500 or less) that they once did, because the cost of processing it is greater than the return. He compared what his business does to the practice by banks of offering ODP (overdraft protection) service — something that has become an increasingly lucrative part of the bank business. He said banks used to drop customers who repeatedly bounced checks, until they realized how foolish they were — they were missing out on the fees they could be charging each time they save a check-writer from embarrassment (and higher fees) at the local merchant’s.

There was some talk about "credit migration" and "FICO scores" and such that made me feel a little like Yossarian listening to Milo Minderbinder, but I think I understood most of it.

We had some questions, which they answered readily, such as:
— While they say they don’t target minorities and the poor, might their support for the NAACP and the Urban League not be seen as a tacit acknowledgement of the importance of those communities to their business? Mr. Webster, who has long been active in Democratic Party politics, cited his involvement with the NAACP and Urban League going back many years "before Advance America was even considered." Besides, he also supports the League of Women Voters, the Palmetto Institute, and other organizations.
— Did the company pay to fly Sen. Joe Biden in from Washington to speak to an NAACP function? At first, Mr. Webster said he had offered to, but couldn’t remember whether that had happened. When Mr. Benjamin jumped in with "We did," Mr. Webster joined him for two simultaneous repetitions: "We did; we did."
— Did the company fly S.C. House Speaker David Wilkins to Salt Lake City for a meeting of the national association of state legislators? Mr. Webster was unsure, but said he would check. He called me later in the day to say that was correct, and to add that a reporter from The State was on board the plane as well. (The newspaper paid for the reporter’s passage.)
— What about that $20 million he made last year, putting him out far ahead of any other CEO in South Carolina? Mr. Webster said he receives no salary, no options, no bonus, or any other compensation from the company. However, "I am a major shareholder. I sold 15 percent of my original holdings."

I’m working on developing a similar portfolio position with Knight Ridder via my 401k, but I’m not quite there yet.

Lunch with the governor

As I mentioned previously, it is a goal of this blog to inform readers of meetings we have with sources,at least with a brief summary here, even when we don’t write about them in the paper.

Well, I’m telling you about this one ahead of time. At Gov. Mark Sanford‘s request, Publisher Ann Caulkins, Associate Editor Cindi Scoppe and I are having lunch with him tomorrow (Wednesday). I don’t know what the governor has on his mind, but I’m sure we’ll find plenty to talk about, what with vetoes pending and the legislative session about to end. And while we know it’s that time of the year, we’re hoping that this isn’t his day to take the livestock to the State House, or there might not be enough for all at the buffet.Pigs_1

I’m writing this to ask you — yes, you, out there in the Blogosphere: What would you like us to ask the governor about? Time permitting, I’ll bring up to him the top suggestion or two.

I need an editor

It occurs to me that if I’m going to keep up with this business of informing you about our meetings, I’m going to have to be a lot more succinct than I am in the item below this one. Partly because I won’t have the time otherwise, and partly because you won’t read it.

Give me time; I have to figure out this medium.