Category Archives: Taxes

Nikki Haley doing right thing (I think) for wrong reasons

The other night, I went to a reception for new Commerce Secretary Bobby Hitt, my old shipmate at The State. Bobby was near the front door, and we exchanged pleasantries. Standing there with him and Mike Briggs from Central SC Alliance was the head guy from Amazon, whose name escapes me at the moment — and he didn’t have any cards with him, or I’d have it in front of me. (If this were a newspaper, I’d hold this report until I got the name, or rather, got a reporter or editorial writer to get the name for me. But it’s not a newspaper, it’s a blog; and you’re not paying for it, so get outta my face.)

Anyway, having said “Welcome” to Bobby (a bit ironically, since I’ve seen and chatted with him numerous times since he came back to town), I said an even more fervent “Welcome!” to Mr. Amazon, and we, too, exchanged pleasantries. I thought, “I really should ask this guy some questions,” but didn’t have any on me. At that point, I spotted the bar. I needed to be somewhere else in about 20 minutes, so if I were going to have a free beer, it was now or never. So goodbye, Mr. Amazon (Yes, interviewing a source when you have the chance is important, but there are other immemorial traditions of journalism that must be honored as well.)

On the way to the bar, though, I saw Lanier Jones, president of ADCO, and said, “Lanier, you should go over and meet the Amazon guy.” Which he did.

A couple of days later, this came out:

Amazon’s 1,200-job project in jeopardy

Online retailer Amazon.com pressed S.C. lawmakers Wednesday for a sales tax break for the distribution center that it is building near Cayce, amid concern that denying the incentive could jeopardize the $100 million project.

Amazon executives warned refusing the tax break is a deal-breaker for the project, projected to employ 1,249 full time by 2013 and provide up to 2,500 part-time jobs, some legislators and Lexington County officials said.

“The implication is if they don’t get it, they’ll pull out,” said House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham, R-Lexington. “That’s clearly an option they will look at if they do not get it.”

That day, Lanier said something about the fact that we knew about that. I didn’t know about it, I said. Lanier said that when he spoke to the guy, Mike said something about a tax problem, and the Amazon guy said, “It’s a dealbreaker.” Lanier figured I’d heard the same.

So maybe I should have hung around a tad longer. I just didn’t know that at the time… Oh, well.

Bottom line, what should SC do about this?

Nikki Haley has chosen, like Pontius Pilate, to call for a basin of water:

Gov. Nikki Haley on Thursday washed her hands of an effort to lure more than 1,000 jobs to Lexington County.

Haley said she does not support a tax incentive designed to entice online retailer Amazon.com to Lexington County, making clear her opposition a day after company officials said they will pull the plug on a planned distribution center unless they get the tax break.

But Haley said that if lawmakers — who are waiting to follow the governor’s lead — approve the tax break, she will not veto it….

So basically, whatever happens, it won’t have her delicate fingerprints on it.

Not that I mean to cast aspersions with the Pontius Pilate thing. Actually, Nikki’s right (I think; I’m still cogitating on this) not to support the tax break. And she’s right (although not what you’d call courageous, or a leader) to recognize that this is a hot potato.

But she opposes (kinda) it for the wrong reasons. She opposes it because of a Policy Council-style ideological objection to using incentives in economic development. Hey, I think a lot of incentives are a bad idea, but not all of them. That’s the problem with ideology; you don’t make distinctions between bad and good, you just always bet on black. Or red. Depending on your ideology.

The actual PROBLEM with the tax break is that businesses should not be allowed to skirt the sales tax. Not only do we have too many exemptions in the sales tax as things stand, but allowing Internet businesses to do that places other SC businesses, such as the proverbial Mom and Pops, at a terrible disadvantage.

Not only that, but it’s unfair to Walmart and others that have asked for such a break, and been turned down. So you have an equal protection problem.

But Nikki Haley isn’t going to put it in those terms. So I did.

All of that said, I don’t relish the idea of turning away those 1,200 jobs. Policy abstractions are one thing; actual jobs for South Carolinians is another.

So I’m a bit torn about it still. As the governor seems to be. So we have that in common.

This is an issue that I would have had a lengthy discussion with the editorial board about, to develop and sharpen my own thoughts before saying anything in the paper.

I don’t have an editorial board now. So what do y’all think?

Well, we did it — we have the nation’s lowest taxes. Can we stop now?

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Cindi Scoppe continues in her lonely quest to inject some reason, and actual facts, into state tax policy. Today, she cites the Tax Foundation, the group that dreamed up the silly “Tax Freedom Day,” in reporting that what our lawmakers have so long sought is now fact — we have the lowest taxes in the nation:

THE TAX Foundation’s latest rankings of state taxes are out, and we’re No. 50. As in, no state collects less in taxes per resident than South Carolina does.

If that surprises you, then you’ve come to the right place. Much of what we think we know about taxes in our state is simply wrong. And while people are entitled to whatever opinion they want about whether taxes are too high or too low or just right, those opinions ought to be based on facts.

Of course, No. 50 isn’t the whole story. Anyone who tries to tell you that a single number sums up tax rankings is misleading you. This particular ranking, for instance, doesn’t include taxes collected by local government, which makes it not quite but nearly meaningless, since the division between state and local duties varies so much from state to state.

In the more useful ranking, which counts both state and local taxes, we’re No. 49.

And both of those rankings just compare total taxes collected to the state’s population. That means they are telling us as much about how poor we are as about how low our taxes are.

Our tax rate — which is the percentage of our total income that we pay in taxes — ranks 43rd. That means seven states have a lower tax rate than we do. (Our income, by the way, is $33,954 per capita, which ranks 46th nationally. Not something to celebrate no matter what you think about taxes.)…

So, all that constant ratcheting-down of taxes over the past couple of decades “worked” — if having the lowest taxes was the goal.

Now, could we stop, please? And stop also having the most poorly funded essential services in the nation? And stop lagging behind the nation in pretty much every measure of economic health you can name? Please?

As we say in the Grownup Party — enough, already.

Just to say something you don’t hear all that often

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The quixotic demonstration at the State House yesterday by citizens sick of seeing our state’s infrastructure rapidly eroding under the stewardship of shortsighted politicians was of course an exercise in futility.

But I’m no stranger to that. A few minutes ago, looking for a link for a previous post that needed one, I went back to the last week of posts on my old blog I had at the paper, and ran across this forgotten item — which, as it happens, was day after the post in which I announced that I had been laid off:

Good job rejecting the tuition caps

This might sound strange coming from a guy who was already counting pennies (or quarters, anyway — I miscounted how many I had this morning in my truck, and ended up with a parking ticket because I didn’t have enough for the meter), with my two youngest daughters still in college. And now I’m about to be unemployed.

But I’m glad the House rejected tuition caps at S.C. colleges and universities. I have an anecdote to share about that.

Remember the recent day when college students wandered the State House lobbying lawmakers on behalf of their institutions. They wanted the state to invest in higher education the way North Carolina and Georgia have. Either that day, or the day after, I had lunch with Clemson President James Barker, and he told me an anecdote he had witnessed: He said the students were pressing a lawmaker NOT to support the tuition caps, because they were worried about their institutions being even more underfunded — they hardly get anything from the state — some are down below 20 percent funding by the state, and the rest has to come from such sources as tuition, federal research grants and private gifts. Eliminate the ability to raise tuition, and the institution’s ability to provide an excellent education is significantly curtailed. If we want lower tuitions, the state should go back to funding higher percentages of the schools’ budgets, the way our neighboring states with better higher ed systems do.

The lawmaker listened to the kids, and then said with great condescension, maybe you kids don’t care if tuition goes up, but I’ll bet your parents would like a cap. He thought he had them there, but the kids set him straight: None of their parents were paying the bills. These kids were working their way through schools and paying for it all themselves. And they didn’t want to see the quality of what they were working so hard to pay for be degraded by an artificial cap on tuition. The lawmaker had not counted on getting that answer.

I wish I had been there to see it, because I’ve been in a similar place before. Back in 95 or 96, Speaker Wilkins had brought his committee chairs to see us, and I started challenging the wisdom of their massive rollback of property taxes paid for school.One of them allowed as how he bet I was glad to get that couple of hundred dollars I didn’t have to pay. And I answered him that I was ashamed that I was paying so little through my property tax to support schools that I knew needed more resources. He said smugly that he was sure I wouldn’t want to give it back. I told him I didn’t see as how there was any channel for doing that, but if he could point me to the right person who would take my money and see it gets to the right place, I would pay the difference. He didn’t have a good answer for that.

It would be great if our lawmakers would stop assuming that all of us in South Carolina are so greedily shortsighted that we can’t see past our personal desire to pay less money, and that we are corruptible by a scheme to starve colleges of reasonable support.

Reading that now, with all that’s happened since — the rise of the Tea Party, the eagerness of Republicans, demoralized after their 2008 defeat, to embrace destructive extremism (and of course, what happens to the Republican Party as happens to South Carolina, which it dominates), the election of Nikki Haley over more experienced, less extreme candidates of both parties — it reads like thoughts from another century. And, of course, another place.

Imagine, even dreaming of our state caring enough about education to invest in it the way our neighboring states have, much less suggesting that we do so. How anachronistic can one get? All that’s happened since then is that South Carolina has run, faster every day, in the opposite direction — with out elected leaders firmly convinced that that is not only the right direction in which to run, but the only one.

You pays your money and you takes your choice

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Sorta kinda conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan says “You don’t have to be a flaming Marxist to see that there’s something askew here.” He apparently got the chart from The Daily Kos, which cited “The Christian Left.” (Which I’m guessing is a reference to this group.) The Kos context apparently had something to do with defending public unions in Wisconsin, although the connection makes no sense to me — I guess you have to be a class warrior to get it. The Kos post was later updated to point to the Center for American Progress as the original source. That link, at any rate, cites sources for the numbers.

It was Sullivan’s “Chart of the Day II” on Friday.

Anyway, interesting comparisons. After The Christian Left, Kos, and Sullivan, the link in the chain that brought it to my attention was alert reader Laura Hart, who observed:

“We” chose to enact a bunch of tax breaks, so now “we” have to tighten our belts and make shared sacrifices. Not that all tax breaks are bad, but can’t we be honest about what is happening? A similar chart could be compiled for South Carolina.

Sounds like an interesting experiment. Anyone want to take that on — someone, that is, more skilled with spreadsheets and such than I am?

I say it again: City doing what it has to do on buses

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As we saw yesterday:

Columbia residents — homeowners and renters, churches and nonprofits, businesses and schools — will pay for the area’s struggling bus system through an increase on their power bills

City Council approved the increase Tuesday night with a 5-2 vote after a contentious, two-hour public hearing that included a retired Detroit cop calling council members “enlightened despots” and a retired federal prosecutor asking council members to slap him if he got too excited “because I promised my wife I would behave up here.”

The city charges SCE&G a 3 percent franchise fee for the right to run power lines in the public right of way. SCE&G passes that fee along to its customers. Tuesday night, City Council members increased the fee to 5 percent. The amount of the fee varies by customer, depending on the size of a customer’s bill. A charge of $100, for example, would be assessed a $5 franchise fee.

Hey, at least the ex-cop called them “enlightened,” huh? She thinks the city’s leaders don’t get it, saying, “Voters told you ‘no’ to a tax hike. You lost.” What she doesn’t get is that the city has a responsibility to provide this service, and if one way of paying for it doesn’t pan out, the council has to find another way. Besides, as Tameika Devine explained, voters in the city voted for the referendum.

Anyway, as I said before, the slight majority of Richland County voters who turned down a perfectly workable, practical way of paying for the service left city council with little choice. No, I take that back: The city could have chosen to be irresponsible, and let county council continue to carry the burden with its unpopular vehicle tax. But that would not have been a long-term solution. And by “long-term,” I mean a solution that lasts until the referendum is placed on the ballot again, and passes.

Also, there’s the fundamental issue of accountability

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I’ve always been in favor of charter schools, and so has the editorial board at The State. (Some would think those two points are redundant, and some of my former colleagues would say the same, but I continue to insist that the board under my leadership operated by consensus and was not an autocracy. So my opinion and the board’s during that period were not the same thing. And that’s the way it was, because I say so, speaking ex cathedra. None may say me nay.)

Today’s editorial explaining why local districts shouldn’t fund state-chartered schools made me go “huh?” for a second, because I hadn’t really thought about that aspect of it (and I guess I missed when the issue came up).

But only for a second. Once I thought about whether such funding should come from DISTRICTS, I could think of all sorts of reasons why that was a bad approach to an otherwise good idea.

And many of those reasons were set out ably in the editorial. An excerpt:

What’s not reasonable is the plan before the House to force school districts to take local property tax money away from the schools they are responsible for and give it to charter schools that are completely independent of the districts. Unlike district-sponsored charter schools, many state-sponsored schools were set up over the objections of the local districts, and they do not receive local property tax funding.

The idea of forcing local schools to subsidize the state charters is particularly unreasonable today, when we are calling on districts to make difficult choices to reduce their costs. Consider what happened last week: The day after Lexington 2 Superintendent Venus Holland recommended closing one of the district’s 10 elementary schools to save money, the House Education Committee voted to make her district — and the rest of the state’s districts — spend money to keep the doors opened at a dozen schools over which it has no control. Although the timing isn’t so dramatic, the situation is even more absurd in Abbeville, where the legislation would force the district to pay for a school that opened in a high school that the district had shut down to save money.

In addition to the districts’ need to make these sorts of difficult decisions, there’s this very practical problem: Property taxes are set based on the number of students the districts expect to have in the schools they operate — not in the schools over which they have no say and whose enrollment they have no way of guessing.

In defending the plan to make local districts fund state-chartered schools, House Education Chairman Phil Owens claimed it “creates parity and equality.” But it does no such thing: To the contrary, it highlights the “parity and equality” problem we have throughout our public schools, because it requires each district to contribute whatever amount of money it spends per student for each local student who attends one of these schools. That varies widely from district to district, based on how wealthy each is and how much the people who live there value public education…

But the one main, critical, essential, fundamental reason why it was a bad idea was left out, or only implied, and it is this: As stewards of taxpayers’ money, districts shouldn’t have to fund something that they can’t hold accountable.

The districts run the schools under their jurisdiction, holding them accountable — with varying degrees of success — for the appropriations provided. That’s the essence of responsible government: You elect people to make decisions about raising and spending tax money (as well as other essentials of government). Taxes are levied on the local level specifically for the purpose of running those schools.

The whole idea behind charter schools is that they are free from being held accountable by that local district structure. There’s no way that local districts should be allocating any portion of the finite, limited funds (a demagogue would throw in, “taxpayers’ hard-earned money”) to any entity that is not answerable to that body for what it does.

The state charters these schools, and should be responsible for any funding that comes from public sources.

To elaborate… the editorial also made the very important point that ultimately, school funding is a state responsibility. And it is. And eventually, we need to get to the point where schools are not dependent on taxes raised locally — a practice that only exacerbates the gross inequities in quality of education available statewide.

This issue — the local funding and governance of schools — is one on which my opinion has changed over time. As one who believes in the principle of subsidiarity, my general tendency is toward pushing governmental responsibilities down to the smallest, most local level (the federal government should do far less than it does, and states should leave more up to local governments — in South Carolina, that means the Legislature getting off the necks of local governments and letting them serve their citizens unhampered).

That’s in general. But subsidiarity holds that functions should be performed by the smallest possible entity competent to perform them. And increasingly, I’ve started to think in recent years that the state (or at the very least, the county) is about as small an entity that can both fund and administer schools competently. Mind you, I think the SCHOOLS should enjoy more autonomy than they do, in terms of principals being more free to run them — particularly in terms of freedom to hire and fire. But to the extent that there has to be administration above the school level, that doesn’t have to be nearly as local as it is, and there are a number of reasons why it shouldn’t be (including the fact that while school boards are elected, the overwhelming majority of voters don’t have the slightest idea who’s running for school board, or which would do a better job, and you often get the kind of governance you would expect from that — and there is NO WAY these little-known entities should be levying taxes, as they do in some districts). A good start in making that less local is what I’ve advocated strenuously for 20 years: Consolidate school districts. But the ultimate goal, perhaps (I’m not 100 percent on this yet), should be statewide administration.

But I’m getting off the subject. Bottom line: Charter schools are a state creation (and it’s a good thing the state has created them, I continue to think). The state should pay for them, to the extent that they should be publicly funded. Legislators should deal with that, rather than trying to dump the problem on the overstressed districts.

A few thoughts on the State of the State

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Watch the full episode. See more SCETV Specials.

EDITOR’S NOTE: THERE IS A SERIOUS ERROR BELOW, WHICH I HAVE NOW CORRECTED. PLEASE SEE THE CORRECTION POST.

Been trying all day to get to Nikki Haley’s speech last night. Here are a few quick observations:

First, the style: Nikki is a WAY better speaker than Mark Sanford. She, at least, can read a speech that’s right in front of her (and do it in a fairly engaging way). Her predecessor could not, or would not. Every year, I’d get my copy of the speech over lunch on the day of. I’d read it, mark it up, and ask questions about it. I would have completely digested it by the time of the speech itself. Then came speech time, which I generally watched from the comfort of my office on the tube. And then I had to suffer through his hems and haws, and “I would says” and “at the end of the days,” and flat-out off-script digressions, all of them awkward, pausing to search for words, ignoring the speech in front of him. Nikki, with her teleprompter, was MUCH better. But I expected no less.
This is not to say that her style is without its irritating characteristics. There’s her prim, smug, I’m-the-girl-with-the-most-gold-stars-in-the-class tone that she too often affects. Watch, for instance, when she extols the blessings of having “a chief executive willing to lead the charge and make the tough decisions” — speaking, of course, of herself. I guess someone who came from the back bench to governor in a year is bound to be a bit self-congratulatory. Human nature. But she could tone it down a bit. And often, she does.
Do you know why she can only suggest $120 million worth of cuts toward the $719 million shortfall? Because she hasn’t suggested anything that her political base might object to. And it’s hard to come up with cuts that deep and still do that. She hit programs for those worthless, lazy poor people, of course. And when she got to the middle class, she only went after the stuff that those wicked, decadent liberals like — such as ETV. But the truth is, everybody will have reason to gripe when all the cuts are in. Because believe me, this state’s leaders will never pull an Illinois. Not that they should; I’m just assuring you that they won’t. It’s going to be cuts all the way. And that has nothing to do with Nikki Haley; that’s just the way our State House does things.
The ETV thing, of course, is nothing new. Back during the GOP runoff last year, I went over to tape an interview at ETV. They had already talked with Gresham Barrett for the same show. But Nikki wasn’t even calling them back. Scuttlebutt in the ETV corridors was that she didn’t want to talk to them because she was going to back Mark Sanford’s veto of their entire budget. Don’t know whether they were right, but I could see how they’d get that impression.
Don’t you love the way she blithely suggests that if you kill ETV (excuse me, “When you release government from the things it should not be responsible for…”), it has this miraculous effect: “you allow the private sector to be more creative and cost efficient.” Remarkable, the things these ideologues will say as though they believed them. Love or hate ETV — and I see it as what it is, one of those few things that South Carolina can point to as something it has done as well as, or better than, other parts of the country (at least in past years) — the notion that the private sector will fill the gap is laughable. You know, this private sector… (Remember when Bravo was known for high-quality arts programming. Not anymore, baby.)
I’m definitely with her on asking for quick confirmation of her appointees. She’s made some good picks, and they deserve the opportunity to get to work. Advise, consent, but let’s do it quickly.
That little nonsensical (to all but Tea Party ideologues) lecture about how federal funding is inherently a BAD thing was painful to listen to. See, the trouble with the feds sending us money to fund services is that “federal money comes strings, and with those strings come limitations.” The alternative, of course, in South Carolina is that those needs don’t get funded at all. But they’re not really needs, are they? Say that often enough, and you start to believe it. Apparently. In my book, it’s offensive nonsense to say “my cabinet will stop the practice of working the system to get increases in federal funding simply for the sake of expanding our budgets” — as if agencies have sought such funding for any other reason that to fund important services — services they are charged with providing — that the state won’t fund. But yeah, I get it: Her base believes government shouldn’t do such things anyway.
I love, love, love that she’s starting out asking for ending the separate election of constitutional officers. Of course, I’m disappointed that she’s only pushing to do two of them — Gov Lite and superintendent of education. But it’s a start, and maybe that’s the smart way: Isolate a couple, so lawmakers can’t hide their votes to kill them. Then do the others later. Remember what they did last time there were votes on the whole shebang? The senators swapped votes, with just enough voting against putting each constitutional change on the ballot to kill it, but each senator being able to say he voted for some (or most) of them. So in this case, maybe piecemeal is smart. And, we hope, a substantive move toward the greater accountability Nikki says she wants to foster.
NOTE: THIS BULLET POINT IS COMPLETELY WRONG. I MISREAD WHAT THE GOVERNOR SAID. IN FACT, I THINK WHAT SHE SAID WAS PRAISEWORTHY. I’VE WRITTEN A SEPARATE POST TO SAY SO, IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS. How’d you like this part? “The state of South Carolina pays more than $16,000 annually to incarcerate a single prisoner. We spend more each year on a prisoner than we do on a student. Think of the savings we’ll realize if we aren’t constantly welcoming back behind bars those prisoners who finish out their initial terms.” Usually, when a politician says that, he or she is suggesting that we need to do more to make sure kids get a good education so they don’t end up in prison, which IS more expensive. Nikki says it to justify spending less than our current lowest-in-the-nation amount per prisoner. One way she’d do this? Well, we’re already spending rock-bottom per meal, so we’ll just serve fewer meals. If you think this is a great idea, there’s nothing I can say to you. Except that there is a danger to all of us in running undermanned, underguarded prisons full of starved prisoners. But let’s move on.

I very much like that she’s started off her tenure on the Budget and Control Board by helping it work well together. She’s right to be smug about that. I like even better that she sound MORE determined last night than she has to insisting that the board be replaced with something more answerable to the governor. For years, lawmakers were able to shrug off this reform (and cling illegitimately to executive power) by saying you just couldn’t work with that Mark Sanford (which was true, but it was still just an excuse). Now, with the cooperative tone she’s set, they can’t say that. Let’s see some action. Stay on them on this, and keep pouring on the honey — since vinegar didn’t work.
This morning, I saw tweets from SCRG touting her speech. But there was no getting around the fact that she did not mention their signature issue — diverting funding from public education to private schools. Good for her. That was a welcome relief from the distracting nonsense of recent years.

Finally, a bit of a digression of my own: On the day that the U.S. House engaged in one of the most offensive partisan gestures I’ve seen in many a year — their farcical “repeal” of health care reform, demonstrating yet again that these yahoos who have taken over the GOP don’t give a damn about health care in America, they just want to cock a snook at Barack Obama at every opportunity — it was just as offensive to see the governor of our state take ANY time in a 34-minute speech to say that HER Cabinet will do all it can to opt out of that same reform. Because, you know, we don’t want South Carolina reaping any benefits that might accrue. If she hadn’t done that, I might have been able to take the fact that she wants to make the lion’s share of her cuts to Medicaid. But paired with that ideological statement, there was no way to put a positive spin on the cuts to care for the poor. Together, those gestures said, “We’re not going to help these people get health care, and we won’t let anyone else do it, either.”

There was good and bad in this brief, brisk, well-delivered speech. But that one thing kind of cast a pall over it all for me. Maybe it wouldn’t have bothered me so much if not for what the House had done that day. After all, while she couched it in ideological language (which is the only way to say the things she was saying, since pragmatism doesn’t enter into such an equation), and while her 1860-flavored digression about the rights of states to resist federal initiatives was kinda creepy amid the celebrations (as opposed to mere observances) we’re seeing related to that period, was downright creepy… still, I was pleased with the respectful, nonpartisan way she described her interaction with the president. But in the end creepy is creepy. And playing ideological games with the lives of sick people is inexcusable. No, we can’t pay for everything we’d like. And no, that federal legislation is far, FAR from perfect. But it’s the only live preserver that’s been thrown, and our governor has no business trying to yank it away.

It just seems to me that we have enough challenges here in South Carolina, more than enough for the governor to say grace over. I can see NO good reason to use any of our limited time, energy or resources mixing into these national partisan fights — especially if we don’t have a better plan for accomplishing what the feds are trying to accomplish.

The terrible, awful, horrible day that the VAT went up

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So maybe you didn’t feel it where you are, but today was the day — and they’ve been building up to it for the whole week that we’ve been in the UK, with sales urging people to come out and buy before it happened — that the VAT went up from 17.5 percent to 20 percent.

Guess what — I didn’t feel it, either.

There are several things that it’s taken some time to get used to here in the UK:

People driving on the left. This is maddening when you’re riding in a bus. And I’ve almost been hit from behind by buses several times walking along a road too close to the curb, with the road on my right (you expect to see traffic oncoming, but it sneaks up behind you — and is really close, because the lanes are so narrow).
The fact that tips aren’t expected. We made friends with a barman from Sri Lanka in Greenwich (a really nice guy), and he explained that they don’t get tips. We left him one anyway. But it’s really weird to leave, say, 15 quid for a bill of 12 pounds 52 pence, and have the server chase you out of the place trying to give you change. It happens time and again.
The fact that you NEVER feel the tax, no matter how high it is. That’s because it’s built into the price of the things you buy. If something is listed as 99p, and you give the clerk a pound coin (and why is it we haven’t had a dollar coin, or two or three dollar coin, catch on in this country? they’re so convenient), you get back a penny.
The fact that I’m in a country where the conservative party is raising taxes (OK, technically it’s a coalition government), and the dominant party of the left (Labour) is griping about what a terrible burden taxes are on ordinary families.

But both The Times and The Guardian are going on about this big, monstrous, huge increase. To which I say, who crosses the street to get a 2.5 percent discount on anything? I mean, really? This increase would amount to 25 p on 10 pounds. Or say you spend a thousand pounds on something — which is a lot more than a thousand dollars, mind — what’s the increase in tax? Twenty-five pounds. Like you’re going to worry about that if you can afford a thousand. (Oh, and by the way — that 600 pounds a family The Times predicts is on families that make 70,000 pounds or more. The burden is much less on median incomes.)

All that aside, the most amazing thing, the thing hardest to get used to, is that I’m in a country where the government has decided to deal with the deficit by — now get this — cutting spending and raising taxes. Of course, back home, the recent huge compromise between President Obama and the Republicans was to raise spending and lower taxes. That’s how we deal with deficits in the U.S. of A.

Riding through London on the magnificent Tube — which as far as I’m concerned is one of the marvels of the world, a testament to the ingenuity of Man — and asking directions from the helpful bobbies (“just 200 metres more on your roight, mate”), reading the extremely clear directions on where the buses that come every few minutes go, or going to the fantastic museums and paying nothing (except a few pounds voluntary contribution now and then), I personally feel that the tax I’m paying is one of the great bargains of all time.

And I’m wondering how well I’ll adjust when I get back home to a place where folks don’t want the gummint doing anything, ever, if it’s going to cost a penny more…

No, folks, I’m not a convert to socialism. I worry about the burdens of the welfare state, and I know that increasing taxes too much can have a nasty cooling effect on growth. But I have enjoyed some amenities here that seem more than worth the taxes I’ve paid here. All I’m saying.

The Congress that wasn’t going to get anything done (until Obama made them do it)

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Seems like everything I read over the last few months, before and after the election, was that this lame-duck Congress wouldn’t accomplish squat before its well-deserved demise. And when it DID talk about getting anything done, its sense of priorities was bizarre. For instance, just the other day on the radio I heard some Democratic leader (and I’m totally drawing a blank on who it was, which disappoints me, because it means I don’t get to castigate him or her by name) talking about how the Congress had Two Big Things to act on before quitting — the Obama/GOP tax cut deal, and DADT. Really. I’m serious. A bill with huge, systemic impact on our economy at a moment when we’re desperately trying to climb out of the hole the Great Recession put us in was mentioned in the same breath, and as being equally important to, a Kulturkampf wish list item. Really. This is the way these people think.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, they weren’t going to get anything done.

Well, today they passed this:

Congress passes extension of Bush-era tax cuts

By Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 17, 2010; 12:40 AMCongress approved the most significant tax bill in nearly a decade late Thursday, overcoming liberal resistance to continue for two more years tax breaks enacted under president George W. Bush and to provide a fresh boost of federal support to the tepid economic recovery….

How about that?

Of course, it wasn’t actually the Congress that made this happen. President Obama did, by very astutely making a deal with Republicans for something they wanted in order to get something he wanted while he still could.

Which is interesting. I mean, set aside the rather obvious reasons to worry about this bill. This actual effective action by the POTUS could have implications in all sorts of areas. This may be the clearest, most overt case since entering office in which Barack Obama has clearly stepped out and led, without deferring to the ditherers in his own party (as he so wrongly did on health care) or anyone else.

He showed, you know, leadership. The thing we elect presidents to show. This is important. It is perhaps even promising. Basically, what I’m saying here is that what Obama pulled off is quite the opposite of conventional wisdom among some on the left and the right, summarized in this cartoon by my buddy Robert.

Oh, by the way, no word on DADT. At least, I don’t think so. Maybe you’d better check with someone who is actually into following that…

Clyburn and DeMint: Two peas, one pod

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Yesterday, after reading about the split between Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint on the tax cut deal, I Tweeted this:

So I see Jim DeMint is siding with the most liberal Democrats on the tax cut deal. No surprise there: Extremes are extremes…

Today, I get this release from Jim Clyburn:

WASHINGTON, DC – House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-SC) released the following statement on the vote before the House on Obama’s tax cut package.

“While I am pleased that the tax package approved by the House tonight extends important tax cuts to middle-income families and unemployment insurance for millions of Americans, adding $25 billion to the deficit to give a major tax benefit to the estates of the richest 6,600 families in America made it impossible for me to vote for the final package. This measure does not create a single job or stimulate the economy in any way.

‘I hope that as we move forward and our economy continues to recover, we will restore some fairness to the tax code and reduce the burden we are putting on future generations.”

As I said…

Lots of people go through life thinking of Republicans as “the other side” if they are Democrats, and vice versa. Me, I tend to think of the ideological True Believers as the “other side,” the folks with whom I tend to have a knee-jerk disagreement.

The fact that DeMint and Clyburn are both against this deal that President Obama made with (some) Republicans makes me predisposed, on a gut level, to like it.

Of course, that is in some ways irrational, akin to a partisan response. Only with me, I’m being reflexively, emotionally UnPartisan. There is much to dislike in this deal. Such as what? Well, take a look at the national debt. How am I supposed to feel great about a “compromise” that means MORE spending and LESS tax revenue (unless, of course, it has a stimulative effect on the economy and leads to MORE revenue, which I sincerely doubt at this point, since we’re mainly talking about simply continuing current practices)? Not that I’m against continuing unemployment benefits, or against continuing the tax cuts (and I truly could not care less that rich people also get the tax cuts — this obsession some people have with what other people “get” is most unseemly). It’s just the sum total effect that concerns me. (To paraphrase something Tom Friedman famously said about George W. Bush, Just because the Tea Party believes it doesn’t mean that it’s not true. The “it” here being the idea that ever-deeper deficit spending is something to worry about.)

But when you have the pragmatic Obama on one side of an issue, and DeMint and Clyburn locking arms on the other side, my gut pushes me to go with Obama. It’s just a little quirk I have.

City doing what it has to do on buses

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Yesterday I had breakfast with Joel Lourie over at the Lizard’s Thicket on Forest, and as we were chatting he was accosted by a constituent who didn’t like what he’d halfway heard Joel saying about the need for more moderates in the Legislature. He proceeded to lecture Joel on why voters are more and more “conservative” these days. Mainly, it had to do with spending.

But the thing that jumped out at me was the local example he used. After excoriating the effort to raise the sales tax to pay for transportation needs, he said, flat out, “We don’t need buses.” He said it like public transit was just the stupidest, most wasteful idea he had ever heard of.

The conversation ended pleasantly, as Joel listened politely and declined to engage the voter on the more incendiary things he said. (After many years of dealing with angry readers, I can testify that’s a good formula for ending conversations better than they started — look for areas of agreement, look for opportunities to explain your own position better, but mainly allow the frustration to be vented. Most people just want to be heard, and don’t have the same opportunities to make that happen that politicians and journalists do.)

But I thought back to it later in the day. Brian Murrell of ADCO and I went to get some lunch at Greek Boys, and had to park almost a block away north on Sumter. As we walked past the bus stop at Sumter and Hampton in the bitter cold, we passed a guy — probably a patient from Palmetto Health Baptist across the street — standing with a walker waiting for the bus.

We had a nice, warm lunch inside — I had the beef tips over rice with greek salad (minus the feta). It didn’t take all that long — service is fast there — but we weren’t in a hurry, either. We took time to chat with Butch Bowers and Todd Carroll from Hall Bowers over at the next table. Call it 30 minutes, maybe 40.

Then we bundled back up and headed back into the bluster. And as we passed the bus stop, there was that same guy with the walker, still waiting. He had to be chilled right through his bones.

At that moment, I wish that voter from Lizard’s Thicket that morning had been there to tell THAT guy we don’t need buses.

All of which is a long way of getting to the point that Columbia City Council is simply doing what has to be done by coming up for different revenue source for the bus system, for now. Read about that here.

What we should have done was pass the sales tax. But since we didn’t, the city’s got to do something (and so will the county). So that, so far, is what it’s doing.

I’d like to see Obama COMMIT to something

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My friends at The State were right today to praise the fact that President Obama is working with Republicans on a compromise on taxes and unemployment benefits. But they were equally right to be unenthusiastic about the deal itself.

On the one hand, it’s good that we’re not going to see our economy further crippled by untimely tax increases (even if all they are are restorations to pre-Bush levels). And it’s good that the jobless needing those benefits will have them. (At least, that these things will happen if this deal gets through Congress.) On the other, we’re looking at a deal that embodies some of the worst deficit-ballooning values of both parties: tax cuts for the Republicans, more spending for the Democrats.

It’s tragic, and bodes very ill for our country, that this flawed compromise stirs such anger on both partisan extremes: Some Democrats are beside themselves at this “betrayal” by the president. (Which bemuses me — as y’all know, I have trouble understanding how people get so EMOTIONAL about such a dull, gray topic as taxes, whether it’s the rantings of the Tea Partiers who don’t want to pay them, especially if the dough goes to the “undeserving poor,” or the ravings of the liberal class warriors who don’t want “the undeserving rich” to get any breaks. Why not save that passion for something that really matters?) Meanwhile, people on the right — such as Daniel Henninger in the WSJ today — chide Obama for not going far enough on taxes.

In this particular case, I think the folks on the right have a bit of a point (some of them — I have no patience for DeMint demanding the tax cuts and fighting the spending part), but it doesn’t have to do with taxes — it has to do with the president’s overall approach to leadership, and a flaw I see in it. Henninger complains that these tax cut extensions are unlikely to get businesses to go out and invest and create jobs, since the president threatens to eliminate the cuts a year or two down the line.

That actually makes sense (even if it does occur in a column redolent with offensive right-wing attitudes — he sneers at Ma Joad in “The Grapes of Wrath”), and I see in it echoes of the president’s flawed approach in another important arena — Afghanistan.

Here’s the thing: If keeping these tax cuts is the right thing to do to help our economy, then they should be kept in place indefinitely — or “permanently,” as the Republicans say. Of course, there is nothing permanent in government. The next Congress, or the one after that, can raise taxes through the roof if it chooses.

The problem, in other words, isn’t that the cuts won’t be permanent, because nothing is in politics. The problem is that the president is, on the front end, negating whatever beneficial effect might be gained from extending the cuts by coming out and promising that they won’t last.

One of the big reasons why the economy hasn’t improved faster than it has this year is that businesses, small and large, have not known what to expect from the recent election in terms of future tax policy with these tax cuts expiring. People were waiting to see what would happen on taxes before taking investment risks. (Even if the liberal Democrats were to eliminate the cuts, knowing that would be better than the uncertainty.) And even with the election over, the future has remained murky. The best thing about such a deal between the president and the GOP should be that it wipes away those clouds and provides clarity.

But the president negates that by saying yes, we’ll keep the cuts in place, but only for a short time. You may look forward now to a time when there are unspecified increases. And Henninger has a point when he says:

But if an angry, let-me-be-clear Barack Obama just looked into the cameras and said he’s coming to get you in two years, what rational economic choice would you make? Spend the profit or gains 2011 might produce on new workers, or bury any new income in the backyard until the 2012 presidential clouds clear?

Ditto with the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. What good is it to say we’re going to stay and fight NOW if at the same time you give a future date when you’re going to leave (or, as the president has said, start leaving)? What are they going to do? They’re going to sit tight and wait for you to leave on schedule. (And yes, pragmatic people may take comfort from the fact that the president has allowed himself lots of wiggle-room to stay there — but the harm has been done by the announcement of the intention to leave). Every effort should be taken to make one’s adversaries believe you’re willing to fight them forever (even if you aren’t), if you ever hope to achieve anything by fighting.

The problem in both cases is trying to have one’s cake and eat it, too — making a deal with the Republicans without one’s base getting too mad at you, or maintain our security commitment without (here comes that base thing again) freaking out the anti-war faction too much. What this ignores is that out in the REAL world, as opposed to the one where the parties play partisan tit-for-tat games, real people react in ways that matter to your policy moves: Business people continue to sit rather than creating jobs; the Taliban waits you out while your allies move away from you because they know they have to live there when you’re gone.

What would be great would be if Barack Obama should commit for the duration to something. He should have committed to a single-payer approach to health care from the beginning. Going in with a compromise meant that we got this mish-mash that health care “reform” turned into. He should commit to a plan on the economy, and not undermine it by saying he’s only going to do it for a little while. And most of all, he should commit to Afghanistan, and not try to mollify his base with dangerous deadlines.

What the president does, and even says, matters. He needs to recognize that, pick a direction, and stick with it long enough to have a salutary effect. Whatever their ideology, that’s what leaders do. And we could use some leadership.

I took care of that deficit thing. Ya got anything else needs doin’?

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Thanks to Phillip for bringing our attention to this NYT page, where you, too, can try to eliminate the national deficit.

I managed to do it. And it wasn’t especially hard. It was a little hard, just not especially. I’ll be happy to let the Congress use my plan, for a consideration of a mere half a percent of the amount by which I reduced it.

The only thing I did that I had real qualms about (and yeah, I know that credible arguments can be mounted against everything I did, but the rules of the game, in real life and here, are that you’ve got to do something) was when I decided to cap Medicare growth starting in 2013. That sounds to me suspiciously like the kind of arbitrary limit that Tom Davis et al. want to enact in South Carolina. But I excused myself in the hope that it would exert downward pressure on costs. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t, though. The only way the federal gummint would really be able to lower costs is if we are ALL in the program — then there wouldn’t be anyone left to raise prices on. Note that I did NOT raise the age of Medicare eligibility. That’s because I think it should be extended to everybody — except that those of us under 65 would pay for it, just the way we do for employer-provided insurance.

I really went back and forth on that one. But if I didn’t do it, I fell short of the goal, and there wasn’t anything else I would consider doing. If I did do it, I exceeded the goal. (As you can see if you check my plan, I have surpluses. Am I good or what?)

And of course, of COURSE, we should raise the age for full Social Security eligibility. Average life expectancy today is 77.9 years. Those born in 1900 only expected to live 50 years. So 70 is like the new, I don’t know, 45.

And yeah, I know states are hurting, but aid to states is just not a core function — and maybe not even a legitimate function at all — of the federal government.

I didn’t touch military spending, particularly not ongoing operations — except for cutting some new weapons programs.

Overall, 33 percent of my deficit reduction came from tax increases, and 67 percent from spending cuts. So take THAT, all of you think I love all tax increases.

Seriously, I charted a middle road on the whole Bush tax cuts issue, because I find both sides of the debate sort of persuasive and sort of not. Democrats’ ranting about Republicans’ “tax cuts for the rich” leave me cold. So does Republicans’ love for tax cuts for the rich. Heh. The issue is what makes sense for both our economy and the proper functions of government. Hence my middle road.

Worth revisiting: The flaw in tax credit argument

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Yesterday I got this kind note from a schoolteacher:

Mr. Warthen,

For years I have quoted an article you wrote for the state newspaper entitled, “Put Parents in Charge isn’t a ‘voucher bill’ it’s something much worse” to my public speaking classes as they begin persuasive arguments and to my friends and family who insist that school choice is fair and responsible. I continually return to your argument that asks, are we a citizen or a consumer?

I searched The State archives today to find a way to link to your article on my FaceBook page. In my ever so humble peon public school teacher opinion, I have never encountered a better argument against vouchers. Public schools are the least discriminatory institution in America—we serve everyone—whether a parent has the money to choose or not, and we are part of the infrastructure of our country.

I hope that you understand…, [but]… I have photocopied your article since its publication in March of 2005. What is a public school teacher in Lexington County to do?? I have used it to make my students see one side of this issue that they may never have been able to see otherwise. With the election of Mick Zais, I am truly frightened that this issue is on the table again and more a reality than ever before. The article, as well as your very logical argument, needs to be resurrected and published again.

She’s got a point. Maybe this would be a good time to revisit some of the basic flaws in the arguments for tax credits (and, for that matter, vouchers). Not because Mick Zais was elected, but because Nikki Haley was. (Think about it: when was the last time you saw a state superintendent lead a significant political fight? The job is ministerial, not political, which is why it should not be elected.) Here’s the column she was looking for. It was published in The State on March 4, 2005:

Put Parents in Charge isn’t a ‘voucher bill’ — it’s something much worse

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor

SOUTH CAROLINIANS for Responsible Government, the group advocating Gov. Mark Sanford’s tuition tax credit proposal, criticizes its opponents for repeatedly calling “Put Parents in Charge” a “voucher” proposal.

On this score, the group is absolutely right, and Mr. Sanford’s critics are dead wrong.

This is not a voucher bill. It’s nothing like a voucher bill. It’s something much worse.

It’s worse because of the hole it will blow in state revenues, to be sure. To pass what is essentially a tarted-up tax cut bill without considering its effect on all state services (not just education), would be inexcusable.

But the main way in which a tuition tax credit is worse than a voucher is that it promotes the insidiously false notion that taxes paid for public schools are some sort of user fee.

Whether you agree with me here depends upon your concept of your place in society: Do you see yourself as a consumer, or as a citizen?

If you look upon public schools narrowly as a consumer, and you send your kids to private schools or home-school them, then you might think, “Hey, why should I be paying money to this provider, when I’m buying the service from someone else?” If that’s your view, a tuition tax credit makes perfect sense to you. Why shouldn’t you get a refund?

But if you look at it as a citizen, it makes no sense at all. Public schools have never been about selling a commodity; they have always been about the greatest benefits and highest demands of citizenship.

A citizen understands that parents and their children are not the only “consumers” of public school services — not by a long shot. That individual children and families benefit from education is only one important part of the whole picture of what public schools do for society. The rest of us voters and taxpayers have a huge stake, too.

Public schools exist for the entire community — for people with kids in public schools and private schools, people whose kids are grown, people who’ve never had kids and those who never will. (Note that, by the logic of the tax credit advocates, those last three groups should get tax breaks, too. In fact, if only the one-third or so of households who have children in public schools at a given time paid taxes to support them, we wouldn’t be able to keep the schools open.)

Public schools exist to provide businesses with trained workers, and to attract industries that just won’t locate in a place without good public schools. They exist to give our property value. If you doubt the correlation between good public schools and property values, just ask a Realtor.

They exist to create an informed electorate — a critical ingredient to a successful representative democracy. (In fact, if I were inclined to argue that public schools have failed, I would point out just how many people we have walking around without a clear understanding of their responsibilities as citizens. But I don’t expect public education critics to use that one.)

Public schools exist to make sure we live in a decent society full of people able to live productive lives, instead of roaming the streets with no legitimate means of support. In terms of cost-effectiveness on this score, spending roughly $4,400 per pupil for public schools (the state’s actual share, not the inflated figure the bill’s advocates use, which includes local and federal funds) is quite a bargain set against the $13,000 it costs to keep one young person in prison. And South Carolina has the cheapest prisons in the nation.

Consider the taxes we pay to provide fire protection. It doesn’t matter if we never call the fire department personally. We still benefit (say, by having lower insurance rates) because the fire department exists. More importantly, our neighbors who do have an immediate need for the fire department — as many do each day — depend upon its being there, and being fully funded.

All of us have the obligation to pay the taxes that support public schools, just as we do for roads and law enforcement and the other more essential services that government provides. And remember, those of you who think of “government” as some wicked entity that has nothing to do with you: Government provides only those things that we, acting through our elected representatives, decide it should provide. You might disagree with some of those decisions, but you know, you’re not always going to be in the majority in a democracy.

If, as a consumer, you wish to pay for an alternative form of education for your child, you are free to do that. But that decision does not relieve you of the responsibility as a citizen to support the basic infrastructure of the society in which you live.

Radical libertarians — people who see themselves primarily as consumers, who want to know exactly what they are personally, directly receiving for each dollar that leaves their hands — don’t understand the role of government in society because they simply don’t understand how human beings are interconnected. I’m not just saying that we should be interconnected; I’m saying that we are, whether we like it or not. And if we want society to work so that we have a decent place in which to dwell, we have to adopt policies that recognize that stark fact.

That’s why we have public schools. And that’s why we all are obliged to support them.

The State decides it, too, is 55 percent for the sales tax referendum

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A couple of days ago, I was talking with a good friend — a very conservative Republican leader, a longtime close ally of Mark Sanford — about politics and mentioned the proposed penny sales tax increase for transportation in Richland County. He said, derisively (but in a friendly way), something along the lines of, “And you just think that would be GREAT, don’t you?”

Well, no. As I explained to him, I’m probably about 45 percent against it. But I’m more than 50 percent for it, when all is weighed and measured. So I’ve gone out of my way to help support the effort to pass it — now that I’m not a newspaper editor any more, and am in more of a position to stand up for things I believe in instead of just writing about them.

But I know that I SEEM like a pro-tax guy to someone who is strongly anti-tax and has powerful feelings on the subject. The thing is, I’m about as neutral as a guy can get on taxes. I look at a particular tax in a particular situation, and I look for logical reasons to take a particular position on it — raise it, lower it, eliminate it, place or remove restrictions on it, whatever.

At no point does any sort of personal FEELING about taxes enter into it. I guess because I never really feel personally put-upon, but look at it from 30,000 feet in terms of whether it makes sense as policy. (In fact, one reason I like this tax is that I, as a Lexington Countian who doesn’t pay Richland County property taxes but spends most of my waking ours in Columbia, taking advantage of the amenities here, would have to pay my share of it. That’s fair.) Sometimes I decide a tax proposal doesn’t make good policy sense. Sometimes I decide it does. The penny sales tax on Tuesday’s ballot in Richland County is one case that, when you balance all the pros and cons, makes sense under the circumstances.

My primary concern here is making sure we have a transportation system for folks who can’t afford to own a car (which is sort of the definition of poverty in this country). I don’t like that the mechanism is a sales tax (except for the part about people like me, from outside the county, paying it), but until someone waves a magic wand or does a brain transplant on the Legislature (just don’t use the one from that “Abby Normal” guy!), we are going to have an overburdened sales tax.

You know why that is? It’s because of some of the ANTI-tax people. In this state, anti-tax sentiment has tended to center on property taxes and to some extent the income tax. So basically we’ve pushed down on those (especially the property tax, and most especially the tax on owner-occupied homes), creating upward pressure on sales taxes.

Which is just fine with certain elements of the anti-tax movement in SC, because there’s a line of thought followed by a lot (although certainly not all) of its adherents: “Government is a thing that is hostile to people like me (white, middle-class people). Government exists to do one thing: take money away from people like me, and give it to undeserving people (usually black, poor people), either through direct payments (welfare as we knew it) or services for THEM and not for ME. A property tax is unfair because it penalizes me for working hard and sacrificing to buy a home. A sales tax is fair because THOSE PEOPLE have to pay it, too (never mind that the taxes on rental property are higher and are passed on as part of rent).”

So you end up with essential services, from school operations to transportation infrastructure, being paid for by the overburdened and unstable sales tax.

That’s not good, for a host of reasons. But that’s the way things are, and that is the reality that Richland County has to deal with. This is the option it has.

As you know, I continue to advocate strongly for comprehensive tax reform. This state badly needs to get on a sounder, fairer, better-balanced fiscal footing. (One of the great ironies of politics in SC is that we’ve now gotten to where EVERYBODY, including Vincent Sheheen and Nikki Haley, are for comprehensive tax reform — but we still haven’t gotten it.) But I understand that Richland County does not have the power to make that happen, and has to deal with the situation before it.

And this sales tax is a sound, practical way to get the job done.

But I know all the arguments against it. And BECAUSE I know all those arguments, and I know my former colleagues at The State, I did not expect the paper to endorse the referendum.

It was looking like the paper wouldn’t endorse either way — with only Cindi and Warren left writing for the page, the number of endorsements overall have been curtailed dramatically — but it if did, it might be against. I had read Warren’s columns setting out the arguments for AND against, and figured that would be that. And I knew Cindi — her inclinations would set her against it. (She, even more than I, has had a “no tax increases until comprehensive tax reform” attitude that colors such decisions.)

But Friday, I was pleased to see the paper DID take the plunge on an issue it was truly torn over. And it ended up where I did — not crazy about it, but ultimately for it.

Here’s an excerpt from the endorsement, “Say ‘yes’ to transportation sales tax:”

We have multiple concerns about the plan on Tuesday’s ballot: The volatile sales tax already is being relied on too heavily — in our community and across the state. It’s already 9 cents on some items in Richland County. It’s difficult to swallow raising it even more in this down economy. Moreover, most of the billion-plus dollars the tax would raise won’t be used to fund our primary need — the bus system; two-thirds would be spent on road improvements and building sidewalks, bike paths and greenways.

Despite these concerns, we have reluctantly concluded that on balance it is in the best interest of this community, its quality of life and its economy. We believe voters should approve the sales tax, and also allow the county to borrow $200 million, which would be repaid using the tax, in order to get work started as soon as possible.

One appealing aspect of this plan is that people from outside the county would pay a projected 40 percent of the tax. But two things in particular tipped the balance for us. The first is the overriding need for a vibrant bus system to serve those whose lives and livelihoods depend on it, support the economy and provide a transportation option that helps reduce congestion, pollution and gas use.

The second is the broad support the plan has received. Thirty-nine well-respected citizens, including Columbia College President Caroline Whitson and Columbia Urban League President J.T. McLawhorn, sat on the commission whose study formed the basis of this proposal; many have been vocal in their support of the increase. In addition, a number of influential business people have galvanized behind this effort. These include some of this community’s more conservative leaders…

By the way, I had accompanied a delegation of referendum supporters — J.T. McLawhorn, Ted Speth and several others — when they went and made their pitch to the editorial board. That was a personal milestone, the very first time I’ve been in that room since leaving the paper, and my first time ever on that side of the equation. The full board was there (Cindi, Warren, Mark Lett and Henry Haitz). One of my fellow guests asked me, “Was Obama in this room?” I said yes, in the seat being occupied by Lee Bussell (another member of our delegation). John McCain had sat there, too, more than once. And Joe Biden, John Edwards, Joe Lieberman. George W. Bush. Ted Sorensen. Plenty of others had been in the room, but not in that particular chair like those. Lots of memories.

I didn’t say much. And the board didn’t ask many questions. I really didn’t feel it had gone that well, since I had reason to believe the odds were against us, and the meeting just didn’t feel (based on my long experience) like a game-changer. But then, I had never been in that position.

Afterward, Cindi and Warren gave me a tour of their new digs. They’ve moved out of our top-floor suite of offices (editorial is no longer a separate division reporting to the publisher, but under news chief Mark Lett) and are now in the part of the newsroom that used to be the morgue — library, I suppose I should say (“morgue” is a term that dates to the old days in newspapers, before that building was built). They’ve turned the area into offices, plus a little conference room, by making walls out of tall bookcases and cabinets. It’s nicer than I thought it would be.

Anyway, they didn’t say anything to indicate how they thought the meeting had gone. Until Friday, I had thought they had decided not to take a stand on it either way. (And in fact, I worried that the board meeting might have pushed them to take a stand, and the stand would be against. It was that much of a near thing.) So the Friday endorsement was a nice, welcome surprise.

Like me, my former colleagues don’t consider the plan one to jump for joy over. But all things considered, the right answer is “yes.”

It wasn’t me, but what a good idea

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Once the clan had wandered back, in our several vehicles (12 of us, 3 vehicles), from Memphis after the big wedding weekend was over, my eldest texted me to ask:

Know anything about that sign in my yard?

To which I replied, in all innocence:

No, not that I recall.

Note that I did not add, “… at this point in time,” because it would have sounded too Watergatish. She wrote back,

Someone stuck a sign in support of the penny sales tax in my yard. No idea who.

Well, I continue to have no memory of taking any action to lead to that eventuality.

But it was certainly a good idea! So, nice going to whomever. And I’m taking it as a good sign, so to speak, that the item was still up in her yard when I drove by and took the above picture at 3:25 PM today.

When the going gets tough, the tough talkers fail to pay their taxes on time

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The last couple of days have been busy, too busy for me to report adequately on Nikki Haley’s appearance before the Columbia Rotary Club Monday.

Of course, there’s not much to report. She basically gave the same speech I’ve heard all year — the same one I heard at that Sarah Palin rally, which frankly I see as the moment Nikki peaked. She was at the height of her powers. She was that creature I’ve recognized so often — one who knows he or she is on the ascendance. It was that evening that I knew she was going to win the primary.

What’s remarkable is that now she’s still giving the same speech. For instance, she still has the gall to tout her experience and ability as an accountant — even though now (as opposed to when she started giving this speech) we know that pretty much every opportunity she’s had to apply these skills, in her personal finances and her family’s business, she’s left a mess behind, littered with broken deadlines and fines that had to be paid. Have you ever had to pay a fine for failure to pay taxes on time? And do you go around boasting about how you’re a great accountant? Well, she still does, and she demonstrably is not.

But that doesn’t seem to bother her.

My friend Mike Fitts, who writes for Columbia Regional Business Report, asked to come to Rotary as my guest, so I invited him. I gather Mike has had a bit of trouble getting Nikki’s attention. But when I asked him that, he said no, he had been allowed 20 minutes with her — in August.

Mike managed to dredge a story out of the speech, but it’s not the strongest of news angles. An excerpt:

Haley says family financial struggles led to tax issues

By Mike Fitts

mfitts@scbiznews.com

Published Oct. 19, 2010

Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley said her family “was struggling” financially when they failed to pay or file their income taxes on time.

Haley took a question about the tax issues during her Monday visit to the downtown Columbia Rotary Club. According to published reports, Haley was late paying her taxes for the years 2004 to 2006, accruing more than $4,000 in late payment penalties. The family did see its reported income cut in half between 2005 and 2006, dropping to just more than $40,000.

Haley said she and her husband had lost some income at the time and were shutting down a business. The economic aftermath of the 9/11 attacks had dented their retail business, as it had many others.

“We know what it’s like to struggle,” Haley said.

While the Internal Revenue Service does allow extensions for paperwork, it expects taxpayers to make an accurate assessment of the likely tax bill and to pay on time.

The question came from a Rotarian who described himself as a supporter, saying he wanted to give the Lexington Republican a chance to clear up the issue….

Maybe that was the best, newest angle to come out of the session; I don’t know. But I remember that when I heard her say it, I thought, “Duh!” I mean, we kinda assumed that she was having financial difficulties. Not paying your taxes is a financial difficulty in itself.

The issue, of course, is how you deal with difficulties. And since she obviously dealt with hers in less than a stellar manner — especially for such an ace accountant — the question remains how she squares this with her touted skills. At two points in her performance Monday, she said the following:

If you’re in business, you know: The best decisions are when you go through the hardest times. There’s an opportunity there, because it will force us to prioritize…

What I’d like to know is how she squares that with how poorly she handled tough times. I know a thing or two about tough times, about seeing your source of income kicked out from under you and wondering how you’re going to get the mortgage paid. But I also know that one thing you want to avoid is getting in a situation in which you have to pay a fine on top of the taxes you owe. I’m no accountant, but I can figure that out.

And you definitely don’t do it if you’re going to have the nerve to ask voters to elect you to handle their money.

“The Brad Show” is BACK! Our guest — Caroline Whitson

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Well, I told you it was coming back, and here it is!

After a well-received pilot episode, “The Brad Show” got put on the back burner — not by network twits like the ones who canceled “Firefly” (and who will no doubt go to the “special hell” that Shepherd Book preached about) — but by me, because I was way busy trying to keep a blog going while working a new job.

But now it’s back, and it has cool new intro and theme music, compliments of ADCO Interactive’s Jay Barry. I told Jay I wanted something sort of NPRish, or Dick Cavettesque, and with that crystal-clear direction, this is what he came up with.

Watch, enjoy, and be edified. Not by me, but by my guest, the president of Columbia College, and leader in the effort to pass the penny sales tax for transportation — which is what we talked about.

We also talked about Caroline’s plans to don a Catwoman-like costume for the Ludie Bowl festivities over the weekend. She promises pictures, which I’m looking forward to seeing, and posting…

Correction (sorta): I was wrong, but I was also right

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Last night, Cindi Scoppe, who as long as I’ve known her has NEVER looked at e-mail or the Web on weekends*, shocked me by writing to make an observation on one of my blog posts.

She was writing to set me straight on Act 388, which I mentioned on the penny sales tax post. She said she wasn’t sure that it WAS 388; she thought it might me 488. And she said that it only raised the sales tax one cent, not two.

I wrote back that I was sure that I was right on the name of it, but was going by memory on the two cents; and was she sure?

I had the enormous satisfaction of knowing I was at least half right. It IS 388. But with her extensive files at hand, she was able to say I was dead wrong on the two cents.

So I was wrong. Sorry about that. I’m going to go fix it now…

* This is not to say she doesn’t work all weekend; she does. She takes home long, boring documents to read, the kind of documents that I would rather suffer several pokes in the eye with a sharp stick than read on a weekend.

I get off the sidelines, and take a stand: Pass the penny sales tax for transportation

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Caroline Whitson speaks to the gathering at the Penny Sales Tax campaign kickoff.

You know that press conference that they had at the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce Thursday to support the sales tax referendum for transportation Thursday? I was there, and not as a blogger. I mean, I’m always a blogger — here I am writing about it — but that’s not why I was there.

I was there to support the referendum. Ike McLeese and Betty Gregory with the Chamber had asked a group of supporters (and I had told them I was willing to help) to show up so that the media people could see a nice cross-section of the community willing to stand up for it.

This would not be a big deal for most people, but it is for me. I’ve always been a professional observer, which is to say, I’ve always been on the sidelines. Sure, I’ve been telling people in writing where I stand on issues off and on since the early ’70s, when I was the editorial page editor of The Helmsman, the student newspaper at Memphis State. And ever since I joined The State‘s editorial board in ’94, I’ve not only written what I thought about all and sundry, but I’ve also always been clear about my views when I speak to groups in the community. In fact, since we were SO strongly against the state lottery, and we were so committed to using any venue we could in trying (against all odds) to defeat it, I actually argued against it in some public debates in the months leading up to the referendum. My good friend Samuel Tenenbaum and I had a regular road show going — he would be “pro” and I would be “anti.” I had right on my side, but of course his side won.

But this is different. I have agreed, in writing, to be a public supporter of an issue before voters on the November ballot.

Why have I taken this stand? Well, I’ll tell ya…

In some ways, it’s an unlikely place to start being involved. If I’d tried to predict it, I would have said I’d save myself for something big, and statewide — say, helping Vincent Sheheen get elected. As y’all know, I have held for many years that THE most important electoral decision voters make every four years is choosing a governor. With our state being so dominated by the Legislature, and the Legislature by nature being extremely resistant to change, the only way our state is ever going to stop being last where we want to be first and first where we want to last is for someone elected statewide to use the bully pulpit (which is about the only tool the governor has) to exert a counterbalancing force for reform and progress. And it is especially critical that Sheheen be elected rather than the Sanford disciple he’s up against. But beyond what I write here, I’m not doing anything to help him. (Disclosure: ADCO Interactive did the new Sheheen Web site, but I was not and am not involved with that project.)

But I got involved with this instead. Here are some reasons why:

I believe public transit is essential for our community to grow and prosper (as J.T. McLawhorn said at the meeting, public transit is a vital part of a community’s circulatory system, and without that, “You’re dead.”), and next year the bus system — a rather poor, lame excuse for public transportation, but it’s all we’ve got — runs out of money.
Every other venue for keeping it going has been thoroughly explored. And I think you will notice that those opposing this referendum don’t present a viable alternative. A community group spent vast amounts of volunteer time two years ago studying all of Richland County’s transportation needs. $500,000 worth of studies were done. This was the only viable way to do it, given the straitjacket that the Legislature puts communities in when it comes to taxing and spending. Ask Columbia College President Caroline Whitson, who chaired that effort: This is the way to do it. The unpopular temporary wheel tax that’s keeping it going now is not a workable permanent solution.
That revenue would also pay for a number of other needed improvements to transportation infrastructure — bike and hiking trails, and road improvements — that were identified through that same wide-ranging community conversation two years back. This answers those who say “I don’t ride the bus” (as if taxes were a user fee, but let’s not go down that philosophical rathole right now). This plan has something for everyone in the county. And it’s not a wish list; there is considerable community support behind each of these projects.
Funding from other sources for the road projects is not any more forthcoming — from state or federal sources, or anywhere else — than is funding for the bus system. This is truly a case in which a community has come together to determine it’s needs, and identified a sensible way to pay for it without asking for a handout — a handout that, as I say, isn’t coming. This is something Richland County needs to do for itself, and this is the best way available to do it.
It’s a fair way to pay for this. Some may protest that I don’t live in the county, so who am I to speak out? My answer to that is that THIS is the way to get people like me — who spend almost all our waking hours in Richland County, and benefit from its roads and other services — to pay our share. I’m more than willing to do it. Richland County residents who pay property taxes should be twice as willing, even eager.
Like many of you, I’m concerned about putting too much stress on the sales tax. Nikki Haley and the other lawmakers who wrongheadedly supported Act 388, and adamantly refuse to repeal it, badly distorted our already fouled-up tax system. They eliminated school operations taxes on owner-occupied homes by raising the sales tax by a penny. They did this on top of the fact that they had forced local communities to turn to a local option sales tax by proscribing or restricting other revenue sources. Because of all that, this is the only option local communities have for such needs as this. And of course, it also has the virtue I mentioned above. A magnet county like Richland, drawing people from all over central South Carolina, should rely more on a sales tax than other counties.
This method has been used with great success in other communities across the state — Charleston, Florence and York counties have benefited greatly. For a lot of the business leaders who are lining up behind this, watching those communities improve their infrastructure and get a leg up in economic development while we continue to fall behind is a huge motivation factor in supporting this.

There are other reasons that aren’t coming to me at the moment as I type this, which I will no doubt write about in the coming weeks. In the meantime, you might want to peruse this summary of the proposal.

The folks who turned out for the kickoff Thursday were a pretty good group. As I stood in the crowd listening to the speakers, I could see from where I was standing: Ted Speth (the first speaker), Steve Benjamin, Joel & Kit Smith, Barbara Rackes, Samuel Tenenbaum, Rick Silver, Emily Brady, Col. Angelo Perri, Cathy Novinger, Bernice Scott, Jennifer Harding, Chuck Beamon, J.T. McLawhorn, Candy Waites, Paul Livingston, Greg Pearce, Lee Bussell, Sonny White and Mac Bennett.

Here’s a longer list of folks who pledged ahead of the kickoff to support the campaign. But I know it’s not complete, because my name isn’t on it.

More about this as we go along. This campaign has just begun.

bradwarthen.com

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