South Carolina legislators pass a lot of laws simply by shouting “yea” or “nay.” But critics contend that system doesn’t allow the public to figure out how a politician voted because those shouts aren’t written down. But a state House push for greater accountability appears to have backfired in a remarkable way: turning it all [...]
Our tax system as currently constructed isn’t working – not for individuals, not for families, and not for businesses. For too long we’ve come at tax policy with a Band-Aid approach: see a problem, patch the problem, forget the problem. That’s a terrible way to go about things, as inevitably it creates holes and shifts [...]
Here’s some advice for House Speaker Bobby Harrell of Charleston: Keep it simple. Harrell’s answer to a call for more recorded votes in the General Assembly includes a double twist that has some lawmakers rightly crying foul. After a 77-34 vote on changes to the rules and three hours of debate in an organizing meeting [...]
As a small businesswoman and accountant by trade – my first job was keeping the books for our family business when I was 13 – I understand that our focus has to be on reining in our spending. Government is not responsible in the way it handles taxpayer money, and as a result does a [...]
House plan adds some but not all transparency needed South Carolina state House members adopted a rule this week that will better enable their constituents to evaluate the voting records of their representatives, but which falls short of the full transparency needed. State lawmakers have been under fire for taking too few recorded votes. These [...]
One day not too long ago, a business-leader type, discussing reform legislation of some sort, said within my hearing that if David Wilkins were Speaker of the S.C. House today, you’d see some action on the bill in question — implying that Bobby Harrell isn’t the Speaker his predecessor was. Well, I may not be [...]
