It’s that time of year — the time of year that the land is producing acre upon acre of bountiful food. This corn field, along U.S. Highway 176 at the Calhoun-Orangeburg county line, illustrates the continuing importance of agribusiness to the Palmetto State. Coming soon: Fresh tomatoes, beans, squash and more. (Photo by Andy Brack)
NEWSCan we raise taxes without letting blood?
A news analysis by Bill Davis
MAY 29, 2015 | South Carolina politicians, like country doctors, seem to have a limited number of remedies in their bag.
Bad roads? Cut taxes. Failing schools? Cut taxes. Economy faltering? Cut taxes. Crumbling infrastructure? Cut taxes.
Now in the final week of this year’s regularly scheduled legislative session, the General Assembly is stalled on a deal to increase the state’s lowly 16.75-cents-per-gallon gas tax to pay toward $40 billion in identified roads projects.
The proposed increase might need to be offset by a decrease in the state’s income tax for political reasons. This proposition became more contentious this week when it was revealed that the state took in $400 million more than it budgeted in the current fiscal year.
That could mean scuttling the ongoing backroom chatter about how to solve the impasse, despite this year perhaps offering the best opportunity for Columbia to tackle tax reform as there are no state elections and campaigns for office this year.
The only cure?
But is cutting, or revenue-neutral tax moves the only cure? Consider what’s been called the “Minnesota Miracle” in some quarters, where the governor there pushed for raising taxes and has since been rewarded with a robust state recovery from the Great Recession.
While some economists question whether the “miracle” was the result of properly fertilizing that state’s economy because market cycles and national forces were more to blame, could South Carolina, with its bad roads, lagging public schools and paltry health care numbers need a similar miracle?
And if a tax increase is in order, which ones and how much before the economy got hurt?
Frank Hefner, an economics professor at the College of Charleston, says that “nobody actually knows the answer to that question. The problem with going that route is when you’ve gone too far, that’s when you find out you went too far.”
Lost opportunities, such as landing a Boeing plant or parking a Volvo plant, take a long time to identify, and by that time, it’s too late, says Hefner. “For example, if taxes are raised in a way that inhibits new industries to move in, you won’t have found out until no one comes, and in that case you’ve lost out on a lot of potential economic growth.”
There are no tricks to tax reform, says Holley Ulbrich, a longtime economist focusing on state and local public finance at the Strom Thurmond Institute at Clemson. She points out that the governor of Kansas fought for lower taxes and was rewarded with a significant dip in that state’s economy.
Ulbrich says success in raising taxes “would depend on what taxes you raised. It’s not that simple. Some taxes are more significant than others and increasing them could result in companies and customers to locate or shop elsewhere – especially in a state where 20 of our 46 counties border another state.”
Ulbrich says South Carolina should follow the public finance mantra of broadening its tax base and lowering its rates. Every year, South Carolina leaves billions of dollars of its economy untaxed because of widespread exemptions in it sales tax laws and that it doesn’t tax most services.
“Broadening the base makes it fairer and with fewer negative impacts on the marketplace,” says Ulbrich. Once the base is broader, then she says to drop the rates, which would improve the state’s national taxation rankings.
Palmetto State has low comparative tax burden
According to Tax Foundation, a national taxation watchdog, America has a lower overall tax burden than so-called “welfare states” of Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
According to its numbers, South Carolina ranks 42nd nationally for its state-local tax burden. The state also has the 18th highest sales tax rate in the nation when combining state and local sales taxes.
Hefner says there are real world consequences on businesses that come from any monkeying with the state’s already complicated tax code “unless you’re a Boeing or a Volvo” because the state cuts sweetheart deals that relieve much of their potential tax burdens.
Public education doesn’t benefit from those kind of deals, says Hefner, because even though most of the employees buy houses, taxes from those purchases no longer go toward schools, thanks to Act 388, a now maligned swap of property taxes for sales taxes.
“The real problem is that taxes are so complicated and so important and so political, people from both sides of the issue are forced into saying ridiculous things, and that doesn’t help anybody, much less South Carolina,” concludes Ulbrich.
COMMENTARYState needs to stop kowtowing to developers
By Andy Brack
MAY 29, 2015 | Are there any sacred or special places in South Carolina that are safe from developers?
Sure, there are parks and land protected by owners, but it seems developers generally have the upper hand whenever there’s a way for somebody to make a buck — whether it’s to build another subdivision that will bloat sprawl in urban areas, add yet another hotel in a tourist area or pack another mega-mansion as close to the beach as possible.
At issue now is a plan by developers to build 50 new, expensive homes on Captain Sam’s Spit, a fragile, 150-acre, low piece of coastal land between Kiawah and Seabrook islands. This week, regulators at the state Department of Health and Environmental Control approved a plan permit that would allow a road to be built on the spit and would lead to development. The project won a stormwater permit from the state earlier this month.
“The decision to issue this permit is a repudiation of the law, three years of judicial rulings and basic common sense,” S.C. Coastal Conservation League Executive Director Dana Beach told us this week. “It is hard to imagine a more nonsensical action and discouraging to think that the agency that is charged with more complex questions of protecting our environment is so incapable of dealing with an issue this simple and straightforward.”
Hear, hear. But it’s even worse and crazier than you think: There’s just not a huge need for more homes in the area. A quick real estate check shows there are 46 million-dollar homes on Kiawah and Seabrook that are for sale right now. In other words, there’s enough rich people housing stock in place near where developers want to build, but they’re obviously blinded by maximizing profit on land that has a big “hit me, hurricane” sign on it. Their mission, it seems, is to fill as much space on the coast as possible — the hell with the consequences.
Retired state Sen. Phil Leventis of Sumter blames the federal flood insurance program as one of the big culprits. For years, South Carolinians had small getaway cabins along the coast. Few built because of the danger of being blown away. And when they did build, they didn’t spend much. In other words, they took a risk, but not a big one.
Then came the flood insurance program in the 1960s, which allowed people to build bigger homes and live at the beach, more or less, year round. But what the program also meant was that if these homes got smashed, the subsidized, federal flood insurance program fueled by all taxpayers would help them rebuild.
“That was the first in a series of developments that switched liability from individuals to the group, with the group being the rest of the citizens,” he said.
Do you imagine, Leventis wondered, whether these millionaires would build homes on Captain Sam’s Spit if they couldn’t get insurance, which banks now require before loaning money to build the homes? (As an aside, why do you think banks would require flood insurance? Because they know the “investment” could go south with just one storm.)
“People aren’t willing to admit that they’re in a dangerous place so they put these mechanisms in place so they could share the [financial] responsibility with folks who could never, ever afford homes in these places.”
State environmental regulators need to stop kowtowing to development interests and realize that the public interest trumps greed. They need to enforce the state’s tough beachfront management law, which includes moving setback lines seaward when beaches have built up, not delaying so developers like those at Captain Sam’s Spit can build more houses. Citizens should demand that the state follow the law, not put up with legislators who create exceptions, such as a measure last year that is allowing an exclusive Georgetown County gated community to build a new seawall — the first in 27 years.
If we don’t get a handle on the overbuilding of special parts of South Carolina, we’ll lose a part of our heritage that sets us apart from New Jersey and coastal blight. And that, my friends, will create the opposite of smiling faces and beautiful places.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report. Send feedback to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
IN THE SPOTLIGHTSouthern Carolina Alliance
The public spiritedness of our underwriters allows us to bring Statehouse Report to you at no cost. This week, we shine a spotlight on the Southern Carolina Regional Development Alliance. It builds coalitions with industry and government leaders to sustain and create jobs that will improve the quality of life in its six focus counties: Allendale, Bamberg, Barnwell, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper.
Through ideals of cooperation and regionalism, this nonprofit economic development organization plays an important leadership role in the region to market these southwestern South Carolina counties both nationally and globally by focusing on targeted industrial clusters, community development and workforce development.
- You can learn more about the exciting opportunities — including the region’s new Promise Zone designation — throughout the six rural counties of the Southern Carolina Alliance online at: http://www.southerncarolina.org.
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- Send your letters to: feedback@statehousereport.com
Don’t play doctor with women’s health
By Victoria Middleton
Special to Statehouse Report
MAY 29, 2015 | Our state is hazardous to women’s health.
An extreme or alarmist statement? Not really.
Sometimes, we all just want more good news. There is some: S.C. teen pregnancy rates are dropping. Infant mortality rates are dropping. There’s some improvement on birth outcomes in recent years.
But there are facts we can’t sidestep, uncomfortable as they may be. We’re competing to be the worst state for women killed by men they know. If a criminal domestic violence bill passes, its supporters and victims’ advocates acknowledge that changing the climate of violence against women will take more than a piece of legislation.
We’re also in the bottom tier of states for women’s reproductive health. Eight of our state’s 46 counties lack an obstetrician. More than 25 percent of mothers of S.C. newborns who died last year received little, if any, prenatal care. In 2011, there were 76 live births to girls 10- to 14 years of age. Maternal mortality is still alarmingly, needlessly high.
Infant mortality is still high, as well, despite valiant efforts by the medical establishment to combat this. The second (in some years, the first) highest cause of death of babies in the first 30 days is “congenital malformation/deformation.” That does not mean the cause of death is low birth weight, extreme premature status or other factors. It means that approximately 35 newborns per year die within the first 24 hours because of fetal anomalies so severe that survival is impossible
At the same time, without regard to these facts, our legislature is on the verge of passing a bill (H. 3114) to criminalize abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy – before the point in pregnancy when a woman may first learn of a severe chromosomal or other fetal anomaly diagnosis.
The Senate just passed a version of the 20-week ban that does allow for critical, limited exceptions. One exception involves cases of rape or incest, so that a traumatized or intimidated victim retains the right to decide whether to terminate such a pregnancy. Another exception concerns the health of the mother, so that a woman is not forced to carry a pregnancy to term if doing so puts her life in danger. The final exception, covering the vast majority of these rare later abortions, is in the case of diagnosis of severe fetal anomaly.
The Senate version has returned to the House for concurrence or non-concurrence. If the harsh House version – the extreme ban — is ultimately adopted, then we can add a new blow to the existing list of hazards to the health of a woman in South Carolina.
This bill has nothing to do with accepted science and everything to do with lessening a woman’s ability to make the best medical decision for herself and her family. If politicians continue to play doctor, the positive trends will be fewer and the health outcomes for women in South Carolina worse.
Victoria Middleton is executive director of the ACLU of South Carolina.
SCORECARDThumbs up
Domestic violence. It took awhile, but hats off to the General Assembly for moving forward with a bill that will toughen criminal penalties and more to fight South Carolina’s abysmally high rate of domestic violence. It’s a great first step, but there’s still more to do. More.
Ford. It’s good former Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, got a decent sentence — probation and a $69,000 fine — for using campaign cash to pay for personal expenses. We’re not sure that he should have gone to jail after all of his public service, but we hope authorities keep him on the straight and narrow to ensure he pays the money. More.
Pleicones. Congratulations to state Supreme Court Justice Costa Pleicones, who was elected to be the state’s first new chief justice in 15 years. He’ll start next year after the retirement of Chief Justice Jean Toal.
In the middle
Extra money. It’s good news the state has $400 million more in tax revenue money to spend. Let’s spend it on roads — but not also use the one-time money as an excuse to NOT fix the road funding problem with a serious, long-term tax policy change, as outlined in Bill Davis’s news analysis today.
Thumbs down
Abortion ban. Boo, hiss to the Senate for backing a 20-week abortion ban. It’s bad policy and a bad deal for women’s reproductive health, as the ACLU’s Victoria Middleton writes today in a My Turn column.
Wilson. Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney had the common sense to cancel a speaking engagement to an anti-gay group, the Palmetto Family Council, after complaints that the appearance looked too cozy. But that hasn’t stopped Attorney General Alan Wilson, who is set to speak to the group. General, we appreciate your beliefs, but we don’t think it is right for the state’s attorney general to back any organization that actively promotes discrimination. More.
Davis. We understand why Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, is raising Cain about proposed hikes in taxes for better roads. But we hope he’ll stop soon and let senators vote. Otherwise, he’ll prove just how out of touch he is with most South Carolinians, who are more than willing to pay a little bit more if they can stop all of the potholes that ruin tires and wheel alignment.
NUMBER22
That’s the percentage of “elder orphans” in South Carolina — seniors who are in danger of becoming or are single and have no one to help care for them, a new report says. Census data shows about a third of Americans aged 45-53 are single and in the position to become orphans as they get older, according to this story in the Jasper Sun Times.
Ain’t nobody’s business
“There is no process by which to register your firearm in the state. I don’t want the government to know how many guns I own. I may own 10 guns and that is nobody’s business.
— House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, on state gun laws in a story about how South Carolina is bucking a national trend in which gun ownership is going down. More.
S.C. ENCYCLOPEDIAClassical music in South Carolina
S.C. Encyclopedia | The first permanent English settlers in South Carolina arrived in 1670, bringing their European musical traditions with them. Psalmody (the singing of psalms in divine worship) was the primary music of the colonists, and by 1700 singing schools provided both musical and devotional training. Although sacred music remained the predominant music of the colonies, the flourishing musical patronage of Charleston, which was the fourth-largest city in British North America by 1742, continued to cultivate the European classical style. As early as 1732 the South-Carolina Gazette reported on the second public concert given in the colonies. The St. Cecilia Society, the oldest musical society in the United States, was formed in 1762, providing formal musical instruction and offering concerts until 1822, when it became an exclusive social cotillion.
In the upstate, English, Scots, and Irish settlers brought the secular, oral tradition of the ballad, whose early influence on the development of art music is evidenced by the 1735 production of Colley Cibber’s Flora, or Hob in the Well. The English Ballad Opera Company presented this first performance of an opera in America in a courtroom above Shepheard’s Tavern in Charleston.
By 1800 northeastern singing schools were virtually extinct, although they remained active throughout the rural southern areas well into the nineteenth century. The singing master William Walker, born near Cross Keys in Union County, compiled Southern Harmony, which was first published in 1835 in Spartanburg. According to its author, the revolutionary tune book sold more than 600,000 copies and contained hymns, psalms, and anthems published in the popular shape-note tradition designed to assist untrained musicians.
While sacred music was thriving in the rural areas, the refined musical tastes of Charleston’s society continued to prefer the European secular tradition. In addition to the active concert life, the dissemination of western art music persisted during the heyday of American piano production during the latter part of the nineteenth century. Because of the great demand for classical and, eventually, popular sheet music, the Seigling Music House (1819–1970) established a retail music store on King Street in Charleston and also operated a music-publishing firm, issuing the works and arrangements of local and European composers. Julian Selby of Columbia was another publisher who issued general and music materials during the 1860s.
After the Civil War, the South’s musical activities were slow to resume, but South Carolina’s cultural life soon prospered with the construction of music halls such as the Newberry Opera House (1881), the establishment of schools such as the Charleston Conservatory (1884), and the founding of numerous ensembles such as the state’s first all-black touring group, the Jenkins Orphanage Band (circa 1895), which played a mixture of ragtime, military, and popular music.
By the twentieth century, classical music was melding with indigenous influences, initiating the shift to a distinctly American musical style and the emergence of native composers such as George Gershwin, who incorporated American idioms into Porgy and Bess (1935), the most frequently performed American opera. Set on Cabbage Row (Gershwin called it Catfish Row) in Charleston, the opera includes a mixture of indigenous Gullah spirituals, hymns, and blues, which Gershwin studied during his 1934 visit to Folly Island.
The two most prominent composers native to the state are Lily Strickland (1887–1958) of Anderson and Carlisle Floyd (b. 1926) of Latta. Strickland incorporated spirituals, lullabies, and ethnic folk music into more than four hundred vocal and instrumental compositions, her most famous being “Mah Lindy Lou.” Floyd, best known for his opera Susannah, has composed several other operas, song cycles, music for piano, and music for orchestra and chorus. Although not native South Carolinians, two other important twentieth-century composers who have impacted musical activity in the state are Ernst Bacon (1898–1990), former dean of and piano professor at Converse College (1938–1945), and Don Gillis (1912–1978), composer in residence and director of the media arts institute at the University of South Carolina from 1973 until his death in 1978.
Musical endeavors continue to prosper in the state’s educational institutions as well as in amateur and professional performing groups such as the Charleston Symphony (founded in 1936), the Greenville Symphony (founded in 1948), and the South Carolina Philharmonic (founded in 1963). South Carolina is also home to the internationally renowned Spoleto Festival, which serves as a forum for traditional
– Excerpted from the entry by Jennifer Ottervik. To read more about this or 2,000 other entries about South Carolina, check out The South Carolina Encyclopedia by USC Press. (Information used by permission.)
CREDITSEditor and Publisher: Andy Brack
Senior Editor: Bill Davis
Contributing Photographers: Michael Kaynard, Linda W. Brown
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