By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | South Carolinians have to get over the cheapskate model of democracy. To do otherwise is to continue to fail our future.
Billions of dollars of underinvestment in roads, bridges and health care over recent years leaves the state at the mercy of disasters of one sort or another.
Just witness the 11 trillion gallons of rain over the last week that flooded rivers, burst dams, destroyed homes, upended lives and killed at least 17 people.
If there ever is a teaching moment for state legislators, the flood illustrates how South Carolina must invest in her infrastructure and people. To do otherwise is to sentence our children to a future that mimics a continuing past of dysfunction and misery.
The state’s record in recent years is embarrassing:
Roads. State lawmakers started 2015 knowing that South Carolina has more than $40 billion in road and bridge maintenance needs over the next 25 years. Various plans were drafted and discussed about investing in infrastructure needs, but they got caught in the continuing babble of politics and bickering, despite the fact that a broad majority wants to raise taxes — yes, raise taxes — to pay the piper. But nothing was done. As a result, there’s no new revenue stream now to help pay for the mess caused by the flood.
Education. State lawmakers have underfunded public schools by $3 billion over the last 7 years by not following state law to fund education at established per-pupil levels. Such cuts rob students of their futures and create what one analyst has called a permanent underclass that will continue until the state is willing to dig itself out of the problem. More troubling: Even with a court-ordered deadline to come up with a legislative solution to create a more equitable education funding system, legislators are complaining about the deadline, not worrying about the problem.
Health care. State lawmakers continue to refuse billions of dollars of federal aid to expand Medicaid funding to provide access to Obamacare for 200,000 poor citizens who don’t make enough money to get federal subsidies. Refusing federal aid for the flood of health problems among the state’s poor makes absolutely no sense when contrasted against televised coverage of Gov. Nikki Haley with her hand out to the federal government, ecstatic for federal flood aid.
South Carolina’s leaders seem to have missed the lesson at school about the common good — that the state has a broad responsibility to provide for the general welfare of all people by setting policies that benefit society as a whole. This fundamental idea that stretches to Aristotle is a bulwark of democracy, a guiding principle in our Constitution that should trump selfish, political sorties designed to maximize the private good for individuals and corporations.
“The common good is the basis for democracy and sustaining the common good is the basis for sustaining democracy,” the Riley Institute’s Don Gordon observed this week. “The founding fathers knew that.”
For too long, the leaders of this state have been cutting government services and cutting revenue streams to fund remaining services in a third-rate, banana-republic drama to realize the Norquistian dream of shrinking government to a size that it can drown in a bathtub.
But as South Carolinians realized this week when flood waters rose to unprecedented levels, government has a vital role in keeping our society civil.
Thank goodness for first responders, police, firefighters and others who are steering rescue and recovery operations. They are from the government.
Thank goodness for federal aid — the same kind of “common good” aid that most of South Carolina’s congressional delegation voted against after Hurricane Sandy. That help is fueled by a little bit of money that all of us pay toward the common good and make sure money is available for help when it’s needed.
Let’s pray we never need a natural disaster like the Great Flood of 2015 to remind state leaders of their responsibilities of looking out for the long-term common good by investing in infrastructure, education and health care. There’s no education in the second kick of a mule.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report. Send feedback to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!