Our weekly Top Five feature offers big stories or views from the past week with policy and legislative implications.
States are uneven in regulation of workers, economy, The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 8, 2016
In this blog post by Heritage Foundation research fellow Salim Furth comes this startling number: South Carolina has the least licensing of its workforce at just 13 percent, compared to places like Iowa and Nevada where more than 30 percent of the workforce is licensed.
MOX program is important to S.C., nation, editorial, Orangeburg Times and Democrat, Feb. 11, 2016
This editorial puts into perspective why the MOX program is dear to the state: “As much of the load as South Carolina was asked to bear in regard to constructing the nation’s nuclear arms and dealing with the waste that building atomic weapons produced, plus the continuing story of our state as a storage site for both weapons-grade and other nuclear waste, our leaders embraced the concept of the Savannah River site being home to a program to convert nuclear weapons components into reactor fuel. But the Obama administration has pulled the plug, making clear with the president’s budget proposal on Tuesday that the so-called MOX program is not going to happen.”
New roads plan unveiled, Greenville News, Feb. 11, 2016
Two state senators who won’t be in Columbia next year offered a new road compromise package that would boost road and infrastructure funding, provide tax relief and make reforms to state agencies. While state Sens. Joel Lourie (D-Richland) and Ray Cleary (R-Columbia) may not like everything in the plan they propose, some see it as a step ahead. Others are leery of it as the Senate continues to wrestle with how to get more money for roads. In related news, the state DOT says it needs $5 billion over 10 years for Interstate fixes to address congestion and $200 million to stop road decay.
Proposal would forgive $12 million bailout for S.C. State University, The Post and Courier, Feb. 11, 2016.
A proposal by the House Higher Education and Technical Colleges subcommittee would forgive $12 million passed to the state’s only historically-black college in 2014. In a related development, finances reportedly are improving at the troubled college.
Median home prices in state highest in a decade, Charleston Regional Business Journal, Feb. 9, 2016
Last year was the best year for residential real estate in South Carolina since the recession ended in 2009.
- Want more stories like these? If you’d like to get these updates in much more depth every business day, we encourage you to subscribe to our sister publication, S.C. Clips. Click here for a two-week test drive.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!