Our weekly Top Five feature offers big stories or views from the past week with policy and legislative implications.
1. Candidly talking about race, NPR, Sept. 16, 2016
Mississippi’s Susan Glisson says we need to talk candidly about race to move forward. USC President Harris Pastides, who has embraced the discussion model offered by Glisson says it’s important at the university “because it was not superficial, not a one-time let’s all come together for one meeting, pat ourselves on the back, say we’ve got to change and then go home.”
2. How free trade may now be a liability, Louis Jacobson in Governing magazine, Sept. 12, 2016
“It’s also become increasingly common for Democrats to criticize free-trade deals. In 1993, 102 Democrats supported the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), according to the Wall Street Journal. Twelve years later, just 15 Democrats backed a free-trade deal with Central American nations. What’s different about this year is the backtracking by Republicans.”
3. State’s income tax burden is among the nation’s lowest, The State, Sept. 13, 2016
“South Carolina’s high standard deductions and exemptions allow taxpayers to shield a higher portion of their income from state income taxes, reducing their effective tax rate compared with most other states, said Gordon Shuford, an economic researcher for the state. South Carolina’s effective tax rate is 2.99 percent, based on 2012 figures, the most recent studied. That effective rate is far lower than the state’s 7 percent top income tax rate.”
4. Make Fort Sumter a national park, Rock Hill Herald, Sept. 14, 2016
A good idea from GOP U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, as outlined in this editorial by the newspaper:
“We hope that the debate is not bogged down with in political controversy over the role both sides played in the Civil War. The histories of both forts can be portrayed fairly and objectively, as they have been while the forts have been designated as a national monument. This historical site both belongs to the nation and represents an important role in its origins. It deserves to be named the 60th national park.”
5. State Dems point at GOP, saying enough is enough, The Post and Courier, Sept. 15, 2016
State Sen Margie Bright Matthews (D-Colleton) and state Reps. James Smith (D-Richland), John King (D-York) and Mandy Powers Norrell (D-Lancaster) offered a blistering op-ed this week directly pointed at the state GOP. An excerpt:
“Republicans have failed to provide opportunity to South Carolinians striving to get ahead — we are 49th in economic mobility. Our schools remain woefully neglected, and our public universities are the most expensive in the nation for in-state students from low-income families. Republicans have voted to cut Head Start, nutrition and Pell Grants. South Carolina ranks 46th in hourly wages and 47th in per capita GDP.”
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