(Or Lack Thereof)
COLUMBIA (July 03, 2013) –

When the legislative session ends many politicians rush out their “list of accomplishments,” as many of my colleagues are doing now. Many of them are touting things like the legislation that fixed the filing-for-office debacle or the closing of the legal loophole which allowed “sweepstakes” machines to function as video poker by another name. I would join them in claiming those as real victories, but for me that’s where the self-congratulations end. I cannot, with a straight face, beat my chest over bills that increase the paperwork for folks that sell mobile homes (they called it the “financial responsibility of home manufactures” bill) or the creation of yet another special license plate. The fact is, this was an unbelievably unproductive session. And, while we did manage to hold Obamacare at bay, the government health care advocates in the Senate told us not only that they’ll be back but that they will prevail. Our failure to pass Obamacare nullification this year only makes it that much harder next year. Finally, many politicians point to the annual budget bill as a success. Well, we violated the statutes concerning school funding, local government funding and school bus funding, but we did manage to put at least another billion dollars of debt on our children. That indeed is an accomplishment, but one for which I want no credit.

 

Debt Bomb

Speaking of debt, the biggest so–called “achievement” of this past legislative year is the debt bomb that was exploded in front of us, our children and our grandchildren. The General Assembly, you may recall, earlier this year passed almost unanimously a resolution to borrow (by issuing bonds) $120 million and give it to Boeing for what we were told will be an expansion of their facility in Charleston. I say that we were told that because we were shown no documentation of the terms of the deal or the consequences if Boeing failed to uphold its end. I truly appreciate the presence of Boeing in South Carolina, but I’m not exactly sure why we’re borrowing $120 million of our tax money and giving it to a company that made $1.2 BILLION in the first quarter of this year ALONE.  Again, reasons for my NO vote on this debt!

Then, as I’ve mentioned in previous updates, we decided to use the “roads crisis” as a pretense to add another $500 million (again, with bonds) to the tab of our children and grandchildren. And that occurred after several efforts by myself and my colleagues (via amendments to the budget bill) to spend money that we actually have on hand. That debt also was piled upon our kids with very few specifics attached. For instance, the borrowed money is to be used, in part, for “rehabilitation projects,” but when I asked the question on the Senate floor, no one could tell me what that phrase means. So, if it means nothing, then it means everything, and that means the money can be used for every pet project which a politician dreams up—and it will. Another thing about this borrowed money is that since it is for roads, then most if not all of it will end up within spitting distance of salt water. If you have not heard of Interstate 73 and Interstate 526 extension, then you soon will. Those proposed roads are in Myrtle Beach and Charleston, respectively, and if I’ve learned one thing since I’ve been in Columbia, it is that road money (and much of the other money, too) rolls downhill.

When you add the two together they equal $620 million in borrowing, or almost $140 for every man, woman and child in South Carolina. But, as we all know, borrowing isn’t free; the lender extracts a price for their money. And this is where we find perhaps the biggest insult of all to the taxpayers. Some of us (only a couple, really) asked what would be the terms of the $500 million road bond. No one knew. Let me repeat that, not one soul could tell me the terms of the bond. The South Carolina Senate (all but 4 of us, that is) voted to send us, and our descendants, hundreds of millions of dollars into debt with absolutely no idea what the terms would be. We weren’t told the interest rate, or the terms or the closing costs, and yet nearly the entire Senate voted to plunge us and our kids even deeper into debt. We still don’t have the information, but a good estimate is that these bonds will be issued on a 15-year term at 5% interest. That means that the $620 million in debt (roads plus Boeing) actually will cost $465 million over the life of the bonds. You recall that I have mentioned that about half of our general fund budget goes to K-12 education. Well, that means that over the next 15 years K-12 will lose out on $232.5 million. Paving one mile of two-lane flat road costs $150,000. So, that’s 3100 miles of road that won’t be paved. $465 million of your hard-earned tax payments won’t be going to provide services for you but to Wall Street. And, remember, we had enough money on hand this year to do both of these things.

If reading this story has left you angry enough to chew glass, then you know how I felt as I watched nearly every other senator merrily vote to spend someone else’s money without even so much as asking a question. Those two days were some of my worst in my time in public service. Please ask this question: How could my tax dollars be better spent rather than paying interest on needless borrowing??

The disappointment continued when Governor Haley signed these debt bombs into law instead of vetoing them. I had hoped that Governor Haley, who campaigned as a fiscal conservative, would just say no to over a billion dollars in borrowing. What I find even more troubling is that she also agreed to the notion of over a billion dollars in borrowing with absolutely no idea of the terms and costs. The actual terms and costs remain unknown as of this writing!  Fellow taxpayers, I really don’t know what else to say.

The billion-dollar debt bomb decision by the Assembly and the Governor to borrow money when we had the cash on hand will stand as a terrible betrayal of the taxpayers for years and years to come.

 

Vetoes

Governor Haley issued 81 vetoes, but frankly since none of them was for the debt bomb or Obamagarten (Senator Kevin Bryant’s phrase for the massive expansion of 4K in South Carolina), I returned to vote on them with little enthusiasm. The House sustained twenty-eight of the vetoes. The Senate met the next day and spent almost eight hours to sustain seven (7) more of the vetoes. To be fair, the Senate actually sustained seven others, but enough good ole boys slapped enough backs that those were soon reconsidered and overridden. I sustained all but 3 of her vetoes and took no part in the good ole boy vote swapping process! A $100k earmark for the Barnwell County courthouse did have to be reconsidered twice, though, before everyone got the message. One symbolic victory did arrive when the Senate voted 42-0 to sustain a veto of $453,000 for parking lot lights. The lot in question is on Daniel Island where the average home costs around $400,000 and the average income in 2010 was over $99,000. The lot, also, is used for a women’s professional tennis tournament, not a police station, fire house, hospital, or even a little league ball park; a professional tennis tournament. I point this out as an example of the kind of pork that one finds throughout the budget. I point this out also to remind you of what I noted above about the road money.

Senator Peeler likes to say that, “864 and 803 earn it, and 843 spends it.” He’s right.

 

The 2013 Session

Many in the liberal press have wrung their hands over the failure of the General Assembly to pass either what they refer to as “Ethics Reform” or a bill to create a Department of Administration. I wrote earlier this year about the ethics bill that, “when the liberal media wants it that badly, that’s when my radar goes off.” I also let you all know earlier this year that I voted against the Department of Administration bill when it left the Senate because it failed to actually kill the Budget and Control Board. Perhaps next year we will see the true death of the Board, but I won’t be holding my breath. I, on the other hand, knew that the 2013 session was a failure when I saw RINOcrat leader Senator Nikki Setzler do a victory lap on the last day of the regular session (June 19). Senator Setzler ticked off the items won by the Democrats and the senators who support them: Boeing debt, road debt and Obamagarten. He chided us for not passing the Medicaid Expansion portion of Obamacare, but he really was giddy about his .750 average for the year, and he assured us that he’d be back next year for Obamacare. I’ll be back next year too, and I only can hope that a few more conservatives will show up and fight a little harder.

If you are new to my list, you can find my past updates on my website www.SenatorMartin.com

I hope you and your family have a wonderful 4th of July!  While we are celebrating our Independence, please remember that freedom and liberty are not free!