Senate sustains Haley veto, condemns rural districts to poverty

Two things happened on Tuesday afternoon in the state Senate, and both were significant.

ONE: Senators voted to sustain Governor Nikki Haley's veto of a local bill -- approved under state law by one district's local delegation, because it affected only that district -- that would have allowed the county to issue bonds to raise the necessary funds to pay its debts. In so doing, they effectively condemned Florence District 4 to bankruptcy.

The Senate voted 18-17 to sustain the Republican governor's veto of a bill that would have let Florence District 4 issue bonds to meet its operation expenses. The tiny district has less than 800 students in three schools. It already has cut a quarter of its staff during the past three years and recently voted to raise taxes.

The district needs $800,000 to pay bills to the state and federal government. It planned to pay the borrowing back over eight years.

Sen. John Land said Florence District 4 owes for health insurance premiums and payroll taxes and its superintendent is retiring.

"For whatever reason - and I'd have to say it was bad financial management - they're about $800,000 in debt," said Land, D-Manning. "Yes, they were wrong. Yes, they should never have gotten into this financial problem and the blame rests with them - but the solution rests with us."

Their decision means that the ideologues pushing for school consolidation in the legislature will have one a back-door victory in this instance, too:

Without the money, the school district could be forced to merge into another nearby school district, officials previously have said.

Florence 4 was not the only district asking for this authority. The local delegations of Colleton and Hampton counties passed similar local bills this session, which were similarly vetoed by Haley. In the wake of the Florence 4 vote, it seemed clear that the Colleton and Hampton county bills would fail, too, leaving children in those rural districts condemned to institutional poverty.

Of course, South Carolina's lawmakers could have, during this session, addressed the problem head-on and appropriated funds to resolve those rural districts' debt without their having to resort to issuing bonds. But in South Carolina, lawmakers exhibit tremendous ease in appropriating funds for tax breaks and withholding funds from the educational needs of children in terminally impoverished counties, all in the same week. It is as it has always been in our state.

TWO: In voting to sustain Haley's vetoes of this local bill (and potentially the other two), Senators have baldly declared open war on a long-standing piece of state law -- and one another. Columnist Cindi Ross Scoppe of The State addressed this topic -- and sided with Haley in the matter -- last week, and quoted Senate Rules Committee chairman Larry Martin of Pickens County.

[W]hen it became clear Thursday that local senators would override the governor’s vetoes, tea-party senators revolted, insisting that it was not only their right but their responsibility to weigh in. Sens. Kevin Bryant and Shane Martin said they should vote to uphold the vetoes because the bills would affect their constituents who own property in the districts. Sen. Mike Rose said the bills went far beyond such traditional single-district topics as changing selection methods for school boards and pushed the Legislature onto a dangerously slippery slope that eventually would lead to exempting certain districts from, say, state student-teacher ratios. “At what point,” he asked, “are we going to step in and say, ‘you can’t do that’?”
...

The most surprising thing about the debate was who championed the divine rights of local legislators: Senate Rules Chairman Larry Martin, who warned his colleagues to be careful what they did unto others, lest the same things be done unto them: “I want you to stay out of my business in Pickens County, and I’m gonna stay out of yours.”

The fact that this perversion of the Golden Rule would be enunciated by one of the most responsible senators demonstrates just how deeply ingrained the idea remains that the Legislature should control all aspects of life in South Carolina.

Mr. Martin said the three districts were being held to a different standard than seven others that had been given the same authority. That’s not an entirely illegitimate argument, but it perpetuates one of our Legislature’s worst beliefs: We can’t do things the right way because we’ve always done them the wrong way.

When we talked later, Mr. Martin noted that several senators who were in revolt come from counties with multiple school districts. “If we’re gonna start getting into other folks’ business, that gives me license to start consolidating all these school districts,” he said. “I can tell you, the very folks that were arguing today to sustain the veto would not want us arguing about how their board is structured.”

Now that Senators know their colleagues no longer respect the sanctity of local delegations' authority, it will be interesting to see whose ox gets gored first in next year's session, and to hear how loud grow their cries of mortal pain and righteous indignation.

I predict that if Sens. Bryant, Martin or Rose offer any local bills affecting their counties, we may see them fall the next victims to the war they declared.

Lies, logic, and changing the rules when it's convenient

South Carolina's lawmakers like to say that we spend upwards of $10,000, $11,000, maybe more than $12,000 per student to educate children attending our public schools. They like to say it because it sounds spectacular and makes us look like we're spending money like water on a bloated, wasteful school system. The average citizen doesn't know the difference, so our electeds get to play both sides of the question, depending on their audience, saying, (a) See, we're downright foolish, we spend so much on our little ones and their fancy schools, or (b) See, we're downright foolish, spending too much on other people's little ones and their fancy schools.

Fact is, when the legislature left for home two weeks ago -- before Governor Nikki Haley demanded they return to pass her political agenda -- they were satisfied to spend only $1,617 per child from our state's treasury. That's roughly what we spent during Bill Clinton's second term, a truly pathetic and paltry sum for a state that pretends to support public education.

Yes, "pretends" is the perfectly correct word to use, when a state legislature funds public schools at so low a rate that districts cannot afford to keep a school's doors open and the lights on without issuing general obligation bonds to pay local basic school expenses.

Yet here we have another perfect example of the ineffectiveness -- or malevolence, for it must be one or the other -- of our General Assembly: When local delegations adopted local legislation granting school districts permission to do exactly this -- issue bonds to pay for operating expenses -- Haley vetoed those bills.

And now those lawmakers, representing three school districts, find themselves begging their colleagues for support to override Haley's vetoes. It is literally a matter of whether or not districts will be able to pay their bills through the summer and fall.

Sen. Clementa Pinckney is one of them, and his local newspaper in Bluffton noted his case in yesterday's edition:

Calling it his last local priority before the S.C. General Assembly finishes its work this summer, Sen. Clementa Pinckney is trying to save a bill that Hampton County school officials say will ease their budgetary crisis.

At issue is whether school districts should be allowed to issue general obligation bonds as a way to pay for operating expenses.

In Hampton County's case, officials say they need that option to offset lost stimulus money, Education Finance Act funds and future budget cuts. The alternative, according to Pinckney's bill, is to lay off teachers and staff, raise class sizes and and cut programs.

The Democrat's proposal, S. 877, is similar to Rep. Kenneth Hodges' bill, H. 4149, for Colleton County School District, and Sen. John Land's legislation, S. 785, for Florence County School District No. 4.

All were passed by local delegations, vetoed by the governor, and raised last week for an override by local senators. Traditionally with such bills, the rest of the 46-member body does not cast a vote.

But last week the three bills ran into intense objections from Sen. Greg Ryberg, R-Aiken, Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Charleston, and others.

"This is something that really does have a statewide implication on all the taxpayers in the state," said Campsen. "You don't incur debt to pay current operating expenses. That's like using your home as an ATM."

Notice that bit in the middle: "Traditionally with such bills, the rest of the 46-member body does not cast a vote." Yet two senators, neither of whom lives in the districts asking for this option: Hampton County, Colleton County or Florence County, raised objections and went on to orate with gusto on behalf of their party leader's position.

Why? Had not similar legislation been passed before, giving local districts the right to band-aid the wounds left gaping by the legislature?

Legislative records show that since 2003, six other similar bills passed into law, either by a local delegation's veto override or by the governor allowing the bill to pass without signing it.

They include school districts in Sumter, York, Orangeburg, Kershaw, Lee and Clarendon.

The newspaper asked Pinckney to speculate why his colleagues ignored the chamber's vaunted polity in this instance.

"I assume there may be some political things. Maybe there's blood in the water, and people are looking at it from a purely philosophical standpoint, just to make a point," said the Jasper County senator, who also represents Hampton County.

"I don't believe in making philosophical points. I am dealing with reality. Right now I have districts that are hurting," he added.

Just a day earlier, columnist Cindi Ross Scoppe of The State weighed in on the matter -- and sided with Haley.

Scoppe's argument was that the system itself -- rules that allow local delegations to pass single-county bills -- is "one of the most enduring and destructive vestiges of the Legislative state." Fair enough and maybe, but this is what we have instead of a conscientious legislature.

Supporters say the districts are in crisis and must make disastrous cuts without this admittedly irresponsible funding mechanism. The governor says the funding mechanism is fiscal folly and shouldn’t be allowed regardless of the consequences.

I agree with the governor, although the districts do need help that the state has failed to provide. But the debate is not simply about whether such an extraordinary remedy is justified; it is about whether state legislators finally will accept their responsibility to act as state legislators.

Scoppe is a knowledgeable columnist and keeps the attention of lawmakers with her incisive logic; that logic has caused legislators -- former Speaker David Wilkins was one -- to call her out by name from the podium or the chamber floor.

But that's the very problem. Logic is appropriately applied where logic is respected. This is South Carolina, where logic is no more than a political tool, used for some tasks and not for others, depending on who may be helped or hurt.

Scoppe writes:

By tradition, the only people who vote on a single-county bill are the legislators from that county. Except for school bills, they’re almost always unconstitutional. The single-county school bills are simply bad policy, because they buttress our practice of writing different rules for different districts, and prevent the Legislature from making the reforms we need to improve public education. The most obvious example is school district consolidation, which would benefit our state in countless ways; the Legislature refuses to order it because most legislators consider the districts to be the sole province of the legislators who represent them.

But when it became clear Thursday that local senators would override the governor’s vetoes, tea-party senators revolted, insisting that it was not only their right but their responsibility to weigh in. Sens. Kevin Bryant and Shane Martin said they should vote to uphold the vetoes because the bills would affect their constituents who own property in the districts. Sen. Mike Rose said the bills went far beyond such traditional single-district topics as changing selection methods for school boards and pushed the Legislature onto a dangerously slippery slope that eventually would lead to exempting certain districts from, say, state student-teacher ratios. “At what point,” he asked, “are we going to step in and say, ‘you can’t do that’?”

Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell said the bills likely wouldn’t be considered constitutionally acceptable school laws because they made findings in the name of the Legislature and exempted the districts from state law.

The most surprising thing about the debate was who championed the divine rights of local legislators: Senate Rules Chairman Larry Martin, who warned his colleagues to be careful what they did unto others, lest the same things be done unto them: “I want you to stay out of my business in Pickens County, and I’m gonna stay out of yours.”

The fact that this perversion of the Golden Rule would be enunciated by one of the most responsible senators demonstrates just how deeply ingrained the idea remains that the Legislature should control all aspects of life in South Carolina.

And it illustrates my point, while little children continue to get by on state investments of $1,617 each.

South Carolina falls to last place, again

Cindi Ross Scoppe in Wednesday's The State:

THE TAX Foundation’s latest rankings of state taxes are out, and we’re No. 50. As in, no state collects less in taxes per resident than South Carolina does.

If that surprises you, then you’ve come to the right place. Much of what we think we know about taxes in our state is simply wrong. And while people are entitled to whatever opinion they want about whether taxes are too high or too low or just right, those opinions ought to be based on facts.

No one should be surprised at this. I recall a debate in the Senate from some years ago when a half-dozen men tied up the Senate calendar one afternoon arguing over this same simple point. One whipped out a little booklet produced by some manufacturers lobby telling us that South Carolina was the highest-taxed people in the region. Another brandished some chart printed from the internet showing we were in the top five highest-taxed states in the nation. And a third wanted to refer only to an apples-to-apples comparison published by some governors' association arm showing that we were somewhere in the middle.

Of course, NO one wanted to listen to that last guy.

Of course, No. 50 isn’t the whole story. Anyone who tries to tell you that a single number sums up tax rankings is misleading you. This particular ranking, for instance, doesn’t include taxes collected by local government, which makes it not quite but nearly meaningless, since the division between state and local duties varies so much from state to state.

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Our tax rate — which is the percentage of our total income that we pay in taxes — ranks 43rd. That means seven states have a lower tax rate than we do. (Our income, by the way, is $33,954 per capita, which ranks 46th nationally. Not something to celebrate no matter what you think about taxes.)

Per capita is $33,954, yet when someone suggests raising the highest tax rate for the wealthy, these folk earning $33,954 squall and cry, no, no, no, we can't raise the tax rate on the wealthy, I don't want to pay any more in taxes.

Scoppe's column includes a great deal more context, but here is a digest of figures to consider quickly:

50th. State tax collections per capita, at $1,577. The U.S. average is $2,339.

49th. Combined state and local tax burden per capita, at $2,742. Only Mississippians paid less, at $2,678 per capita. The U.S. average is $4,160.

43rd. Combined state and local tax burden as a percentage of state income, at 8.1 percent. The U.S. average is 9.8 percent.

35th. State tax revenue per capita, at $4,665. This figure and the next one count not only taxes but money from fees, licenses and federal funds.

36th. Combined state and local revenue per capita, at $7,006.

38th. Individual income tax collections, at $519 per capita.

44th. Corporate income tax collections, at $48 per capita. This says more about how little corporate income we have than about how much we tax corporations. Nonetheless, we score a similar 41st on a more complicated “corporate tax index” that is part of the foundation’s business tax climate index.

16th. Combined state and local sales tax, at an average of 7.25 percent. (The 6 percent state-only rate ranks 15th.)

39th. Combined state and local sales tax collections per capita, at $711. The fact that our sales tax rate ranks so much higher than our sales tax collections reflects our overabundance of sales tax loopholes, our reluctance to tax services and our poverty.

47th. State gasoline tax, at 16.8 cents per gallon.

41st. State cigarette tax, at 57 cents per pack.

25th. State spirits excise tax, at $4.97 per gallon.

11th. State table wine excise tax, at $1.08 per gallon.

5th. State beer excise tax, at 77 cents per gallon.

24th. State and local cellphone taxes, at 9.52 percent.

45th. Property taxes on owner-occupied housing as a percentage of median home value, at 0.5 percent. The U.S. average is more than double that: 1.04 percent.

36th. State and local property tax collections per capita, at $963. The U.S. average is $1,352.

And our Tax Freedom Day, on April 3 last year, was earlier than it was in 39 states.

Seems clear to me that people living in South Carolina pay less in taxes as a percentage of their income that people living in any other state in the nation. Funny; that's not what our lawmakers say in their stump speeches. But Scoppe addresses that, too:

What that means — like much of the information in this report — is that when people complain that taxes are too high in South Carolina, they’re not using any objective standard. Either they’re reflecting the fact that they are among those being hurt by our Swiss-cheese tax code or else they’re just saying they don’t want to pay taxes.

Scoppe's point reminds me of a little bit of Governor Jimmy Byrnes's address to educators sixty years ago last month. He said:

Naturally there is opposition to the Sales Tax. There is opposition to every tax, but I have failed to find any man who is really in favor of improving our educational facilities who will suggest a substitute tax plan.

I can understand the position of the man who thinks it is a waste of money to educate the children of people he calls "common people." He is willing that we should continue to have more illiteracy than any state in the Union. I disagree with him but I understand him.

I cannot understand the position of the man who says he is in favor of increasing teachers' salaries, improving the transportation system, constructing new school buildings, and yet opposes the sales tax and offers no substitute. He wants to help the children -- provided it does not cost him anything.

That cannot be done. It will cost money. But the education of our children is the primary duty of our State just as National Defense is the primary duty of the Federal Government.

Seems that we in South Carolina didn't want to pay taxes sixty years ago to support our public services, and we don't want to pay any taxes today to support our public services.