Recently we decided to peruse the official 2013 statement of the S.C. State Transportation Infrastructure Bank (STIB). Why? Because we’re dorks, that’s why.
Anyway, a couple of things jumped out at us …
“The liabilities of the Bank exceeded the assets and deferred outflows as of June 30, 2013 resulting in a deficiency of $778.4 million,” the report noted.
Wait … what?
$778 million?
South Carolina lawmakers (and Gov. Nikki Haley) keep telling us they are good “Republicans” who run “balanced budgets” that pay for what we need without racking up debt.
Not so …
“The mission of the Bank is to provide financial assistance for major transportation projects,” the report continues. “The Bank does not own or maintain any of the projects. The Bank issues bonds and incurs other financing liabilities to construct the projects, which are donated to the South Carolina Department of Transportation (‘SCDOT’) for ownership and maintenance. As a result, the assets of the Bank are reduced while the debt remains.”
Okay …. that was explained clearly enough. We don’t agree with it … but we’re following the process.
So what does that mean for SCDOT?
“SCDOT will record these projects as construction in progress or capital assets in its financial statements with no related liability,” the report continues.
Again … don’t agree with it, but we’re following.
Ready for the kicker, though?
“Approximately $1.3 billion of the Bank’s net position is restricted to service the outstanding debt and to fund projects under commitment,” the report adds.
Huh? That seems a bit excessive doesn’t it?
We tried to find out how this number stacks up to previous reports but the STIB doesn’t post this information online.
A little over a year ago we published a guest column from former S.C. Highway Commissioner Sarah Nuckles – a fiscal conservative who has been pushing for reform of the state’s corrupt highway spending process.
Unfortunately no one is listening to the common sense solutions Knuckles laid out in her piece …
Instead, we’re getting more of the same from our good “conservative” leaders …
45 comments
And the idiots (Fred Cavanaugh and his gang in Aiken ALL REPUBLICANS) want to spend $43.0 MILLION on an expansion of the Hitchcock Parkway that is not needed. The reason, old Fred wants a bypass around the city of Aiken population 25,000 and dropping thanks to the problems at SRS!
Yet Fits will support Haley for a 2nd 4-year term and we will continue to get more of the same.
Really, who cares who FITS supports?
Surely there is not even one SCGOP voter stupid enough to take his endorsement for anything seriously. You reckon?
I find that the people who state “…Really, who cares who FITS supports… most often seem to spend a lot of time here reading what Fits writes…
If you paid attention to any blog anywhere, you would have noticed that they attract people who are opposed to what the blogger – usually, blindly – supports.
I love observing just what the evil Kochs, Cato, anything with the word ‘Policy’ in it’s name are supporting – oh, I’m being redundant, those other things ARE some the Kochs’ front groups because they are the real danger to majority rule in the USA.
I have also learned just how many Americans really are anti-majority rule and, therefore, anti-American.
Majority Rule=Democracy
Our country, was supposed to be a Republic, which has elements of Democracy but is tempered with Republicanism to prevent “tyranny of the majority”.
So “anti-American” would be a pure Democracy.
Yeah, those policy organizations are really dangerous and liberals would never do anything like that – oh wait there’s George Soros….he seems to prefer institute, alliance, federation, union, foundation or center.
Advancement Project: This organization works to organize “communities of color” into politically cohesive units while disseminating its leftist worldviews and values as broadly as possible by way of a sophisticated communications department.
Air America Radio: Now defunct, this was a self-identified “liberal” radio network.
All of Us or None: This organization seeks to change voting laws — which vary from state to state — so as to allow ex-inmates, parolees, and even current inmates to cast their ballots in political elections.
Alliance for Justice: Best known for its activism vis a vis the appointment of federal judges, this group consistently depicts Republican judicial nominees as “extremists.”
America Coming Together: Soros played a major role in creating this group, whose purpose was to coordinate and organize pro-Democrat voter-mobilization programs.
America Votes: Soros also played a major role in creating this group, whose get-out-the-vote campaigns targeted likely Democratic voters.
America’s Voice: This open-borders group seeks to promote “comprehensive” immigration reform that includes a robust agenda in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens.
American Bridge 21st Century: This Super PAC conducts opposition research designed to help Democratic political candidates defeat their Republican foes.
American Civil Liberties Union: This group opposes virtually all post-9/11 national security measures enacted by the U.S. government. It supports open borders, has rushed to the defense of suspected terrorists and their abettors, and appointed former New Left terrorist Bernardine Dohrn to its Advisory Board.
American Constitution Society for Law and Policy: This Washington, DC-based think tank seeks to move American jurisprudence to the left by recruiting, indoctrinating, and mobilizing young law students, helping them acquire positions of power. It also provides leftist Democrats with a bully pulpit from which to denounce their political adversaries.
American Family Voices: This group creates and coordinates media campaigns charging Republicans with wrongdoing.
American Federation of Teachers: After longtime AFT President Albert Shanker died in in 1997, he was succeeded by Sandra Feldman, who slowly “re-branded” the union, allying it with some of the most powerful left-wing elements of the New Labor Movement. When Feldman died in 2004, Edward McElroy took her place, followed by Randi Weingarten in 2008. All of them kept the union on the leftward course it had adopted in its post-Shanker period.
American Friends Service Committee: This group views the United States as the principal cause of human suffering around the world. As such, it favors America’s unilateral disarmament, the dissolution of American borders, amnesty for illegal aliens, the abolition of the death penalty, and the repeal of the Patriot Act.
American Immigration Council: This non-profit organization is a prominent member of the open-borders lobby. It advocates expanded rights and amnesty for illegal aliens residing in the U.S.
American Immigration Law Foundation: This group supports amnesty for illegal aliens, on whose behalf it litigates against the U.S. government.
American Institute for Social Justice: AISJ’s goal is to produce skilled community organizers who can “transform poor communities” by agitating for increased government spending on city services, drug interdiction, crime prevention, housing, public-sector jobs, access to healthcare, and public schools.
American Library Association: This group has been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s War on Terror — most particularly, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, which it calls “a present danger to the constitutional rights and privacy rights of library users.”
The American Prospect, Inc.: This corporation trains and mentors young leftwing journalists, and organizes strategy meetings for leftist leaders.
Amnesty International: This organization directs a grossly disproportionate share of its criticism for human rights violations at the United States and Israel.
Applied Research Center: Viewing the United States as a nation where “structural racism” is deeply “embedded in the fabric of society,” ARC seeks to “build a fair and equal society” by demanding “concrete change from our most powerful institutions.”
Arab American Institute Foundation: The Arab American Institute denounces the purportedly widespread civil liberties violations directed against Arab Americans in the post-9/11 period, and characterizes Israel as a brutal oppressor of the Palestinian people.
Aspen Institute: This organization promotes radical environmentalism and views America as a nation plagued by deep-seated “structural racism.”
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now: This group conducts voter mobilization drives on behalf of leftist Democrats. These initiatives have been notoriously marred by fraud and corruption.
Ballot Initiative Strategy Center: This organization seeks to advance “a national progressive strategy” by means of ballot measures—state-level legislative proposals that pass successfully through a petition (“initiative”) process and are then voted upon by the public.
Bill of Rights Defense Committee: This group provides a detailed blueprint for activists interested in getting their local towns, cities, and even college campuses to publicly declare their opposition to the Patriot Act, and to designate themselves “Civil Liberties Safe Zones.” The organization also came to the defense of self-described radical attorney Lynne Stewart, who was convicted in 2005 of providing material support for terrorism.
Black Alliance for Just Immigration: This organization seeks to create a unified movement for “social and economic justice” centered on black racial identity.
Blueprint North Carolina: This group seeks to “influence state policy in North Carolina so that residents of the state benefit from more progressive policies such as better access to health care, higher wages, more affordable housing, a safer, cleaner environment, and access to reproductive health services.”
Brennan Center for Justice: This think tank/legal activist group generates scholarly studies, mounts media campaigns, files amicus briefs, gives pro bono support to activists, and litigates test cases in pursuit of radical “change.”
Brookings Institution: This organization has been involved with a variety of internationalist and state-sponsored programs, including one that aspires to facilitate the establishment of a U.N.-dominated world government. Brookings Fellows have also called for additional global collaboration on trade and banking; the expansion of the Kyoto Protocol; and nationalized health insurance for children. Nine Brookings economists signed a petitionopposing President Bush’s tax cuts in 2003.
Campaign for America’s Future: This group supports tax hikes, socialized medicine, and a dramatic expansion of social welfare programs.
Campaign for Better Health Care: This organization favors a single-payer, government-run, universal health care system.
Campaign for Youth Justice: This organization contends that “transferring juveniles to the adult criminal-justice system leads to higher rates of recidivism, puts incarcerated and detained youth at unnecessary risk, has little deterrence value, and does not increase public safety.”
Campus Progress: A project of the Soros-bankrolled Center for American Progress, this group seeks to “strengthen progressive voices on college and university campuses, counter the growing influence of right-wing groups on campus, and empower new generations of progressive leaders.”
Casa de Maryland: This organization aggressively lobbies legislators to vote in favor of policies that promote expanded rights, including amnesty, for illegal aliens currently residing in the United States.
Catalist: This is a for-profit political consultancy that seeks “to help progressive organizations realize measurable increases in civic participation and electoral success by building and operating a robust national voter database of every voting-age American.”
Catholics for Choice: This nominally Catholic organization supports women’s right to abortion-on-demand.
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good: This political nonprofit group is dedicated to generating support from the Catholic community for leftwing candidates, causes, and legislation.
Center for American Progress: This leftist think tank is headed by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta, works closely with Hillary Clinton, and employs numerous former Clinton administration staffers. It is committed to “developing a long-term vision of a progressive America” and “providing a forum to generate new progressive ideas and policy proposals.”
Center for Community Change: This group recruits and trains activists to spearhead leftist “political issue campaigns.” Promoting increased funding for social welfare programs by bringing “attention to major national issues related to poverty,” the Center bases its training programs on the techniques taught by the famed radical organizer Saul Alinsky.
Center for Constitutional Rights: This pro-Castro organization is a core member of the open borders lobby, has opposed virtually all post-9/11 anti-terrorism measures by the U.S. government, and alleges that American injustice provokes acts of international terrorism.
Center for Economic and Policy Research: This group opposed welfare reform, supports “living wage” laws, rejects tax cuts, and consistently lauds the professed achievements of socialist regimes, most notably Venezuela.
Center for Reproductive Rights: CRR’s mission is to guarantee safe, affordable contraception and abortion-on-demand for all women, including adolescents. The organization has filed state and federal lawsuits demanding access to taxpayer-funded abortions (through Medicaid) for low-income women.
Center for Responsible Lending: This organization was a major player in the subprime mortgage crisis. According to Phil Kerpen (vice president for policy at Americans for Prosperity), CRL “sh[ook] down and harass[ed] banks into making bad loans to unqualified borrowers.” Moreover, CRL negotiated a contract enabling it to operate as a conduit of high-risk loans to Fannie Mae.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Reasoning from the premise that tax cuts generally help only the wealthy, this organization advocates greater tax expenditures on social welfare programs for low earners.
Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS): Aiming to redistribute wealth by way of higher taxes imposed on those whose incomes are above average, COWS contends that “it is important that state government be able to harness fair contribution from all parts of society – including corporations and the wealthy.”
Change America Now: Formed in December 2006, Change America Now describes itself as “an independent political organization created to educate citizens on the failed policies of the Republican Congress and to contrast that record of failure with the promise offered by a Democratic agenda.”
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: This group litigates and brings ethics charges against “government officials who sacrifice the common good to special interests” and “betray the public trust.” Almost all of its targets are Republicans.
Coalition for an International Criminal Court: This group seeks to subordinate American criminal-justice procedures to those of an international court.
Common Cause: This organization aims to bring about campaign-finance reform, pursue media reform resembling the Fairness Doctrine, and cut military budgets in favor of increased social-welfare and environmental spending.
I left out community, center and fund…
Constitution Project: This organization seeks to challenge the legality of military commissions; end the detainment of “enemy combatants”; condemn government surveillance of terrorists; and limit the President’s executive privileges.
Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund: Defenders of Wildlife opposes oil exploration in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It condemns logging, ranching, mining, and even the use of recreational motorized vehicles as activities that are destructive to the environment.
Democracy Alliance: This self-described “liberal organization” aims to raise $200 million to develop a funding clearinghouse for leftist groups. Soros is a major donor to this group.
Democracy 21: This group is a staunch supporter of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act.
Democracy Now!: Democracy Now! was created in 1996 by WBAI radio news director Amy Goodman and four partners to provide “perspectives rarely heard in the U.S. corporate-sponsored media,” i.e., the views of radical and foreign journalists, left and labor activists, and ideological foes of capitalism.
Democratic Justice Fund: DJF opposes the Patriot Act and most efforts to restrict or regulate immigration into the United States — particularly from countries designated by the State Department as “terrorist nations.”
Democratic Party: Soros’ funding activities are devoted largely to helping the Democratic Party solidify its power base. In a November 2003 interview, Soros stated that defeating President Bush in 2004 “is the central focus of my life” … “a matter of life and death.” He pledged to raise $75 million to defeat Bush, and personally donated nearly a third of that amount to anti-Bush organizations. “America under Bush,” he said, “is a danger to the world, and I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.”
Demos: This organization lobbies federal and state policymakers to “addres[s] the economic insecurity and inequality that characterize American society today”; promotes “ideas for reducing gaps in wealth, income and political influence”; and favors tax hikes for the wealthy.
Drum Major Institute: This group describes itself as “a non-partisan, non-profit think tank generating the ideas that fuel the progressive movement,” with the ultimate aim of persuading “policymakers and opinion-leaders” to take steps that advance its vision of “social and economic justice.”
Earthjustice: This group seeks to place severe restrictions on how U.S. land and waterways may be used. It opposes most mining and logging initiatives, commercial fishing businesses, and the use of motorized vehicles in undeveloped areas.
Economic Policy Institute: This organization believes that “government must play an active role in protecting the economically vulnerable, ensuring equal opportunity, and improving the well-being of all Americans.”
Electronic Privacy Information Center: This organization has been a harsh critic of the USA PATRIOT Act and has joined the American Civil Liberties Union in litigating two cases calling for the FBI “to publicly release or account for thousands of pages of information about the government’s use of PATRIOT Act powers.”
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights: Co-founded by the revolutionary communist Van Jones, this anti-poverty organization claims that “decades of disinvestment in our cities” — compounded by “excessive, racist policing and over-incarceration” — have “led to despair and homelessness.”
EMILY’s List: This political network raises money for Democratic female political candidates who support unrestricted access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand.
Energy Action Coalition: Founded in 2004, this group describes itself as “a coalition of 50 youth-led environmental and social justice groups working together to build the youth clean energy and climate movement.” For EAC, this means “dismantling oppression” according to its principles of environmental justice.
Fair Immigration Reform Movement: This is the open-borders arm of the Center for Community Change.
Faithful America: This organization promotes the redistribution of wealth, an end to enhanced interrogation procedures vis a vis prisoners-of-war, the enactment of policies to combat global warming, and the creation of a government-run heath care system.
Feminist Majority: Characterizing the United States as an inherently sexist nation, this group focuses on “advancing the legal, social and political equality of women with men, countering the backlash to women’s advancement, and recruiting and training young feminists to encourage future leadership for the feminist movement in the United States.”
Four Freedoms Fund: This organization was designed to serve as a conduit through which large foundations could fund state-based open-borders organizations more flexibly and quickly.
Free Exchange on Campus: This organization was created solely to oppose the efforts of one individual, David Horowitz, and his campaign to have universities adopt an “Academic Bill of Rights,” as well as todenounce Horowitz’s 2006 book The Professors. Member organizations of FEC include Campus Progress (a project of the Center for American Progress); the American Association of University Professors; theAmerican Civil Liberties Union; People For the American Way; the United States Student Association; theCenter for Campus Free Speech; the American Library Association; Free Press; and the National Association of State Public Interest Research Groups.
Free Press: This “media reform” organization has worked closely with many notable leftists and such organizations as Media Matters for America, Air America Radio, Global Exchange, Code Pink, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, the Revolutionary Communist Party, Mother Jones magazine, and Pacifica Radio.
Funding Exchange: Dedicated to the concept of philanthropy as a vehicle for social change, this organization pairs leftist donors and foundations with likeminded groups and activists who are dedicated to bringing about their own version of “progressive” change and social justice. Many of these grantees assume that American society is rife with racism, discrimination, exploitation, and inequity and needs to be overhauled via sustained education, activism, and social agitation.
Gamaliel Foundation: Modeling its tactics on those of the radical Sixties activist Saul Alinsky, this group takes a strong stand against current homeland security measures and immigration restrictions.
Gisha: Center for the Legal Protection of Freedom of Movement: This anti-Israel organization seeks to help Palestinians “exercise their right to freedom of movement.”
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect: This group contends that when a state proves either unable or unwilling to protect civilians from mass atrocities occurring within its borders, it is the responsibility of the international community to intervene — peacefully if possible, but with military force if necessary.
Global Exchange: Established in 1988 by pro-Castro radical Medea Benjamin, this group consistently condemns America’s foreign policy, business practices, and domestic life. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Global Exchange advised Americans to examine “the root causes of resentment against the United States in the Arab world — from our dependence on Middle Eastern oil to our biased policy towards Israel.”
My friend, why are you bothering? He is convinced of his righteousness in a way we cannot fathom,unless we have been hypnotized or laughed at a beautiful woman in a dress. He means well, and I’ll give him points for that, but arguing with Mr. Nitrat is like having a conversation with an exploding squirrel.
It’s just fun to illustrate the fallacies of most liberal arguments and so easy to do…
I do not know if they are SCGOP voters or not but read some of the comments on these threads – there are tons of Stupid-Enoughs around here! FITS tosses out some of that rancid red meat and the yelping minions rejoice and slurp it up!!
This looks like…gulp!…UNFUNDED LIABILITY! Let’s panic and do something. Anything! We can’t tolerate unfunded liability!
Let’s get Curtis Loftis on this! He’ll fix it…sure he will.
Haley will probably just ask the feds for money, honestly.
Most likely. That seems the modus operandi of these social security receiving T-partiers for problem resolution.
I’ve got an old two stroke dual sport that I tinker with from time to time but I think I’m going down to the local motorcycle shop when I get home and buy a full on adventure tourer like a KLR or a BMW GS. Our roads are in such a state of disrepair, it’s going to take a motorcycle capable of crossing the desert or a mountain range to get
anywhere.
I vote we don’t even think about building another road, sidewalk or cart path until we fix the (@&$^ing roads we have.
I haven’t been over it in a fewmonths but when I left, the Hwy 555 Bridge over I-77 was so bad that cars swerved two lanes to get out of the pot holes. The bridge has a pockmarked concrete deck; every one of those potholes fills with water every time it
rains. The water does two things, it softens the concrete allowing the holes to expand and it filters down into the guts of the bridge, corroding and rusting the bridge, dramatically weakening it over time.
Here’s a couple of examples of what happens when maintenance is overlooked:
http://35wbridge.pbworks.com/w/page/900718/Mianus%20River%20Bridge%20Collapse
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_Bridge_Collapse
From driving across I-95 recently, I saw multiple cars pulled over with flat tires, likely from the gigantic potholes that littered that part of the interstate. As outraging as our current interstates falling to shit so we can build new ones to let go to shit may be, I do find it a bit amusing that people honestly think I-73 is still going to successfully increase our tourism.
We already have 3-foot-tall grass, broken and unrepaired barriers and signs, old and broken down (if not shut down) rest areas, and roads that are literally coming apart on the other interstates people use to get to/from tourist destinations in this state. Why not add one more?
Add large dead animals to the list. I drive a 40 mile long section of I-26 between West Columbia and Orangeburg lined with road kill. Not even deer carcasses are picked up. Like some science experiment (UT’s Body Farm) the deer are allow to rot in place. Way back in the mid-1970s I briefly worked to the highway department. One of the task I was assigned was to bury road kill. While digging a hole for my first road kill, a dog, I dug up another recently buried dog. Bad stretch of highway for dogs I guess.What fun.
All I can say about that job is it sucked to be you. Inhaling “recent road kill air” on a motorcycle is enough to gag a maggot.
Especially if it is a skunk – the aroma hangs around for five days…..
In an area of Alabama Shifty is familiar with, any road kill larger than a coyote or large dog is pulled off the road. Otherwise, they are left to the buzzards, vehicles, and the weather. Common to see mostly skunks, possums, raccoons, and an occasional armadillo.
Skunk – I once ran off the road to avoid hitting one. I’d hit one in my old Trooper a couple of years earlier and it took weeks to get the stink out.
Bet ya’ didn’t take a date to a drive-in movie!
You’d be right, besides, my wife would have cut my nuts off if I had taken a date to a drive in …badoomching!
Time to bring back the chain gang – they can cut the grass with a sling blade, shovel the asphalt for the road paver and replace barriers. All of it can be done with hand tools and manual labor.
Shifty knows about those chain gangs…..
“..escaping disguised as an immense charm bracelet.”
Chattanooga, TN, when I was probably 7 years old. A chain gang was working in our neighborhood cleaning the streets and the ditches. My Dad took me by the hand near to the guard. The gang was wearing the traditional black & white stripes, and were chained by the ankles. The guard was on a horse, the biggest that I have probably ever seen. He was on the street watching the gang, and he had a rifle resting on his left knee pointing skyward. As I looked up at him it seemed as though his head was in the sky. He looked down aat me and never spoke. My Dad pointed to the gang and told me, “If you ever tell a lie this is where you will be one day.” This was so impressionable on me that to this very day whenever I tell a lie (bigger than a “white lie”) that image and those words are with me. Years later when the movie Cool Hand Luke came out, that very image of the guard on horseback was there!
Great Story! Now, my little comment from Take the Money & Run seems like doo-doo.
Nah, you’re ok. Later I realized that those few minutes were so traumatic that every detail has stayed with me. Afterward my Dad let me watch them through the front window. Boss Godfrey (Cool Hand Luke) really brought it back to me because his character was so realistic — it was chilling.
Quick, someone contact a CSOL grad!!
There’s got to be the makings of a “liability suit” in here somewhere!!!
If Grover Norquist had not terrified idiot SCGOP legislators into signing his pledge, we would have had the gas tax raised a few times since 1987…to at least keep up with inflation and population growth…and, SCDOT would be able to fund the state’s road needs without things like infrastructure banks.
This is a very simple, very direct example of what happens when politicians sign pledges that supersede their oaths of office…and, are allowed to get away with it by the voters.
Amen, nitrat – you are 100% correct. If (and it is a great big if) SC voters ever get tired of living in The Republican Ghetto maybe we can have some safe roads . . . amongst other improvements.
This is the Bobby Harrell Bank he uses to dole out big contracts to his buddies, in the districts of his buddies, but most of it has gone to his district and his buddies there. Imagine that.
SIB Funding by County since 1997
(including cities and multi-county/statewide projects)
Total Funded by SIB in millions
% of Total Funds Since 1997
Charleston
County
$1,379
30%
Horry County
$1,378
30%
Aiken County
$240
5.1%
Florence County
$340
7.3%
Anderson County
$208
4.5%
Greenville County
$208
4.5%
Spartanburg County
$208
4.5%
York County
$178
3.8%
Beaufort County
$161
3.4%
Jasper County
$122
2.6%
Lexington County
$110
2.3%
Dorchester County
$19
0.4%
Berkeley County
$53
1.1%
Colleton County
$42
0.9%
Laurens County
$3.3
0.1%
Calhoun County
$2.3
0.0%
Cherokee County
$2.3
0.0%
Kershaw County
$2.3
0.0%
Newberry County
$2.3
0.0%
Oconee County
$2.3
0.0%
Orangeburg County
$2.3
0.0%
Richland County
$2.3
0.0%
Chester County
$1
0.0%
Chesterfield County
$1
0.0%
Fairfield County
$1
0.0%
Lancaster County
$1
0.0%
Marion County
$1
0.0%
Union County
$1
$0
Abbeville County
$0
$0
Allendale County
$0
$0
Bamberg County
$0
$0
Barnwell County
$0
0%
Clarendon County
$0
0%
Darlington County
$0
0%
Dillon County
$0
0%
Edgefield County
$0
0%
Georgetown County
$0
0%
Greenwood County
$0
0%
Hampton County
$0
0%
Lee County
$0
0%
Marlboro County
$0
0%
McCormick County
$0
0%
Pickens County
$0
0%
Saluda County
$0
0%
Sumter County
$0
0%
Williamsburg County
$0
0%
Total:
$4,669
100%
Interesting that so many counties got a big fat ZERO — including mine!
They only send money to counties that have licensed drivers, insured vehicles, and people that can read.
Then why are they sending so much to Horry?
I keep saying it, but here I go again. The problem is no accountability — not legally (ethics laws are virtually non-existent or unenforced), morally (they can’t be shamed — mostly because the general media never report this stuff) or at the ballot box — because almost every self-seeking, corrupt, and disingenuous politician in this state is smart enough to get the magical “R” next to their name on the ballot. And all the sheep say “baaa.” Until we start doing something different in SC, nothing will change!
Manray,
Those that criticize the “R” pols are the same ones that blindly support the “D” pols. Blind partisanship is killing this country and state.
The trick is too evaluate which elected officials are doing their jobs; which politicians are fighting for reform or to change the system so that is serves us, not the politicians and the insiders.There are a handful of elected officials that are doing that even though it is safe to say the reform movement is dead in SC. Reformers are rarely celebrated as their own parties leadership is afraid of them and the other party sees them as “the other party” and not worthy of support or respect.
It is easy for folks like Nitrat to preach at us, but in reality they are masters at what they claim to despise. Until we get past that simple R v D mindset we are destined to be mired poor government.
MML
It used to be about different philosophies of government.
That has devolved into the Republicans becoming the party of rigid ideology on numerous issues, but particularly constant lowering of taxes on the rich and their businesses as the solution for a bad economy, a good economy and everything in between.
Republican Grover Norquist’s pledge and the SCGOP politicians who signed it and who dominate our state government have actually hurt all of us in SC by signing that pledge.
As I said below, the devastation of our once great road system is a very easy thing to see. Each individual, each business, every city, county, state agency with cars on the road, deals with those bad roads every single day.
I doubt many SC Democrats have signed Grover’s pledge; Yancey McGill, maybe. You may want this to be a world where both side gets equal blame for everything. But, that is not the case anywhere, but particularly not in this very obvious connection between Republican Grover’s pledge and our roads. Do you deny any connection between the fact our gas tax has not been raised since 1987 – 26 YEARS – and the condition of our roads due to documented lack of maintenance?
Republican lobbyist Grover has probably only been involved in politics at the national level and can’t conceive that local and state taxes pay for things like water and sewer and ROADS. The shame and disgrace is that our elected officials don’t seem to get it either. Or, Republican Grover’s shakedown of them really took.
Read the Ornstein and Mann book “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks”. There is ONE party that’s responsible for the mess we’re in and it’s not the Democrats.
And, this is coming from someone who was thinking they would have to vote for John McCain in 2008 until he picked Sarah Palin and showed God and everyone that he had no judgment…and, probably never did.
The problem now is that almost every pol in office in this corrupt and backward state in an “R.” I’m not thrilled with either party, but maybe some “D” in office could create competition and accountability — even better maybe an “I” or two, or three, or…..
The only thing I would add to Manray’s comments is that those who think they are hiring the lazy bastards to “govern” for them are just a shiftless and lazy as the people they are voting for.
I tell ya …. I drive many of the state roads and state highways in South Carolina … the condition of a major number of these roads has increasingly gone from worst to the level of dangerous to drive upon. But these corrupt lawless rogues in our government are abusing We The People and OUR money. We have got to go after them and pass punishment. I, for one, and sick and tired of being abused by these good old boys and their cronies. We have got to band together and strip them of everything they own – starting with House Speaker Bobby Harrell.
Son, that’s not a pothole. Now, Orangeburg.. THAT’S a pothole!