S.C. SLAPS NEW LABELS ON ITS “BUSINESS AS USUAL” BUREAUCRACY
This week, South Carolina’s Senate overwhelmingly approved the first comprehensive restructuring of the Palmetto State’s bloated, dysfunctional government in more than twenty years …
The only problem? The “new” state government is every bit as bloated and dysfunctional as the old – although only a handful of lawmakers were willing to call out this “reform in name only” for what it was.
Sad … but par for the course in the Palmetto State, where the appearance of progress never seems to be accompanied by the real thing.
“I am for true restructuring but I am not for something that people can go tell the constituents that they did something, pat themselves on the back and then realize that business as usual rocks on here in Columbia,” said S.C. Sen. Shane Martin (R-Spartanburg), one of only four Senators to vote against the legislation.
Ah yes, “business as usual …”
That’s exactly what this “restructuring” legislation will do … spend a bunch of taxpayer money to slap new labels on the same entrenched, ineffective bureaucracy.
This legislation – championed by Democrat Vincent Sheheen and “Republican” Nikki Haley – didn’t get rid of any government agencies (at least not any agencies that weren’t replaced with new ones).
There were no meaningful spending cuts, agency consolidations or programmatic eliminations … and while there’s a modicum of enhanced accountability, the state’s executive branch remains hopelessly splintered (lawmakers preserved their stranglehold over agency procurement, for example).
“At a time when South Carolina’s leaders need to dramatically reduce the size of state government (and give those savings back to the people) they are choosing to rename a few offices and pocket the pennies they save,” we wrote last fall in assessing the latest version of restructuring.
In fact Haley’s version of restructuring would have actually grown government …
Yeah …
The only good news in all this? The glad-handing politicians seeking voter approval for rearranging a sinking ship’s deck chairs are unlikely to receive the adulation they seek …
Why not? Because with exception of the echo chamber at the S.C. State House, no one even vaguely understands or remotely cares about this issue.
Taxes? Spending? Parental choices? Corruption? Those are issues the general public can sink its teeth into …
Government restructuring? Not so much …
10 comments
More like give Queen Haley more power to terrorize our state…..
This restructuring is a waste of time. It makes the uninformed feel like they have accomplished something but all they have done is spend tens of millions to “rearrange the deck chairs.” Nothing meaningful happens with Haley and Company in charge. It is all optics. They, the administration and their friends, are getting rich and leading the rockstar life. The rest of us pay the bills for them.
Cool deal if you are Nikki Haley and Company.
Campbell restructured, and so did Sangfraud, right? I thought that was a once and for all deal…what happened?
Haley goes through the motions for appearances only. They all do. I think government restructuring should begin and end with the elimination of the Governor and the Guv’s Office..
Hey Will, totally off topic… are you ignoring the story of the judge allowing the terminated DHEC nurse to include Templeton in the TB lawsuit because it’s not a FITS “exclusive”? I mean, since all the MSM outlets in SC carried it today, and all? Just wondering…
Sic has a thing for Miss Catherine. Spartanburg’s WSPA has the story here: http://www.wspa.com/story/24507782/ex-nurse-allowed-to-sue-dhec-director-templeton-over-tb-outbreak .
http://www.wspa.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=9753865
They’ve also got the FOIA’ed emails from DHEC on this page: http://www.wspa.com/story/24398229/email-records-reveal-truth-behind-greenwood-county-tuberculosis-outbreak .
Meet the new boss…same as the old boss.
The only way to “fix” government, is to get rid of it.
Move those Titanic deck chairs around, one more time!
Exactly, it makes everyone feel better, it lets them believe something’s being changed for the better.
That’s why Obama was smart in using “Hope & Change”.
and that’s no defense of Bush either by the way.