The South Carolina Republican gubernatorial primary is still a year away, but Upstate businessman John Warren is getting his name back into the Palmetto State’s political bloodstream via a new pro-taxpayer initiative.
On Monday, Warren’s political organization – South Carolina’s Conservative Future – launched a new initiative aimed at holding “career politicians” accountable for their actions.
The venture comes at an especially opportune time as “Republicans” in the S.C. General Assembly are blowing nearly $2 billion in new spending (including tens of millions of dollars in pork) – without so much as a dime of long-overdue tax relief.
Warren has pointed out this distinction before, but now he appears to be getting organized in his efforts.
“Career politicians love nothing more than hiding the truth about how they spend our money,” he wrote in an email to supporters Monday morning. “That is about to change.”
According to Warren, his new initiative – dubbed “Accountability for Taxpayers” – is geared toward making sure taxpayers receive “what we pay for and expect: accountability for our hard-earned tax dollars.”
“This is a statewide effort to root out corruption and wasteful spending in state government,” Warren wrote. “As we prepare for the 2022 election cycle, we want incumbent and prospective candidates to know that voters expect conservative policy. Every candidate seems to talk like a conservative on the campaign trail, but they start voting and acting like liberal Democrats when they get to Columbia!”
Is Warren correct about that? Absolutely … as I reminded readers earlier today, a national pro-taxpayer group recently ranked the Palmetto State as the “most liberal” GOP-controlled legislature in America.
Republican voters had hoped things would change after their party won near-supermajorities in both chambers of the S.C. General Assembly during last fall’s elections.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen …
In fact as I noted earlier today, things are worse than ever for taxpayers …
In a Facebook post announcing the formation of his new initiative, Warren wrote that he was “disgusted watching politicians in Washington waste our tax dollars.”
“Sadly, the same thing is happening right here in South Carolina,” he added. “Just because Republicans are in control, that doesn’t mean they are conservative or even responsible. We can’t sit by any longer and let it go unnoticed.”
How does Warren intend to expose this hypocrisy?
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“Over the next few weeks, we’ll be exposing just a few examples of problems caused by career politicians in Columbia and asking you to call and email your elected officials to make your voice heard,” he wrote. “Stay tuned for more later this week!”
Warren nearly ousted incumbent governor Henry McMaster in the 2018 GOP gubernatorial primary, but the fiscally liberal incumbent received a last-minute presidential endorsement in that race.
McMaster was in serious political trouble a few short months ago … due in no small part to his administration’s botched handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, Warren – who scored some big wins for the GOP on the 2020 campaign trail – was flying high and flexing his muscle legislatively.
Lately, however, McMaster has rebounded … and according to his pollsters has opened up what would appear to be an insurmountable lead over Warren (assuming you believe the GOP establishment’s polling).
Given his vast resources (and preexisting name identification and political network), Warren is obviously the top potential challenger to McMaster next spring – although others may decide to enter the race. Accordingly, I will be following his latest moves very closely with an eye on both their policy and political ramifications.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
(Via: FITSNews)
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass player and a dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven children. And yes, he has LOTS of hats (including the above-pictured Brooklyn Dodgers’ lid commemorating the 1947 major league baseball debut of Jackie Robinson).
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