|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
by WILL FOLKS
***
Last week, DOGE SC – a pro-citizen movement founded by Lowcountry, South Carolina businessman Rom Reddy – launched Covenant 250, a “Palmetto Revolution” blueprint dedicated to making South Carolina “the freest state in America.”
Just prior to Reddy taking the stage in Surfside Beach, S.C. to roll out the agenda, he joined this author for an extended one-on-one conversation. During our chat, Reddy shared some of his personal history – including a near-fatal bout with polio as a child which helped solidify the faith that drives everything he does.
“I wouldn’t say I’m overly religious, but I’m very spiritual,” Reddy said. “I kind of connect instinct with God talking to me. And it’s been that way my whole life.”
Instinct drove Reddy to lean into a high-profile battle versus the Palmetto regulatory state earlier this year – one in which he represented himself against an army of bureaucrat lawyers in front of the S.C. Administrative Law Court (SCALC).
“My first reaction, Will, was to do what I’ve always done, call in the favors, surround myself with lawyers, make the problem go away,” Reddy said of his battle with the state. “And then I started getting phone calls from all over the state – once the fake news media started putting stuff out – people were like, thank God for standing up to these goons. They’ve destroyed our lives, and we couldn’t afford to stand up to them.”
***
According to Reddy, that was the moment he realized “we have weaponized government against the citizen in all aspects, not (just) land, but everything – education, land, children, the courts, the probate courts, the family courts, we have literally weaponized government against the citizens, so much so that the young people coming into government think that’s normal. We’ve normalized it.”
“What we’ve done is we’ve taken money and power from the citizen (and) given it to the government, and they use it to weaponize the government against the citizen.” Reddy added.
Assessing the field of aspiring officeholders in the Palmetto State, Reddy was unimpressed – arguing several major contenders for governor are proposing what amounts to pie in the sky “solutions.” While he didn’t call any of these candidates out by name, he dismissed a term limits proposal put forward by congressman Ralph Norman – as well as components of an income tax reduction plan pitched by congresswoman Nancy Mace.
Both Norman and Mace are running for governor in 2026.
“I heard someone say, I’m going to cut the taxes,” he said. “How are you going to cut the taxes? (They said) we’re going to eliminate earmarks and ask the agencies to cut 3% of their budget. Well, if you actually run the numbers, that’s about $700 million – where does the other $4.3 billion come from? And this is the thing, you know, we we say these things to people that we cannot get done. And people are like, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that before.”
I asked Reddy point blank if he would ever consider running for governor.
“That’s not my motivation at all,” he said, although he quickly added he would “listen to the Almighty,” especially “if the time comes and he says, ‘you know what, it’s time for you to step out of your bubble that you’ve been in.'”
***
RELATED | DOGE SC LAUNCHES ‘PALMETTO REVOLUTION’
***
“We’ll cross the bridge when we come to it,” Reddy ultimately demurred.
Turning to his agenda, Reddy focused on South Carolina’s notoriously corrupt judicial branch of government – which FITSNews has spent the past half-decade aggressively calling out for its corrosive impact on competitiveness and public safety.
“For me, it’s a constitutional issue,” he said. “There has to be a very clear separation of powers. Government has to remain weak. You cannot let government become strong.”
Reddy also called for the creation of a “citizen trust fund,” which would rebate surpluses, savings and spending cuts back to taxpayers twice annually – on July 4 and December 25.
“This whole thing is a joke,” Reddy said of the current state spending apparatus. “Give the money back. Let’s put it in the citizen trust fund. Let’s start giving it back.”
Outlining DOGE SC’s education agenda – entitled “Through The Eyes Of A Child” – Reddy said he intended to remove excess layers of administrative bureaucracy and use AI to retrain the system to focus exclusively on what is in the best interests of individual students.
“The governance here is broken, utterly broken,” he said. “Twenty years ago, our administrators were about 30% of the total. Today, we have more administrators than teachers in the system – and you’re wondering why you’re spending $19,000 or $18,000 (annually), I believe. If I remember right, $9,800 of that goes to the classroom, and the rest of it is all this other nonsense.”
According to Reddy, his group is funding a pilot program this year in Edgefield County which will leverage AI-based learning to improve academic outcomes.
“It is astonishing what it is doing,” Reddy said of the AI-based learning program.
***
***
Another big part of Reddy’s pro-child agenda? Bringing back the death penalty for violent crimes against children.
“If you commit a violent crime against a child, the penalty should be death,” he said. “That should be on the table. It is a disgrace that we can’t protect the children in our community.”
Reddy also made it abundantly clear he opposes the legalization of casino gaming in the Palmetto State, arguing casinos are “grand central” for trafficking children.
“I don’t care what the justification is, I will crawl over broken glass to stop it,” Reddy said. “We cannot be making money on the backs of our little children.”
As for implementing his agenda, Reddy made it abundantly clear he intends to do so by engaging the upcoming partisan primary elections – leveraging a massive ground game to dramatically increase turnout in next spring’s GOP primary and runoff elections.
“I will promise you something, these patriots, they know the secret now,” he said. “They’re all going to be showing up at the primaries.”
“It’s going to be a seismic shift,” Reddy predicted. “People are not going to be able to hide from the agenda.”
To view my full conversation with Reddy, click here…
***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
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. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
***
WANNA SOUND OFF?
Got something you’d like to say in response to one of our articles? Or an issue you’d like to address proactively? We have an open microphone policy! Submit your letter to the editor (or guest column) via email HERE. Got a tip for a story? CLICK HERE. Got a technical question or a glitch to report? CLICK HERE.
7 comments
This interview is what we needed to understand this gentleman.
He is absolutely on track with the right thinking, its hard though if he doesn’t run for governor. I think the pockets of voters are there and I think this coming race is going to have a lot of voters looking for change. He is not just hitting buzz words but giving a knowledgeable response on his plan.
This is the time for the residents of South Carolina to regain some footing here. Lets hope this interview opens up some opinions on him.
“For me, it’s a constitutional issue,” he said. “There has to be a very clear separation of powers. Government has to remain weak. You cannot let government become strong.” Isn’t he a Trump supporter?
Another Rum Ready ball gargling session with Will. A lot of cheap talk with nothing to back it up. The good thing about it is outside of this blahg nobody has ever heard of Mr DOGE SC…
“This whole thing is a joke,” Reddy said”
I couldn’t agree more. Rum and his magical AI is a joke.
Will Folks and FITSNews. Standing up for millionaires’ right to destroy the public’s beaches in order to save their million dollar beachfront mansions.
Great work buddy. We underestimate the power of the temper tantrum. Here’s to the ability to pay a blogger to support our temper tantrums. Cheers!
Whose AI formula is he using?
“It is astonishing what it is doing,” Reddy said of the AI-based learning program.
This is like Trump talking about how good Baron is with computers. Amazing how easy it is to impress Will. A reminder: the federal DOGE project was a complete failure in all respects. They lied about their impacts, spending has only continued to increase, and their shoddy use of AI led to numerous errors in process and they had to re-hire a bunch of people that they mistakenly fired.
Every few years, someone like him comes along with big ideas and rhetoric about reforming government. But it never seems to happen, because these people lack a deep understanding of how politics and government work, and more generally of human nature. He reminds me of John Warren in his campaign for governor.