By Paul Gable
The SC Senate paved the way for a roads bill debate to begin as early as tomorrow when it passed new abortion restrictions yesterday.
The questions for the roads bill now are how much of a tax increase the SC House and SC Senate agree on and will they have the votes necessary to override a Nikki Haley veto?
Look for a fairly stiff increase in the gas tax as well as an increase in fees for licenses, registrations and the like.
But, passage of a bill to provide more revenue for road maintenance and repair is not a done deal although the pressure on legislators to get something done is growing.
One media source quoted the director of the Palmetto Agribusiness Council as saying that failure to act (on a roads bill) would indicate the SC government is broken.
Actually, SC government is already broken.
Even if a road funding bill is passed, the accomplishments of this session of the SC General Assembly will be written on a very small notepad.
Most of the legislative year is taken up by a bunch of men and a few women posturing to get re-elected rather than actually trying to govern the state.
When the SC General Assembly gets down to the last couple of weeks before sine die, the rules go out the window as the SC House and SC Senate scramble to try and get something meaningful done.
Of course, after sine die, the legislators can begin planning their foreign vacations, paid for from campaign funds, because the vast majority of them don’t have to worry about re-election.
Until we, as voters, change this, the circus will continue in Columbia.
Speak Up…