Our Other Left

By Paul Gable

Those of you who have had the pleasure of going through basic training in the military can probably remember, as I do, the comic relief invariably provided by our ‘other left’ while learning how to drill.

Inevitably one or two members of a company will forget that you step out on your left foot and will be out of step while a drill instructor is running alongside yelling ‘NO, your other left idiot, your other left’, or something to that effect.

Some people just seem to be born with two left feet.

We are having a similar problem in South Carolina with local and state government. We seem to be suffering from two left wings.

A bill to end government monopolies in the solid waste disposal market is successfully being held up in the S.C. Senate. This is much to the joy of mainstream media it seems, if today’s article in The State newspaper camouflaged as an investigation of lobbying, is any indication.

In that solid bastion of conservatism called Horry County, taxes will be going up 3.5 mils or more, at least for residents in the unincorporated areas of the county, so city level fire services can be provided to rural areas of the county.

This will be the second tax increase in just a few years to raise the level of county fire services, which benefits the few at the expense of the many.

Never mind that the recent election for county council chairman pitted a candidate supported by the Tea Party against a candidate who ‘has the experience to say no.!’ Both appear to be solid supporters of the tax increase that will result in a large transfer of wealth from the heavily populated eastern areas of the county to the sparsely populated west.

Now we are hearing that once the flow control government monopoly of solid waste disposal is again upheld in the Senate, some of the millions of excess revenues controlled by the Horry County Solid Waste Authority will be used to repair the short line railroad tracks and bridges in Horry County. But, only after control of the railroad is grabbed from its current owners.

Overcharge consumers with a government monopoly; Use that overcharge to repair a railroad after the government has its preferred ownership in place; Raise taxes to provide a level of government services unheard of in the rest of the state, but that benefits some of your key supporters.

Isn’t it wonderful how government operates when our politicians don’t know their left from their right?