At best, what South Carolina legislators are doing to state government borders on irresponsible. At worst, it’s almost criminal.
Lawmakers this week touted a Tax Foundation study that showed South Carolina government spending in real dollars grew 16.8 percent over the 10 years from 2001 to 2011— the third lowest rate in the country“South Carolina isn’t just leading the nation in restraining government growth but is helping to set a new national standard for how fiscally conservative states should handle taxpayers’ money,” House Speaker Bobby Harrell said in a press release.
But what legislative leaders are doing to the state isn’t fiscal conservativism or being frugal. They’re playing fast and loose with numbers. They pass all sorts of tax cuts — $28.8 billion since 1995, according to Harrell — without really sharing the true long-term impact on state government.
In the short term, tax cuts sound good and get legislators re-elected. But this approach to government is irresponsible because it is gutting the foundations of the everyday, meaningful services that people rely on.
Just look at state government’s real spending numbers, as outlined in a historical analysis by the State Budget and Control Board. From 2001 to 2012 in dollars not adjusted for inflation, the state’s spending in 2012 was $5.5 billion — only 1.7 percent more than in 2001. If these numbers were adjusted for inflation, they’d show that state government actually spent less last year than at the turn of the new century.
Now look what happens if you factor in public education and Medicaid, the two largest parts of the state budget:
- K-12 education spending of state tax dollars grew from $1.87 billion to $2.05 billion (9.4 percent) — an average increase of just $15 million — from 2001 to 2012 as the state’s population jumped about 700,000 to 4.7 million (17.5 percent).
- State spending on Medicaid increased 59.7 percent in unadjusted dollars from $936 million a year in 2001 to $1.6 billion in 2012.
What’s mind boggling is that because overall state spending has been virtually flat as education rose some and Medicaid rose a lot, the result to the rest of state government has been cataclysmic. All of the other agencies in state government suffered an overall cut in state spending of more than 27 percent — from $2.6 billion in 2001 to $1.89 billion in 2012.
Those kind of cuts have impacts. They’re why the bridges and roads are crumbling. They’re why regulatory oversight of our special places is slipping. They’re why tuberculosis outbreaks happen. They’re why prisons are full and our crime rate is high.
“It’s penny wise and pound foolish,” said Clemson economist Holley Ulbrich, a recognized expert on state government funding. “They are seriously neglecting the responsibilities of state government for basic state services, public education, public safety, higher education and infrastructure.”
University of South Carolina political scientist Mark Tompkins echoed the short-sightedness of trying to have state government for nothing. Not keeping up our government infrastructure and programs hurts us i the long run, he said.
“We’re giving up our long-term advantage, to some degree, by not taking care of the many resources we have here — the human resources and our natural resources,” he said. “In the long term, there’s a bill to be paid and if we don’t take care of these resources, we’re going to be uncompetitive.”
Ulbrich and Tompkins are being mostly nice in their criticisms.
The truth of the matter, however, is much darker. State legislators simply are starving government without talking about or ignoring the long-term implications to the general welfare of people who live here. To score points, they cut taxes. To avoid scrutiny, they avoid debates on the real problems and impacts of what they do.
What’s really sad is that these folks are proud about how they’ve undercut South Carolina’s future. Perhaps they figure, “I’ve got mine and the hell with everybody else.”
Why do we have this fiscal negligence? Because South Carolina has no real plan for the future. It’s time to get one and stop letting legislators pull the wool of the state’s fiscal picture over our eyes.
Andy Brack is publisher of Statehouse Report. He can be reached at: brack@statehousereport.com.
