2011 offers lesson for 2012 policy priorities

DEC. 30, 2011 — Wow. Talk about a one-two federal punch that landed on South Carolina.

On the Thursday before Christmas, a federal judge blocked three major parts of a poll-driven, controversial immigration law that Statehouse conservatives pushed for two years in spite of budget shortfalls and high unemployment. The next day, the U.S. Justice Department said it wouldn’t put up with the state’s new photo identification law for voting because it was what critics argued: discriminatory.

Safety added to Palmetto Priorities

DEC. 31, 2010 — Violence and jobs. South Carolina has too much of the first and not enough of the second.

In this column, we offer our annual review of Palmetto Priorities, our sweeping policy objectives first outlined two years ago to help state lawmakers have a big-picture guide for how it could make significant changes for the people of the state.

More work needed on Palmetto Priorities

JAN. 8, 2010 — A slogan from an old Virginia Slims cigarette ad – “You’ve come a long way, baby – just doesn’t apply to the South Carolina General Assembly. But, the legislature took a few positive, progressive baby steps toward dealing with generational problems identified last year in Statehouse Report’s “Palmetto Priorities” list. A [...]

Rendering a more balanced tax structure

DEC. 4, 2009 – With a quarter of the state’s population jobless, underemployed or fed up looking for work, a pretty good case can be made that if the state of South Carolina wants to move past the recession, it needs to seriously rethink its priorities. Instead of continuing to do things the same ways [...]

Time for General Assembly to attack SC poverty

The new poverty numbers are in and the news isn’t good: South Carolina is now ranked 10th worst in the country in the percentage of people living below the poverty line. Now, we’re tied with Alabama. Some 15.7 percent of South Carolinians, including 21.7 percent of the Palmetto State’s children, live in poverty. That means they live [...]