It’s an Election Year, and He Gets It.

I first wrote about Senator Glenn McConnell’s Spending Caps Study Committee in January when the Municipal Association, the Association of Counties, and the State Employees’ Association were begging Senators not to limit their ability to spend.

After all, if spending was limited, government might shrink. The horror.

Well, like so many ideas, this one has evolved and even gotten the state’s chief economist Dr. Bill Gillespie on board.

Instead of spending limits, which Senator McConnell hoped to get through S.718, the committee is leaning toward revenue caps to limit the amount of money government can take in to its coffers.

Of course it will be interesting to see what some of the committee members decide to do as the smoke settles. Folks like Senator Larry Martin, who are likely to support the state limits, may not be as likely to back the local limits and instead buckle under the pressure of local government and bureaucratic special interests as they already did.

So now as S.718 morphs in to another vehicle to shrink government and return money to South Carolinians, we can be sure of one thing this election year. Senator McConnell gets it. You don’t ask for the vote while you ask for more taxes and spending. I wonder who else will benefit from that wisdom.

The folks over at FITSNews did a good job of detailing this yesterday after the Senate Spending Caps Study Committee meeting, and I’d suggest giving that a read if you haven’t already.

– Wilson Charles