The Other Brooks Brothers and Their Sister, Too. — “Suddenly-relevant”

According to a report released Tuesday (July 22) by the Natural Resources Defense Council, drivers in the South face the highest vulnerabilities resulting from increasing gas prices (based on 2007 transportation fuel sales).

• 5) Kentucky — $2080.49 per average driver — driver income on gas 6.69 %
• 4) Louisiana — $2374.37 per average driver — driver income on gas 6.83 %
  
• 3) Georgia — $2369.23 per average driver — driver income on gas 7.08 %
  
• 2) South Carolina — $2235.57 per average driver — driver income on gas 7.21 %
  
• 1) Mississippi — $2268.82 per average driver — driver income on gas 7.87 %
  

Once again, on behalf of my fellow South Carolinians, all thanks go to Mississippi.

While I’m relatively confident that I probably don’t attend the same political party precinct meetings as the NRDC base, the report remains telling.

First, we’re paying a lot for gas, and we can’t make it any cheaper because we aren’t allowed to drill off shore, and alternative fuels aren’t financially viable enough for us to realistically reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

Second, South Carolina’s economy is a joke. Sure we may pay less per gallon than drivers in other states, but the percentage of our incomes going to the gas pump is the second highest in the nation. That means that whatever economic development we’re seeing in South Carolina is being eclipsed by the fact that the jobs aren’t well-paying in comparison to the rest of the nation.

Stay classy, South Carolina. At this rate, it won’t be much longer until Mississippi is thanking us.

– Wilson Charles

BREAKING NEWS — 3:42 p. m.: After what some bloggers and MSM reporters considered a foregone conclusion (see here and here and here), former Landrum mayor Doug Brannon will not appear on the November ballot to face Republican Joey Millwood and Democrat Mark Chambers in the SC House District 38 race.

Brannon submitted 983 signatures yesterday 10 minutes before the filing deadline, but the Spartanburg County Voter Registration Board disqualified more than 90 out of the first 500 signatures reviewed today.

With 915 signatures necessary to qualify for the ballot, the disqualified signatures put Brannon well below the threshold to appear as a petition candidate.

Brannon indicated to the Herald-Journal’s Jason Spencer earlier in the week that if disqualified he would weigh “the options it would leave him — including running as a write-in candidate.”

The winner of the November contest will replace outgoing Representative Bob Walker, the 15 year incumbent defeated by Millwood in the June 10 primary.

– Wilson Charles

I’m not a fan of across-the-board smoking bans.

If a local government wants to prohibit us from lighting up in government buildings, that’s one thing. Elected officials have the authority from voters to make those policies.

Banning smoking in all public places? That’s a different story. Business owners should have the right to control how their businesses operate. If you as a patron don’t want the smoke around you, you have the ultimate power. You have the ability to take your consumer dollars to an establishment more in line with your belief.

It’s like voting. Just as you support candidates because their beliefs are more in line with yours, with your consumer dollars you can support businesses that foster environments more to your liking. In other words, if you don’t like a bar that allows smoking, go to another bar.

Until now, local governments have used the argument that they have a responsibility to protect those who work in businesses that allow smoking.

“Second hand smoke affects everyone,” ban proponents chant proudly. They’re right about that, but I always viewed that as a bogus argument that local political subdivisions used to justify a zero-tolerance policy on tobacco.

It now seems I wasn’t too far off base — at least where the City of Clemson is concerned.

When it takes effect on July 1, Clemson’s smoking ban will encompass more than smoking.

According to WYFF in Greenville, “The ordinance also prohibits the use of chewing tobacco, snuff or dip inside any public building or business in the city limits. Violators could pat a $100 fine.”

Remind me again. Why is it necessary to protect us from second-hand chew?

Municipal governments are encroaching upon individuals and businesses in the name of public health and welfare.

If local governments are honest in their motives, they should at least be honest enough to let the voters have a voice and decide the matter for themselves.

If they have a different motivation than they’re publicly admitting, they should be honest enough about that, too — and face the potential repercussions in the next election.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t dip or chew, and I like going in to restaurants that don’t make me reek of smoke the next day. I like breathing fresh air. It’s just not government’s job to tell our business owners how to operate.

If we’re so concerned about cigarettes and smoking and their effects on public health, let’s prohibit their manufacture and sale. The tobacco lobby might have something to say about that, though.

See how hypocritical it is? We take big tobacco’s money but we won’t let small business operate without interference but we keep tobacco legal but…

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!

Anyway, before I ramble more and give myself a permanent migraine trying to figure out the logic, congratulations to the City of Clemson for finally showing through its smokeless tobacco ban that such actions are not about protecting those around us but are instead about local government’s beloved home rule.

Like Senator McConnell so frequently asks, “How much more home rule can we afford?”

– Wilson Charles

It didn’t take long, but Walt Wilkins sailed through his US Senate confirmation process to become the new United States Attorney for the District of South Carolina.

The process from nomination to confirmation lasted less than a month.

If you recall, this was one of the first “outlets” to report Wilkins’ nomination on May 7.

I also had to distinguish the attorney Walt Wilkins from the other Walt Wilkins — even though South Carolina’s version is not without musical ability.

Wilkins will take over for former US Attorney Reggie Lloyd who left the office to head SLED.

Wilkins lives in Greenville with his wife and daughter.

– Wilson Charles

I don’t understand. What’s not to get?

The editorial team at The State recently wrote that, “There is simply no need for a state spending cap.“

Why not?

Don Weaver of the SC Association of Taxpayers says that not only do we need spending limits at the state level, we need them locally, as well. I couldn’t agree more.

In a perfect world where government was responsible with taxpayers’ dollars and egos weren’t more important than ideology, we wouldn’t even have to have this debate. Government would do its job, take what it needed to do that job, and either return the excess to the people, put it away for a rainy day, or reduce tax rates for the following year.

Unfortunately, that’s not reality.

The reality is that state government in South Carolina grew 41% during the past three years. The General Assembly spent $1.5 billion in reserve funds leaving the state’s coffers depleted in an upcoming budget year that shows us expecting significant shortfalls.

At the local level, according to a study out of the South Carolina Policy Council, without the imposition of local level spending limits:

• The entire 2008 reduction in property taxes will be negated by the introduction of new property taxes.
• Because the 1¢ increase in the state sales tax will be in effect, the state will still collect $594 million more in sales tax revenue.
• SC businesses will pay $409 million in additional taxes above what they would have paid had the swap not been imposed – a 12.51% increase.
• SC homeowners’ initial tax cut will decrease 45% (or $281 million) from $632 million to $351 million.
• The local tax burden will continue to rise, along with the increase in sales tax.
• The state will have 6,557 fewer jobs than it would had nothing been done.
• Investment will be $852 million lower.
• Personal Income will fall by $321 million and real disposable income per capita by $79.
• Sales tax will remain higher, while tax relief will become smaller or non-existent.

The Coalition Against Government Spending, a group of business community members and taxpayer advocacy supporters, notes that at the local level:

• From 1995 to 2006, local governments raised millage in 44 out of 46 counties.
• Total average statewide millage jumped 80 mills during that time — 277 in 1997 to 357 in 2005.
• From 2000 to 2005, making rate hikes even more dangerous, the value of one mill increased an average of $98,317.
• Despite increased property tax revenues, local reliance actually decreased because of escalating local option sales taxes, hospitality taxes, and user fees and permits.
• 21 schools districts across the state announced millage hikes by December 2006.
• By nearly 70%, voters in November 2006 approved the constitutional amendment limiting local property tax reassessment.

So with all that said, let’s remember that The State says there is “simply no need for a state spending cap.” Likewise, Mr. Weaver paraphrases Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell’s oft-quoted, “I’ve had about all the home rule I can afford.”

After looking at the facts, figures, and numbers as our state’s finances spin out of control, I have to agree with Weaver and can’t understand why The State or the General Assembly wouldn’t feel the same way — especially in an election year.

– Wilson Charles

NoHomeTax.org, a Charleston-based grassroots organization that worked with others for recent property tax reform measures, launched a new radio ad calling on the General Assembly to improve the state’s property tax structure.

With a fictional reporter questioning an equally fictional “Representative Seesaw” at a press conference, the subject revolves around NoHomeTax.org’s belief that South Carolina property taxes remain too high and that the legislature seems to be out of touch with taxpayers.

According to the ad which is running in each of the state’s major media markets, “A number of legislators are considering an improved property tax relief plan.”

The ad’s reporter claims that through an additional 1 cent sales tax the plan will:

• Completely eliminate homestead taxes
• Eliminate point-of-sale assessments
• Give new relief to all 4% and 6% properties.

The group promises to post the names of legislators who support and oppose H.4784 along with members’ home and Columbia contact information.

While the May 1 crossover deadline passed last week (meaning that after May 1, any bill passed in one chamber requires a two-thirds vote from the other chamber before it can be debated), NoHomeTax.org officials hope that pressure on legislators will help the bill move quickly and that its proponents can generate enough support to have the bill heard and voted on by both houses.

– Wilson Charles

Although Assistant US Attorney Walt Wilkins’ music career may not have been as long lasting as the Walt Wilkins pictured here, he is as accomplished in his own right.

On the advice of both of South Carolina’s senators, President Bush today nominated Greenville’s Walt Wilkins to be the next US Attorney for the District of South Carolina.

Upon confirmation by the US Senate, Wilkins will succeed recently inducted SLED chief Reggie Lloyd in the position.

Among his notable cases are successful prosecutions of a recent human trafficking/prostitution ring, a 2007 gambling operation forfeiting $9 million to the federal government, and a bank/mortgage fraud case involving two brothers who bilked banks out of more than $20 million.

PERSONAL NOTE/OPINION: That last one was especially satisfying. One of the brothers (James Byrd) caused a good friend of this site to lose a client because he had issue with the way Byrd conducted business. He objected to his client about doing work for Byrd and had his contract canceled after Byrd then claimed that the objections were racially motivated. As a result of illegal business practices, Byrd and his brother were sentenced to 63 months in federal prison and ordered to pay over $5.5 million in restitution.

Wilkins lives in Greenville with his wife and daughter.

He is the son of Judge Billy Wilkins (former Chief Judge of the US 4th Circuit Court of Appeals) and the nephew of former SC House Speaker and current US Ambassador David Wilkins but frankly has the skills and resume to deserve this position if his name were Booger McGee from Modoc, SC.

– Wilson Charles

I’ve always found it sad that our schools are required to strive to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress or AYP. After all, “adequate” isn’t anything to brag about – unless it’s my golf game which still hasn’t gotten there.

At work, when it’s time for the annual review, the boss isn’t going to reward with a raise and/or promotion for adequate work.

In sports, as the coach makes lineup decisions, he or she isn’t going to put those with adequate skills as starters.

When it comes to hiring, as the pool of applicants grows, it’s pretty certain that those with adequate credentials/skills won’t get the job above those prepared to compete.

Why is it that “adequate” progress is what we strive for in our schools, then? What’s worse is having to ask why we can’t even seem to achieve that adequate progress we work so hard to attain.

For the record, this is not a post in support of vouchers. Frankly, I don’t support vouchers.

At the same time, I will say that something isn’t working. I’m not blaming the teachers. Their hands are often tied, and they’re doing the best with what they have. Unfortunately, what they have isn’t much.

I blame the system. I blame elected officials at several levels who are convinced that money is the ultimate answer and refuse to expand the debate further.

They haven’t wanted to talk about the outlandish levels of administration. They haven’t wanted to talk about squandered finances resulting from unnecessary redundancies and waste.

They’ve been convinced that if they throw enough money in this pit it will eventually fill up.

Excluding local bond revenues, South Carolina’s 2009 educational budget has plans for $11,480 ($4,867 in state funds, $1,097 in federal funds, and $5,516 in local funds) per pupil. That’s $200 more per pupil than Georgia and $2,000 more than North Carolina. For what are deemed our state’s “worst” schools, they will receive as much as $20,000 in per pupil funding.

That means that excluding local bond revenues, total K-12 appropriations for the upcoming school year in South Carolina will be more than $7.9 billion.

The numbers are deceiving, though. The unfortunate reality is that only 44 cents of each “education” dollar ever reaches the classroom. Out of each dollar, 44 cents pay for things like classroom materials (at least the ones that teachers aren’t forced to pay for out of their own pockets), books and teacher salaries. That means 56 cents of every dollar never reaches a classroom because that’s reserved for “non-instructional” expenditures like administration and bureaucracy.

It’s easy to see that the problem really isn’t that there isn’t enough money like some want us to believe. The problem is the system we created, fostered, and continue to support.

I know I wrote about this back in January, but the debate rages on, and these updated numbers illustrate even more than before how broken the system really is.

All of this explains why I was so encouraged to read the latest proposal (highlighted yesterday by The Palmetto Scoop and echoed by FITSNews) from Superintendent of Education Jim Rex and his friends.

Yea for us! A constitutional amendment adding the line “that will provide a high quality education, allowing each student to reach his highest potential” makes perfect sense.

Why didn’t we think of that before? It’s brilliant.

Revamping the educational system to foster real education for our children seems so silly now.

Putting money in the classrooms instead of breeding a bigger bureaucracy now seems downright ludicrous.

Of course. The answer is a constitutional amendment with no enabling legislation to spell out how this new public school system would operate to provide this high quality education and how we would pay for it.

A new line in South Carolina’s constitution will make us feel good, so the superintendent’s plan has to work. Right?

Thank you, Superintendent Rex. You’ve done it, old bean.

When you went on your name-calling tirade against someone who disagreed at the end of January, who knew it would only take you three months to single-handedly move South Carolina from 49th to 1st and prove all of your detractors wrong?

I have egg on my face now.

– Wilson Charles

I refuse to be another to speak ill of Spartanburg GOP party boss Rick Beltram.

Nope. Not gonna do it.

After all, his hometown paper potentially ended the twisted love affair they shared when it finally turned on him (Here, Here, Here, and Here) for selling campaign services to Spartanburg County primary election candidates out of the party headquarters where he located his office after leaving the family business.

NOTE: Rick, you should have known that it would eventually happen. Maureen Dowd said it best. “Wooing the press is an exercise roughly akin to picnicking with a tiger. You might enjoy the meal, but the tiger always eats last.”

South Carolina’s blogs have been on the offensive, too. FITSNews hit him twice (Here and Here). Palmetto Scoop presented this piece and this piece. I even disagreed with his practices here recently.

Rick made a mistake. He knows it and was a big enough man to voluntarily quit peddling his services until Sunday when his party leadership gave him permission to restart his enterprise on a limited basis.

I disagree with the Spartanburg County party’s decision, but I’m not going to criticize them over what many view as an overwhelming appearance of impropriety and conflict.

What I will do is applaud Rick Beltram.

He took a free tool like Voter Vault and was able to charge candidates to organize the data and provide printouts of the information.

He actually figured out a way to take a database tool that is worth every penny of what the party normally charges and get $10 American for every precinct.

The secret is that Voter Vault is a mess. It’s not updated. It’s outdated. It’s inaccurate. It’s also a lot of other synonyms that aren’t really coming to mind right now.

In the end it costs the candidates and campaigns that use it.

Candidates base large parts of their communications/messaging strategies on what is a great offering in concept. Unfortunately, Voter Vault’s records are fraught with dead voters (literally, not some metaphorical political term), wrong contacts, and voters who moved. It isn’t updated frequently enough to add new voters, it hates any browser other than Internet Explorer, and it’s also so compromised that Mrs. Charles seems to be the only person without login information. Doesn’t that sound like a great tool?

It’s a great idea, but it has too many errors to be of real value. Until the RNC pays attention and elevates Voter Vault to what it should be in concept, I congratulate anyone who can make money off of it.

Of course whether or not the RNC shares my appreciation is a different story, altogether.

– Wilson Charles

I generally try not to rant. Lunacy is not an attractive quality. I work hard to be rational and relatively logical, but I find that the older I get, the more I’m irritated by small things that the rest of the sane population would find insignificant.

This notion really hit me as we came back from The Heritage yesterday.

We decided not to get gas in Hilton Head because I just can’t justify the island’s $3.45 per gallon market price until the rest of the state moves its prices in lock step.

The car had roughly 150 miles left in the tank, so I convinced everybody that we needed to drive to cheaper gas. It would come. I just knew it would.

It did.

If you know about the UFO Visitor Welcome Center in Bowman, SC, you know there’s only one gas station on that exit. That’s where we stopped for $3.34 per gallon.

After a $52 fill-up later, I decided to patronize the adjoining McDonald’s. I know I don’t need it, but it was warm outside, and I wanted a chocolate milkshake.

After waiting a minute-and-a-half, I believe the clerk asked if she could take my order. Through the garbled speaker she might have asked if I knew how to Salsa. I’m not sure.

Anyway, on the assumption that she asked about my order I stated that I wanted a large chocolate milkshake.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We don’t have large chocolate milkshakes. We only have small and medium.”

Curtly, I opted for the medium. When we pulled forward to the window, I probably could have been a little nicer. Her stupidity really irritated me, though. It shouldn’t have, but it did.

After all, it wasn’t her fault she was stupid. Marketing terms used by fast food joints (and most infamously a certain coffee chain) are out of control. Marketing gurus have so horribly bastardized the English language and word meanings, it’s no wonder South Carolina’s kids are having trouble competing.

For anyone in the service industry who is having trouble with this concept, let me explain. To be truthful, there are 4 (sometimes 5) accepted sizes — small, medium, large, extra large, and the occasional extra extra large. That last only is like when “Y” is considered a vowel, which isn’t very often.

If you work at an establishment and your menu board offers only two sizes, they are by definition “small” and “large” no matter what corporate calls them. The laws of physics do not allow you to have “medium” on that menu because “medium” comes between “small” and “large.” It’s impossible to have an “extra large” without a “large.” These are simple concepts that even preschool age children can understand.

With that said, Mr. Starbucks executive, don’t charge me extra to order a Venti. I’m not going to order a Venti. I’m going to order an extra large, and I don’t want your barista to look at me blankly when I order the extra large. He knows extra large means Venti, we just aren’t buying in to the marketing language.

Likewise, if you happen to work at the McDonald’s next to the Pilot gas station on the Bowman exit on I-26, you don’t have “small” and “medium” chocolate milkshakes. You have “small” and “large.”

Thanks for letting me vent. I’m felling much better now.

– Wilson Charles

UPDATE: If you’re wondering why there’s no report from The Heritage about legislators behaving badly, I was told by our hosts at the hospitality house we frequented that theirs was a “safe house” free of cameras and other recording devices and that what happened there would not leave. We all appreciate their hospitality and abided by house rules.