Greenville's free alternative weekly

Looking for South Carolina’s real priorities

By Andy Brack

In between headlines by Republican and Democratic presidential candidates criss-crossing the Palmetto State, several key stories in South Carolina jockeyed for space in newspapers and time on television.

As the General Assembly opened the second half of its two-year session, Gov. Mark Sanford rolled out his $6.8 billion executive budget, a document that lawmakers always seem to pledge to review, but often ignore many of his suggestions. Budgeting and spending money, remember, starts in the House, moves to the Senate and finishes with compromise. Only then can a governor wield a veto pen, which Sanford has freely done in the past and which the Legislature has openly overridden.

Surprising in this year’s plan was Sanford’s call for a $22 million cut to health insurance for 70,000 low-income children. At the same time, he asked for an increase of $50 million to conserve land for future generations. Two reactions immediately spring to mind:

· While it is vitally necessary to keep important lands out of the grasp of development, government is about people. Not only would cutting health insurance for 70,000 kids be a dumb political move in an election year, but it would send a bad message about the state’s priorities. Is land really more important than people?

· Perhaps a Solomon-like decision isn’t necessary. State lawmakers could keep the kids on health insurance and budget a lower amount – $28 million – on extra land conservation. While $28 million in new money isn’t the $50 million Sanford wants, it would bring total annual spending for the Conservation Land Bank to $43 million by adding new money to the $15 million routinely budgeted. At the same time, the state would protect kids, an investment that certainly will pay off many times over by keeping them out of expensive emergency rooms for primary care.

State lawmakers tried to top each other during the opening week by being tough on illegal immigration. House GOP leaders unveiled a so-called immigration reform package that they said would be the toughest in the nation. Senate leaders said they already had passed a bill that would be tough on illegals.

Lost in the election-year posturing seems to be any realization by politicians that there’s little a state can do to secure its borders. At least the conservative editorialists at the Spartanburg Herald-Journal got it when they wrote, “The General Assembly simply doesn’t have the authority to put a dent in illegal immigration. It can’t change immigration policy. It can’t secure the nation’s borders. And it can’t deport anyone.” More lawmakers need to wake up to this reality.

Hats off to South Carolina educators for efforts to attract and keep their best teachers. According to the new Quality Counts 2008 report, the Palmetto State ranked first in the nation in teacher professionalism. But the report also highlighted an education negative: the state ranked 41st in student achievement.

A ranking in another report highlighted challenges facing lawmakers this year. South Carolina was 42nd out of the 50 states in business competitiveness, according to the State Competitiveness Report 2007 by Suffolk University. Just two years ago, it ranked 29th.

Why the lower ranking? Because of South Carolina’s high murder and crime rates, high unemployment rate, high infant mortality, high rates of uninsured residents and poor educational achievement by students.

The lesson? South Carolina lawmakers need to concentrate more on their people by focusing on education, health care and quality of life. In the larger scheme, it’s far more important to make life better for everyone than obsessing about the comparatively few people who want to be here, but may not have the right paperwork.