Moredock: SC’s numbers show troubled state

Oct 19, 2011

 

In a new commentary in the Charleston City Paper, columnist Will Moredock (right) profiles the Center’s 2011 Briefing Book as it relates to South Carolina, noting  how the state often “ranks first in the worst and last in the best.”  An excerpt:

These bad numbers illustrate a nexus of ancient social and political pathologies. Here’s one I found of particular interest: Despite what our Republican governor and legislature would have you believe, we have the eighth-lowest tax burden in the nation, at 8.1 percent of personal income. If lower taxes were the key to jobs and prosperity, South Carolina would be booming, instead of carrying the fourth-highest level of unemployment in the country.

 

All these numbers were made possible by Andy Brack, founder and president of the Center for a Better South and a candidate for the Charleston City Council District 11 seat. “A hundred and 50 years after shots were fired at Fort Sumter, we have a Civil War hangover,” Brack told me last week. “We have not invested in education and infrastructure.” (And with the eighth-lowest tax rate in the nation, it is not likely we will start soon.)

 

Speaking of the South generally, he said, “It’s amazing when you look at statistics across the board. We really are at the bottom of the nation.

 

“We have made progress, but so has the rest of the country,” he said. “We still lag. We are still trying to catch up.”

Moredock notes that policymakers and lawmakers have to do more than just read the report:

“Policymakers and lawmakers have to care. They have to give a damn. And this is where law and policy have failed in the South for centuries. The people who run this state — and all the Southern states — are quite comfortable with things as they are. And there is no reason to think this will change soon. The only people who could make those smug, greedy bastards give a damn — I’m talking about the voters here — do not go to the polls on Election Day. “

• Read the full column.