Sanford Signs Economic Development Competitiveness Act
Columbia, S.C. - June 23, 2010 - Gov. Mark Sanford today joined Speaker of the House Bobby Harrell, Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor and other economic development advocates to sign H.4478, a bill aimed at enhancing South Carolina’s ability to attract jobs and investment and compete in an increasingly global marketplace. The bill takes several positive steps, including:
* Reforming the Endowed Chairs program to help shift its focus to job creation and allow private sector investment to lead public sector investment;
* Removing the scores of special jobs tax credits that have been legislated over the years, making the state’s credits based purely on economic criteria;
* Providing relief to manufacturing property taxpayers, who currently pay the highest rate in the nation;
* Broadening and modernizing the outdated Economic Impact Zone provisions, enacted in 1995 in response to federal base closures;
* And requiring greater transparency in the reporting process for utility tax credits.
“This bill is a significant step in the right direction,” Gov. Sanford said. “For the last seven and a half years this administration has sought to move the state away from what has been a ‘government knows best’ model of economic development, whereby government is unwisely expected to lead the way in attracting - or indeed generating - private investment. This bill represents a noteworthy change from that approach by reforming the state’s economic development tools in a way that recognizes the folly of trying to ’steer’ the market or guess the direction it may take in the future. Specifically, this bill will cut tax rates for many industrial buildings - putting them on par from a property tax standpoint with other manufacturers in order to level the playing field and increase competitiveness. The legislation also dismantles a piecemeal tax credit that only benefited certain counties - a practice we’ve long considered unfair. As well, this bill depoliticizes the way counties are designated as ‘worse off’ or ‘better off’ economically - which effectively stifled economic development across the state. In fact, important pieces of this legislation mirror recommendations from a Department of Commerce study on state incentives done in early 2007. For these and a number of other overdue changes, I’d thank Speaker Bobby Harrell for his leadership in getting this bill through the House, as well as Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor for his work in advocating a better bill.”
“This bill is a major step for South Carolina as we will now see our business recruitment and expansion programs based exclusively on economic criteria rather than politics,” Secretary Joe Taylor said. “Outdated programs that were only available for some areas have been modernized and will now be available statewide. This bill does not pick winners and losers but instead levels the playing field for companies who are looking at South Carolina to locate or expand their operations. I especially want to thank the Speaker and many Senators who saw the positive outcome of this bill and worked so hard to get it passed.”
H.4478 comes on the heels of an impressive number of economic development successes in South Carolina. Over the last several months there have been five 1,000-plus jobs announcements, and last year South Carolina led the entire Southeast in job recruitment.
Fighting for taxpayers
The House of Representatives approved our state’s budget this week after a marathon 23-hour session Wednesday night into Thursday.
No budget is perfect. I believe this budget is in line with our conservative principles because we cut the size of government, we did not raise taxes to plug the revenue shortfall, and we made tough choices about how to spend your tax dollars.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle were clearly not as conservative. Back in January, the Democrat House leader told the media: “We can’t raise taxes.” And went on to say the House would “have to figure out how to provide the absolute necessity of services” with that restriction.
Instead, my fellow House Republicans spent most of Wednesday night knocking down more than three dozen Democrat attempts to raise taxes – attempts that totaled more than $7 billion. To put that in perspective, the entire General Fund budget totaled $5.1 billion.
Nobody’s wallet was safe from the proposals. Democrats proposed a state-wide property tax and a cigarette tax increase that topped 1,300 percent. They tried to repeal the property tax relief that was a central part of the Republican agenda in 2006.
One Democrat also proposed re-instituting the sales tax on milk, bread, and other groceries because, as he said, “people at the grocery store don’t know we repealed it.”
The House Republicans lined up and struck down most of these proposals on party-line votes.
The House Democrats were not done. They proposed a sweeping repeal of essential tax credits that included doing away with tax credits for small business that create jobs, credits for the installation of fire sprinklers to save lives, and credits for strengthening buildings against hurricane damage. In an amazing move, the Democrats proposed a sweeping repeal of tax credits for saving energy, including credits for energy-efficient home improvements, hybrid cars, biodiesel manufacturing, and the installation of solar panels.
Raising taxes to plug the budget hole is absolutely irresponsible and it is unnecessary. The budget we approved this week prioritized spending and targeted cuts. Despite the more than $500 million budget hole, we did everything in our power to fund education so students would see a few changes. We held funding at this year’s levels for our neighbors with disabilities and special needs – the most vulnerable among us.
Republicans also fought to end taxpayer-funded abortions through the state health plan. If the Senate approves the budget, the only exception is to save the life of the mother.
As a point of full disclosure, the budget sent to the floor by the House Ways and Means Committee did raise the cigarette tax by 30 cents, bringing our tax in line with North Carolina and Georgia. No money from the tax increase is spent in this year’s budget – instead it goes into a trust fund to help off-set potential cuts to health care in future years. Also there has been much talk about the 10 million dollar loan for the Heritage Golf tournament. Just for the record I didn’t vote for that since I don’t believe that is the role for government to play. The county could have easily gotten a special source revenue bond against the tourism revenue stream to provide that money.
I wrote last week that writing and approving the state budget is the most solemn and serious task that you trust your representatives with each year. This is not a perfect budget, but I do truly believe that it is a good budget for our state that stands firmly with our conservative principles.
Helping Companies Create Jobs in South Carolina: A Statehouse Report
Our shared conservative philosophy dictates that the only thing government should do to create jobs is get out of the way of business and do whatever is necessary to help the private sector create those jobs.
The House Republicans took two major steps in that direction this week with the passage of two pieces of landmark legislation – the end of the corporate income tax in our state, and true tort reform.
My Republican colleagues have worked for years to improve the business climate here in our state, and as our state climbs out of recession, we are seeing the fruit of our labors. Last fall’s announcement that Boeing was locating a major manufacturing facility in North Charleston was a boon for the coast. Proterra’s decision to make a revolutionary new bus in Greenville was a second major boost for our economy.
But we can’t rest on those laurels. Every day, businesses looking to relocate examine the business climate in South Carolina versus other states – and other countries around the world. Every day, one of your neighbors starts a new company that they hope will bring their family financial security.
If our jobs bill is approved by the Senate, the phased-in elimination of the corporate income tax means South Carolina would become the fifth state to completely eliminate the corporate income tax (joining Wyoming, South Dakota, Washington, and Nevada).
The elimination of the tax is a major step in allowing corporations, large and small, to put money back into their businesses. This will make it easier to grow and expand, hire more workers, and become the next great corporation. Democrats criticized it as only helping large corporations, but with the ease and low cost of starting a corporation these days, many people running companies as small as one employee are corporations. This bill will start putting money back into their pockets.
Critics also claimed during the debates this week that the House hasn’t done enough for small businesses. They couldn’t be more wrong. The Tort Reform bill we approved on Wednesday will help small businesses even more than large corporations.
Many small businesses operate in fear of an unfounded lawsuit that could sink their company. They can’t afford a legion of attorneys to protect them. A single unfounded lawsuit could cripple your local boutique owner, the bike shop on the corner, or your favorite family-owned restaurant. Tort reform will protect them and hopefully bring down the cost of the insurance they carry.
The bill also protects you. It still ensures you have the right to litigate if you have been hurt through no fault of your own and will allow you fair compensation for any damages inflicted on you. Our legal system needs to protect everybody. It’s too bad that some people out for a quick buck could destroy years of your neighbor’s hard work.
Both of these pieces of legislation will help every business in South Carolina grow faster as the economy begins its recovery. That will create jobs and ensure that our business community – whether it is Boeing or your favorite local Italian restaurant – will remain strong through the next inevitable downturn.
That will make South Carolina a better, more stable place to live and work in the long term.
As always, thank you for the privilege of serving you in Columbia. If I can ever be of assistance to you, or if you have ideas on issues you want me to share with the rest of the General Assembly, please don’t hesitate to contact me at 864.595.1137
Completing Your Conservative Agenda: Statehouse Report
Last fall, my fellow House Republicans met in locations across our state to discuss the issues that you told us are important.
In January, we unveiled an agenda focused on job creation, government reform, improving education, and protecting state’s rights – all items our conservative constituents said are important to them.
This week, we took action on three of those four items.
The most important item was our economic development bill that was approved in committee this week and will be on the House floor next week. This bill has one goal: to create jobs. To do that, the legislation includes several tax and regulation changes businesses told us are necessary to help them create jobs.
The chief reform in the bill is the elimination of the corporate income tax. Eliminating that tax will entice more companies to locate here. Unfortunately, we don’t have the wiggle room in our state budget right now to eliminate it in one year, so it phases out over 10 years. We did accelerate that for any company that moves its headquarters here by including a provision that will immediately eliminate the corporate income tax for those companies.
We also approved a sweeping reform of the Employment Security Commission just three weeks after an audit that revealed widespread mismanagement.
The reforms approved Wednesday include creating a new Department of the Workforce in the governor’s cabinet, and moving several workforce and unemployment responsibilities from the ESC and the Department of Commerce to the new agency. The legislation also abolishes the board of the ESC and puts an executive director in charge.
The audit, released at the end of January, showed the ESC did not warn the General Assembly that the unemployment system was running out of money and that the agency did not properly investigate mismanagement – among many other findings. From 2000 until today, the Unemployment Trust Fund plummeted from an $835 million surplus to an $800 million deficit.
This is the second ESC reform bill to be approved by the House this year. The first was a series of procedural reforms that included restricting state payments to employees fired for gross misconduct or drug use and restricting claims by employers who cost the system more than they contribute.
Our actions this week are more examples of the Republican Caucus moving quickly to reform government once problems are discovered. The Republican majority has a 15-year track record of similar action, and I’m proud of our work this week.
Finally, we shed more sunlight on campaigns and elections by approving a major expansion of online campaign finance reporting. Now, all local officials must file their campaign disclosures online – so anybody can see exactly who is funding their campaigns and what they are spending money on. Currently, only state-level candidates are required to file online.
This bill is all about transparency and allowing the voters to see who is funding campaigns at all levels. With the technology available today, there is no reason that local candidates shouldn’t follow the same online reporting requirements that state officials follow.
Limiting the Power of Government: A State House Report
Dear Friends,
Conservatives saw many victories this week, from the South Carolina House and Senate to the well-publicized victory for Republican Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race.
We’ve all seen much press this week about Brown’s victory, but our state Senate took action on a resolution expressing our state’s support of the Constitution’s provision for limiting the power of the federal government.
The federal government is going through an unprecedented power grab and at the expense of states, your personal freedoms, and ultimately, your wallet.Fighting that power grab is the fourth plank in our Republican Caucus agenda this year.
A resolution expressing our displeasure with the power-grab was approved by the House last year and was on our “unfinished business” list. The Senate approved a resolution similar in tone to ours this week.
This isn’t an attempt to “cherry-pick” a favorite amendment to the constitution – an absurd criticism by some of our state’s liberal Democrats who support the federal agenda. South Carolina was the fourth state to ratify the Bill of Rights. We have always understood the importance of limited government and protecting the rights of the people.
Our Founding Fathers were fearful of a federal government that might grab infinite power. So they included two critical constitutional amendments at the end of the Bill of Rights. Amendment Nine states clearly: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Amendment Ten states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Ultimately, the people, and the states, created the federal government, and it is critical for us to be the ultimate check and balance to federal power. The voters of Massachusetts sent that message loud and clear to the Congress on Tuesday.
The state Senate approved a similar resolution that also included statements opposing several recent power-grabs that Congress has undertaken since the House approved the resolution last year: health care, cap-and-trade, and forced state spending. The House will now receive the Senate resolution and I look forward to the debate.
These are not meaningless resolutions, as Democrats criticized during the debate. Words have consequences and our constituents wanted us to make a statement to the federal government. The British government didn’t think resolutions by legislative bodies were meaningless in 1776.
This week, we also heard Governor Sanford’s final State of the State address. His conciliatory tone signaled a good session ahead. The House Republican Caucus has supported many items on the Governor’s agenda for each of his 8 years in office, and several of the items he highlighted in his speech – such as giving you, the voter, the choice about whether you would like joint election of the governor and lieutenant governor – have already been approved by the House and are currently being considered by the Senate.
This will be an exciting and eventful year in Columbia. Thank you for the privilege of serving you in Columbia. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have an issues with state government, or have any comments on the Caucus agenda or any other issue. You can reach me at 864.595.1137.
Sincerely,
Mike Forrester
Spartanburg Area Chamber Focus
Click here to download the January Focus from the Spartanburg Chamber!
2009 Constituent Survey
I can’t represent you in Columbia unless you tell me what’s on your mind. Please take a few minutes to fill out my 2009 constituent survey on the most pressing issues facing South Carolina.
Thank you,
Mike
A Victory for S.C. Workers
This week’s major announcement that the Boeing Company would more than double its current investment in North Charleston was a major victory for South Carolina.
Here’s what we know, what businesses are learning, and what other parts of the country can’t seem to comprehend right now: South Carolina’s workers are extremely hard working, willing to learn, and want to manufacture products. We have proven with the quality produced by companies such as Michelin, BMW, and Bose that our workers can build the best products in the world.
Read more
Upstate Jobs Forum
Representative Forrester invites you to attend the Upstate Jobs Forum, Saturday July 25th held at the Spartanburg Community College Tyger River Campus. The Jobs Forum is open to the public from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm . This event is to help unemployed local residents who are looking to get back to work and is cosponsored by Rep. Mike Forrester and the SC Employment Security Commission.
Click here for a copy of the invitation with the address to the Campus if you need it. Mike encourages you to help spread the word about this upcoming event, so please forward this message to friends.
Also, feel free to contact Mike Forrester on issues and concerns at mike.forrester@charter.net, by phone at (864) 592-6204, or on facebook at facebook.com/representativeforrester.
Thank you!
The Stimulus Debate
Friends -
Yesterday the stimulus debate came to a close as the SC Supreme Court ruled that the General Assembly can take the federal stimulus funds. I wanted to take this opportunity to clear up my position on the stimulus money and my views on the way state government is run. Read more