S.C. leaders get another bright idea

Show a little sympathy for state lawmakers. They're having a tough time these days.

With revenues down for the third straight year, the Legislature is considering some hard budgeting choices that will force everyone to tighten their belts and go without. These drastic measures include:

--Cutting all services for people with disabilities.

--Making out-of-work folks pay taxes on their unemployment checks.

--Turning loose an entire prison's worth of criminals -- and then firing 100 probation and parole officers that should be watching those thugs.

If all that's not bad enough, lawmakers may be forced to delay, for three whole years, a plan to GIVE AWAY THEIR THIRD-LARGEST SOURCE OF STATE REVENUE.

You know times are bad when it takes the General Assembly that long to find a way to put the state deeper in a hole. Just a few years ago, they could do that in a matter of weeks.

A real looker

Around the Statehouse, lawmakers see their plan for corporate tax obliteration as a follow-up to the success of landing that Boeing plant for North Charleston. The idea is that, with absolutely no corporate income tax (which is really a tax on a company's profits, not its income), more businesses will find South Carolina attractive and move here.

What, the state isn't pretty enough already?

South Carolina has a beautiful coast, Charleston is one of the most cultured cities in the South and the weather is here. You know -- smiling faces, beautiful places. Who wouldn't want to move here? Just ask anyone from Ohio.

If that's not enough, South Carolina already has one of the lowest corporate income tax rates in the country.

According to the Federation of Tax Administrators in D.C., there are only three states without a corporate income tax (Nevada, Washington and Wyoming). Of the rest, only four have lower rates than South Carolina. A few others have sliding scales that start lower than S.C.'s rate, but escalate quickly, and go much higher.

Sounds like the state is pretty competitive already.

Mint on your pillow?

How much more do we have to do -- offer free bathrobes and continental breakfast? Any business should be honored to locate in the great state of South Carolina. How many other states will skimp on law enforcement, the criminal justice system, sick people, disabled people, poor people and education -- higher and elementary -- just to keep their businesses happy?

And it must be working, since the economy here is booming and unemployment is only 12.6 percent.

Uh, never mind.

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But give 'em a break, they're trying. Things have gotten so bad that lawmakers are even talking about raising taxes. Next week, the House will debate raising the cigarette tax which, at 7 cents, is the lowest in the nation.

Of course, the governor wants them to scrap plans to use the extra revenue to prop up the over-burdened Medicaid system.

He wants to give businesses more tax cuts.

You know, if South Carolina families want a little help from the General Assembly, they just need to incorporate.