Two issues coming up this week in the South Carolina General Assembly deserve the attention of the people. First, the state government is gong to try to find money in this tight budget year to finance the Republican and Democratic Presidential primaries. That has not happened before. Usually, political parties pay their own bills for Presidential primaries or caucuses. Republicans in the General Assembly seem to like the idea because the Republican Presidential Primary is probably the only one that will be contested.
Fact is, state government has no business paying for such, be it Republican, Democrat or Libertarian. As always, let he political parties pay their own way in the Presidential beauty contests, and keep the taxpayers cost for such as low as possible. The General Assembly and the taxpayers of South Carolina are a not a fundraising arm for any political party.
That said, there is a move afoot by Governor Haley and some legislators to issue private contracts for school bus operations. Such might on the surface sound good, until you look at the costs other states have incurred with such when they went with for profit companies. The costs went up. Indeed, just look at MediCare now under private insurance, the cost has nearly doubled in six years. It is common sense, is it not? Paying for profit entities to do jobs mandated by government simply costs more.
Now, whether or not government should provide transportation as it does for all students to schools is another issue. It is mandated now by our state’s constitution. A debate on that would be honestly a one looking at what government should and should not do. But, we at VUI fear that handing over government mandated services to private for profit entities opens the system up to corruption. It would not be the first time that big money contributions to well placed political leaders in this state led to big contracts that cost the taxpayers more money. That is not limited government. That is special interests using government to take your money.
That is why we say no to political parties getting paid by the state to have Presidential primaries and no to private entities taking over the state’s school buses. Want to amend the constitution on the matter? We will listen. Want to reform the spending on buses? We will listen. Want to make sure some fat contract is given to folks who laid down campaign cash? Well, we are going to call you on it. The people of this state can not afford that kind of big government.
