News Article
| S.C. Legislature faces challenges |
| January 1, 2010 |
By Mick Mulvaney
As many of you know, the S.C. Legislature meets from January until about June each year. This means about a week from now state lawmakers will be back in Columbia. While each year brings unexpected developments – neither Boeing nor the governor’s misdeeds were on the radar at the outset of 2009 – there are a couple of matters that will definitely get a lot of attention this year:
Unemployment
The good news here is that the Boeing success proves we have what it takes as a state to compete on the national and world stages for game-changing economic development projects. And Boeing was just the icing on the cake; believe it or not, 2009 was the best year ever for job recruitment into the state. The problem was that we were losing existing jobs faster than new businesses could add them. The good news on the job front is that I expect that the Commerce Department will be given even more tools to help build on last year’s successes.
The bad news, however, is that efforts to change the structure of our business environment – my bills to end corporate and partnership taxes, for example – still lack more than a handful of votes. For some reason, the Legislature is not yet convinced that lower taxes will encourage business relocation and job growth. But that fight will go on. Only private industry creates jobs. The government needs to provide an environment in which that can happen, and quickly.
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