TALK 94.5 Liz And Nick
TALK 94.5 Liz And Nick
RICK BRUNDRETT (TheNerve.org) 6/23/26
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All right. And joining us right now from the Nerve.org. It's Rick Rundrek. Good morning.
SPEAKER_02Good morning, Liz. How are you?
SPEAKER_03Good, good. Thank you so much for joining us. We got a big election day today. Do you have any comments on that?
SPEAKER_02Well, uh I learned a long time ago that uh just relying on polls, okay, is not a good idea. So in the end, uh it's turnout uh is what matters. Um and and for our purposes, uh uh I've kind of had a a longtime standing joke from the since the nerve is part of the policy council, we're nonpartisan. Uh we, you know, we certainly interviewed the gubernatorial and other candidates, attorney general uh candidates as well, and and some other you know, statewide candidates, um, for their policy positions. So we don't uh organization, we don't endorse obviously any candidates. We just want to know uh if they get elected, what would they do while in office?
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02So that's that's that's our main take on it. And uh as the editor of the NERV, um I've uh jokingly said over the years that uh I don't care who gets elected, I just care what they do after they get elected.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. Uh yeah, the polls are I don't know, way beyond any margin of error. So I don't know how inaccurate they would be at this point. But uh if you look at Calcio Poly Market, they're in London.
SPEAKER_02Well, and you know you Well you that's a a good point, Liz, because we all know what happened nationally in 2016. Those polls all indicated uh that the Democratic candidate was going to run away with the election. And uh I was c in the newsroom at the newsroom at the time, uh not with the NERV, but covering with my other colleagues the the election, and we started noticing the change around 10 o'clock that night. The electoral vote started s uh shifting dramatically um to um uh President Trump.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So Well, we'll know tonight.
SPEAKER_03We'll know tonight. And that person will most likely be Governor A. G and Commissioner of Agriculture, most likely, in November.
SPEAKER_02Well, you and it's a good it's a good segue into kind of you know what I'd like to chat about because uh we're after after we get past the election, which is obviously very important, uh the thing that's uh uh biggest thing on the plate, at least for the legislature and the governors, they've got to get a budget passed, okay? Uh you know, uh that is the spending plan um for the year. And right now we're looking at around uh at least around a $44 billion total state budget, and that includes state, federal, and other funds, um life fees and fines, um college tuition, that sort of thing. What I want to look at, what I uh want to talk about, is uh a special carve-out that uh lawmakers really enjoy doing, uh, and that's what are called earmarks. Um and earmarks are essentially requests um by individual lawmakers typically. Sometimes they're made by budget writing committees or subcommittees, but typically they're made by individual lawmakers or specific projects or programs that you know weren't originally requested by, you know, in an agency budget request at the start of the budget process. And the problem with earmarks is that they usually come toward the the most of them come toward the tail end of the budget process when lawmakers get kind of firmer you know revenue projections for the end of the year. The bottom line is this when they know there's a bunch of extra surplus money that's coming in at the end of the year, then they all uh there's a there's this rush, uh uh like the California gold rush, I'd say, to spend it, but they're spending taxpayer dollars. So this fiscal year, which ends on you know next Tuesday, okay, believe it or not, it had no earmarks in the budget. It was highly unusual, but uh uh they don't uh they apparently want to go back to their past practices of you know spending hundreds of millions of dollars in state surplus funds for these earmarks. So I I did a start uh story in late May, posted it, and looked at earmark lists from the House and Senate and tallied them all up. And um my analysis came up with a total of five 475 earmarks with a potential total of close to 470 million dollars in earmarks. And and how do you bring that down to you know uh to the average person, the average citizen? Well, I mean, that works out to be, you know, uh roughly $84 for every man, woman, and child in South Carolina. Or if you want to look at, well, what about the number of divided up for the number of state income tax filers projected for next year? You know, that comes, you know, it came out to be about $173 per filer. So it's a lot of money, okay?
SPEAKER_03But are are they going to good things or are they going to cronies of these politicians?
SPEAKER_02Here's the thing, and you and I've covered this for a number of years. In earlier years, um they were spending it on their pet projects, their favorite nonprofits, okay? And I'm not disparaging any of the nonprofit organizations per se, but these are essentially instead of deciding how state tax dollars should be allocated for core functions, they would say, well, I want to give X amount to my favorite nonprofit back home. And sometimes they actually had direct connections to it. Okay. Uh it was their own personal favorite charity. Um in more recent years, they've been moving away from more away from, I should say, not entirely, but moving more away from nonprofits and directing this money to counties and cities and towns or everything from like water and uh sewer projects or you know, local recreation projects and that sort of thing. And the and the problem is is this is that is it necessarily the best use, you know, of state tax dollars? Um why are why are lawmakers doing this? Um critics have said, well, essentially what they do is this they want to be able to show their local constituents that they're actually g you know getting state tax dollars directly back to their local communities. Um and and but again, these are decisions that are being driven by the state lawmakers who are representing those communities versus say we have a part of the budget called the local government fund, which is allocated it's two to three hundred million every year, that's divvied up among counties and municipalities based on population, and they decide among in the local communities how to do it. So um the real cynics have said what goes on is this is basically uh something that lawmakers want to do to get re-elected because they can show their constituents that, hey, I can literally, you know, get X amount of money, you know, um directly um into the community. So um I think it's a matter of priorities and you know, what is the best use of of state tax dollars? And and another issue that I have, a big issue I have, is just sure transparency. Um you know, you you don't get again, a lot of this happens at the end of the budget cycle, say it, you know, in starting in May, where all this you know rush to spend this money, but is there a lot of debate about it um beforehand? Well, no, there's not. So, you know, where's the debate whether this is the best use of this money at this time? Um, in my story in May, I quoted the uh the chair uh chairman of the um South Carolina Freedom Caucus, uh Representative Pace, um is he he's out of Berkeley, and you know, his direct quote with me that earmarks are the currency of corruption. Um you know, instead of third position is that um senior homeowners uh need a lot of relief right now, and that money could be better spent on getting property tax relief, uh, more property tax relief for seniors versus um spending it on, you know, um local pet projects back home.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean is there some kind of process that it has to go through where it's vetted?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they there are House and Senate rules that say, okay, if you want to have an earmark, basically these requests have to be made uh essentially in writing. Uh there has to be a list at least on the Senate side. The House side, they have to submit individual forms to that budget writing committee, the the Ways and Means Committee. On the Senate side, it's the Senate Finance Committee. Um the problem is that it's not like the legislature comes back in session every January. So it's not like you get this detailed list from both sides right at the beginning of January, and everybody can vet it for several months. It usually doesn't come, like I said, till you know, the end of the budget process, as I pointed out in the story. You know, I didn't see either of these comprehensive lists until May, you know, last month. So that's not a lot of from my perspective, that's not transparency in the sense of um providing uh time for citizens to weigh in to say, hey, do we really want or really need this project or or not? Um, compared to everything else and other priorities that need to get um get done. Because ultimately a budget, you know, reflects the priorities, you know, of of what, you know, of the state uh state lawmakers and and also the governor who gets to weigh in on v budget vetoes of of what those priorities should be for one full year.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Uh I just I in your article I saw that one of the uh representatives from the South Carolina Freedom Caucus, the chairman, uh State Rep Jordan Pace, uh he actually happens to be on uh Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evitt's short list for vice president, who's uh who seemed a little surprised that he was on that list. Um he is quoted in your article saying that earmarks are the currency of corruption.
SPEAKER_02That's pretty high. I think he's uh Yeah, I think he's uh uh I mean uh clearly in in past years and I've written about this, there um there's just this temptation if you get all this, you know, um uh rosier projections for surplus funds coming in to go ahead and spend it, you know, um on your pet projects back home. And um his position is at least what I I quoted him on was that we've got you know, we've got more pressing priorities right now. And and from the Freedom Caucus position, uh at least in my article, he said this money could be better better used for providing more relief, property tax relief um to seniors um so they don't lose their homes. And so it's just like in any budget, whether it's your own personal budget or you come up to the $44 billion state budget, it's a matter of prioritizing. Um, what are you going to spend you know uh that pot of money on? And those decisions should be made, you know, out in the open as early on in the budget process to allow citizens to weigh in rather than just waiting to the toward the end of the budget process and just cramming it through.
SPEAKER_03How do you change that though? What needs to happen?
SPEAKER_02Well, uh uh uh the policy council, for example, has recommended that agencies need to go through and and lawmakers and the governor need to be on board, and this could be, you know, or whoever our new governor is gonna be, we'll all know this either by late tonight or by tomorrow morning morning at the latest. Um you know, likely, at least on the Republican side, which probably will be the governor um given uh our history over the past twenty years in this state. But they need to do what's called essentially called zero-based budgeting at the beginning of the budget process in late fall um to show exactly justify all their expenses. What what happens is right now is whatever this year's budget is, is essentially is the base for you know increased, you know, request for next year. So, you know, you never go back and look and and say, hey, is what we current or what we currently spending on, is that really necessary? Um and so the policy council has said that that one of the recommendations is to is to look more on the front end on what's called zero-based budgeting, which could which could help out, which you know it's called fiscal restraint. And uh, as you well know, there's not a whole lot of that coming out of Columbia. Yeah, coming out of Columbia.
SPEAKER_03Any any government entity or politician's pocket um or our taxpayer dollars anyway. Uh well, Rick, anything else you'd like to add before we need to go?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think we should just keep our eye on what the budget is going to be. Um the speculation is that the legislature will pass out a final budget this week. Once the election is over, they need to get it, you know, over to the governor. Um, whether there's a usually if there's not enough time at July 1, it's not like government shut down. It just keeps going under the current spending levels until they come back and deal with the budget, you know, if there are any budget vetoes.
SPEAKER_03Any any idea that how the the 17 people that voted no to these earmarks, all right? Uh are any of them using their dollar amounts on their communities and constituents?
SPEAKER_02Um that's a good question. Um, I don't um for my article in May, I didn't get into that. Uh that that's a good thing to look into. Um my guess would be uh I would suspect uh the vast majority, um vast majority of them, if not all, probably not. Otherwise, um that would be hypocritical, right? It would be it would be hypocritical. As I pointed out, uh uh Jordan Pace was one of the 17 who voted no, right, on on the earmark, you know, on the earmark spending um back in Maine. It was a firm no because again, he won, he felt that money could be better spent, for example, on providing um property tax, more property tax relief to seniors.
SPEAKER_03Okay. All right. Well I mean, with all that surplus money, that's our money. It's not it's not mad money or fun money, it's our money, you know. Correct.
SPEAKER_02And so I think you know, that's something uh you raised a good point. One last point, Liz, is that you know uh you don't really see a whole lot of discussion. Well, we're gonna give rebates back to taxpayers.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, give me my eighty-four dollars back and I'll figure out how to spend it. You know? Exactly. Yeah. You know, maybe I need to maybe I needed to buy food this week or put gas in my car to go to work. Maybe I'd like to donate it, you know, to new directions, whatever I want to do with it.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. It's it's not it it's your it's your money. Taxpayer money is their money. It doesn't belong to it. It doesn't belong to the 170 members of the South Carolina general. You're making me angry, Rick.
SPEAKER_03I'm getting it. It doesn't belong.
SPEAKER_02It doesn't belong to the governor either. Okay. Well whoever that's gonna be this year. So it belongs to the taxpayers, and I think they should have much more of a say on on how you know any extras, you know, money that comes in is I'm gonna find out what our money is being spent on.
SPEAKER_03What are what did our politicians bring home? That's what I'd like to know.
SPEAKER_02Well, I have a if you go to the nerve.org and look at the story, there I've got a list, a top ten list, and uh uh Orie County and Myrtle Beach are are certainly in that top ten list.
SPEAKER_03Oh man, I got and then it tells you what they're spending it on?
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, so in terms of the earmark. So um you can you can go and see for yourself all um you know what it is, what some of those projects are and decide for yourself on these really necessary projects.
SPEAKER_03Okay, I'm gonna go for hunting, go find that list. Thank you. Rick for interest if you want to find the list, go to the nerd.org.