SC bureaucrats: Raise taxes first, figure out how to spend it later

By Steve Maxwell | for The Nerve

Which should come first: the idea for a new tax, or a concrete demonstration of the need for a new tax?

In my own county, the cart came way before the horse. Some months ago, our overworked and underpaid county council (long story – they think they need more pay) came up with the idea that Abbeville County needs to pass a referendum enabling the “capital projects sales tax,” a levy that 13 other South Carolina counties already impose.

This tax, an “extra penny on the dollar” when we shop here in the county, is for the specific purpose of financing things like roads, bridges, recreation facilities, water/sewer improvements, and the very vague “public facilities,” according to the state Department of Revenue. In accordance with state law, a commission has been created to come up with the specific things the tax would pay for. Each proposal has to be enumerated on our ballots in November.

at The Nerve.