Latest grant awards highlight state’s fatal flaw

HANDS DOWN, this year’s award for most ridiculous use of state tax dollars has to be the $10,000 that the board of the Legislature’s Competitive Grants slush fund handed to the town of South Congaree “to purchase Inflatables to be used at the Western Weekend Festival, Trunk & Treat, Kids Camp, etc.”

But as absurd as it is to think that such “investments” spur tourism — that folks in are Ohio saying “They’re having a Western Weekend Festival down in South Congaree, South Carolina, and they’ve even got $10,000 worth of new inflatables. Gas up the SUV, and let’s go” — the problem isn’t so much that the state is paying for community groups to put on festivals, for local governments to prettify their downtowns, for the Junior League to fix up its consignment shop.

The problem is that the state is throwing around $10 million on local and even private extras while the prisons are understaffed and there’s not enough money to run the school buses — or any other state vehicles, since lawmakers didn’t provide for soaring fuel costs.

The problem is that taxpayers across the state are paying for “Christmasville” in Rock Hill while we’re shutting down a successful smoking cessation program that saves lives (and dollars, since ex-smokers won’t bankrupt the Medicaid program that we all pay for).

The problem is that the state is paying to refurbish tennis courts in Coward and buying a clock to celebrate the Elgin Centennial at a time when legislators are so worried that tax revenue is going to nose-dive in the next four months that they made provisions for a one-day emergency session to bail out the budget if needed between now and November.

The problem, in other words, is that we still don’t set priorities. The Competitive Grants program is merely a symptom of that larger problem.

Lawmakers say public education is their top priority, but they leave the school buses high and dry, break their promise to provide 4-year-old kindergarten to poor children statewide and do nothing to lure top teachers to poor schools at the same time that they’re buying up land to preserve green space and authorizing a dozen regional farmers’ markets that somebody had to dream up as a way to spend the money that didn’t get spent on a new state market in Richland County. They say public safety is a top priority, but cut funding to the leanest prison system in the nation, while continuing to crowd in more inmates.

When economic growth increases tax revenue, legislators spread it around to everyone. When revenue falls off, they don’t decide there are some things the state can no longer do; instead, cut most everything, equally.

The $10 million that the Competitive Grants board handed out last month is a drop in the state’s $7 billion budget bucket; spending that money wisely will not solve all our problems. But it shows our lack of priorities.

The responsible way to run a government is pretty simple, even if difficult: You figure out what’s most important and provide enough money to do it well. Then you do the same with the second priority, and so on until you run out of money. Then you decide whether what’s left is important enough to raise taxes to pay for. If so, you raise taxes; if not, you do without. Until our legislators are willing to do that, we’re going to remain long on festivals and short on good jobs, good schools and all the things that make life worth celebrating.