SC Republicans have no business voting for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary
On Republicans
I have been in a state of disbelief while watching people I’ve known from my years in the South Carolina Republican Party plot to upend the state’s Democratic Party presidential primary on Feb 29.
These are the same people who complain whenever they think that “crooked Democrats” are “meddling” in the Republican primaries; now all of a sudden they believe that instilling chaos into our elections is something that is both permissible and encouraged.
Imagine my surprise when I heard that tea party representatives, Republican Party strategists and current county GOP leaders are encouraging their members to vote for Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist who recently tweeted, “Abortion is health care.” That’s right, the pro-life fiscally conservative groups are suddenly embracing a candidate who is supposedly the antithesis of their beliefs.
Why are they abandoning their ethics? It is because they hope that by crossing over to participate in the Democratic primary, they will help Sanders — the candidate they believe will be easy for President Donald Trump to defeat in November.
Will their actions affect the results of our state’s only presidential primary in 2020? We will soon find out, but what we already know is that whenever you believe that the end justifies the means, you have become exactly what you’ve objected to for years. It is shameful!
Lisa Savage, Charleston
On floods, homes
I am writing to thank state Rep. Heather Crawford and state Sen. Stephen Goldfinch for their work in helping to pass the SC Resilience Revolving Fund Act, which will offer low-interest loans and grants to help remove homes that are located in floodplains.
In the past some folks whose homes had been flooded-out had decided to forego federally funded buyouts of their homes; they did so largely because the federal government often required a 25% match to be paid locally.
But under the new state legislation, families would get the help they need to start anew: the state would initially kick in $2 million to start the home buyout fund — a figure that could gradually increase to $25 million over time.
This is a conservative solution to a recurring problem, and it is one that will save our tax dollars. Let’s face it: no one wants the government to keep paying out huge sums of money to repair or replace the same houses over and over again because these homes sustain damage whenever there is a bad storm.
Jerry Rovner, Pawley Island
On rural roads
Today’s government has become distant from the citizens of South Carolina in some daily areas of our lives. Take, for example, the lack of adequate representation that’s provided by our elected officials when it comes to maintaining local state roads in small communities.
I live in a Chesterfield County neighborhood that has a state-maintained road. There are 23 households in our neighborhood with an average of three vehicles per household — and these vehicles are constantly traveling up and down the road each day. The road was originally paved 40 years ago, but it has been patched up so many times there are now probably more patched sections than areas of original paving.
For the past three years people from our neighborhood have attended meetings of the Chesterfield County Road Committee, and we have petitioned and begged for this half-mile road to be repaved.
In addition we have contacted our state lawmakers, but we have been told that they have no authority or say-so over the local state roads. The bottom line is that in Chesterfield County, it is the road committee that has full authority over these roads.
This is a problem not only in Chesterfield County, but in rural areas all over South Carolina; in fact, our neighboring state, North Carolina, seems to be doing a much better job of maintaining highways and streets.
Maybe we need to ask North Carolina to take over control of the roads in our state!
Mike White, Cheraw
This story was originally published February 23, 2020 at 8:17 AM.