Editorials from across South Carolina: safer roads, road taxes, Haley confirmation hearing
Safer roads
A working and safe road system is crucial to the future of this state. It is critical to our economic development. We cannot afford the economic cost and the cost in lives of not properly maintaining and improving our transportation system.
Improving our roads is expensive. The Transportation Department has estimated it needs an extra $943 million a year to maintain the state’s roads properly.
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And our roads need a stable source of funds for continuous maintenance. Part of the reason our road system is in trouble now is because of deferred maintenance. During recent periods of economic downturn, lawmakers saved money by cutting road funding.
Deferred maintenance accumulates and leads to additional deterioration of roads, making the overall problem of catching up on road maintenance worse.
State lawmakers need to devise a steady source of revenue that covers road needs each year. That way, once the state’s highway system is in good shape, another recession won’t cause years of deferred maintenance that put the state behind again.
House roads bill
Time will tell whether the recently filed roads bill stays on course or sputters as have previous attempts to address South Carolina’s dilapidated infrastructure.
House Bill 3516 would generate $600 million a year after full implementation. It includes four key components ….
Increasing the gas tax is a virtual necessity.
S.C. House GOP leaders propose 10-cent gas-tax hike
We understand that for some folks, the concept of any tax increase is abhorrent. And we also agree sales taxes are regressive in that they hit low income families more than the middle class and the wealthy.
But it’s also fairy tale thinking to expect government service to improve without a way to pay for it. Ideologues will no doubt disagree, pegging any attempt to raise revenue as extremist and calling for the state to cut costs.
Trimming the fat is never bad and should be pursued, but that option alone is not pragmatic. Too often, it’s a vague call to action without hard facts to back it up.
Haley’s good showing
While many Trump Cabinet nominees faced openly hostile questioning this week, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley won bipartisan applause when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing Wednesday on her nomination to be United States ambassador to the United Nations. And with good reason.
Nikki Haley: much good accomplished, much damage done, much potential squandered
She got a warm reception in part because of her personal charisma and her impressive record as governor. But her frank, thoughtful answers to the committee’s questions indicated she would be a strong advocate for this nation, and would not hesitate to disagree with the expressed views of President-elect Donald Trump, who proposed her for the job soon after his election in November.
As Emma Dumain reported in The Post and Courier yesterday, Gov. Haley took issue with Mr. Trump’s characterizations that the United Nations is ineffective and that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is outdated. Russia, she said, “can’t be trusted.” And she challenged the advisability of a national registry for Muslims.
As U.N. ambassador, Mrs. Haley will be a member of Mr. Trump’s National Security Council and an active participant in framing, as well as defending, U.S. foreign policy.
In a revealing comment about her approach to her new responsibilities, she said the new president’s national security team — which will also include the secretaries of state and defense, the nation’s top military officer, the attorney general and the president’s national security adviser — will have to “educate, inform him of what we know, inform him of strategies.”
This story was originally published January 23, 2017 at 5:28 PM with the headline "Editorials from across South Carolina: safer roads, road taxes, Haley confirmation hearing."