State of the State address outlines SC’s past, future
"When this Administration came into office just over a year ago, our focus was almost singular — jobs," she said.
And so went a heavy majority of her speech Wednesday evening.
The primary accomplishments Haley touted were the nearly 20,000 new jobs and $5 billion of investments she said the state had received in the last year. Those, she argued, came as a result of administration efforts to "keep the cost of doing business [in South Carolina] low."
Her suggestions for doing so: restructure the tax code to "phase out the corporate income tax over a four year period," continue to work on tort reform and continue to minimize the influence of labor unions in the state.
The latter point commanded a large portion of her address — and her time in office this year.
In April, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) sued Boeing on behalf of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, a labor union that represents Boeing workers, over its decision to build a factory near Charleston. It was a move, the Board alleged, designed to avoid the union's influence in Washington state, where much of the company's manufacturing is based.
The allegations would set off a political firestorm that garnered attention in national media and embroiled Haley in a controversy that ended in December when the union and the NLRB withdrew their suit.
Suing Boeing was "one of the most fundamentally un-American decisions ever handed down by the federal government," Haley said, adding that "if you pick a fight with South Carolina, you better be prepared for one, because South Carolinians take care of our own."
Haley extended that message to other labor unions as well.
"We'll make the unions understand full well that they are not needed, not wanted, and not welcome in the state of South Carolina," she said.
Haley also spent some time discussing her plans for education in the state, which, again, she tied to the state's job market.
She briefly discussed her proposals to restructure the state's workforce training programs, promote charter schools and implement "accountability-based funding" for colleges and universities, though she also took time to defend readySC, a program that readies employees for the arrival of new businesses in the state.
"The tools for an effective job training program already exist — we just need to do a better job of putting the puzzle together," she said. "Our technical colleges and vocational rehab programs are as good as any in the country."
But that was not a position she shared with Rep. Bakari Sellers, a Democrat representing Bamberg and Denmark, S.C., who delivered his party's response.
"In South Carolina, a once-proud network of public schools and technical colleges, due to years of disregard and neglect, today ranks among the nation's worst," he said. "Our best and brightest students in ["Corridor of Shame"] communities are being locked out of their futures by empty talking points and misguided rhetoric."
It was a reminder of where Haley spent much of 2011 — in controversy — a point she addressed toward the end of her address, lambasting "the culture of negativity that exists within our political class."
In doing so, she responded to one of the year's more memorable stories: her executive order to state employees requiring them to answer phone calls by saying "It's a great day in South Carolina. How may I help you?"
"The goal was for state employees to feel proud of where we live and what we do, and have a constant reminder that we work for the person on the other side of the line," she said. "What could possibly be so wrong with that?"