Governor: Eliminate 6-percent bracket
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley called for infrastructure and K-12 education reform while pledging to cut income taxes and keep the gas tax at its current level during her third State of the State address Wednesday night.
“More than 1,000 of South Carolina’s bridges are either load-restricted or structurally deficient,” she said. “First and foremost, it’s a public safety issue. The citizens of South Carolina deserve to drive on roads that aren’t littered with potholes and on bridges they know won’t fall down.”
She compared the state’s “crumbling infrastructure” to the recent influx of manufacturing jobs from major companies and called for their repair to “match the quality of the companies that manufacture in our great state.”
She rejected an increase in the gas tax to fund these repairs, however.
“Why would we raise the gas tax to improve infrastructure when all the gas tax dollars we currently collect don’t go to improving our infrastructure?” Haley said.
She instead proposed directing more of the money raised through the gas tax to bridge and highway repair as well as investing existing revenue into the projects.
Haley lauded the state’s executive budget, which allocates $90 million to bridge and road repairs for the year.
The governor also rejected any increase in tax rates. She stated that South Carolina must “reduce our tax burden every single year” and proposed the elimination of the 6 percent income tax bracket. Under current South Carolina tax code, individuals and couples who earn between $11,040 and $13,800 yearly pay six percent of their income to the state of South Carolina. In Haley’s speech, it was not clear whether everyone in that and every tax bracket below it would have their state income tax eliminated or if only those in that tax bracket would have their state income tax eliminated.
Haley also urged the need to continue to set an example for other states that have proposed drastic cuts or complete elimination of income taxes.
“Other states have seen the successes we’ve had in South Carolina and are nipping at our heels,” she said. “Look around the nation and see all the governors, the legislators, the states that are proposing slashing or even eliminating their income taxes. We have to keep up.”
While voicing her support for school choice programs, Haley said she wanted to “start a conversation” about funding for K-12 education in South Carolina. She compared the schools her children attend in the well-funded Lexington School District One to the one she attended in her hometown of Bamberg, S.C., calling it a “brick box.” She said the rural district, like many others in South Carolina, lacked many resources needed.
“The amount of money that actually touches a teacher and student in the classroom is without a doubt a factor in the differences between those schools — and between the education that those children receive,” she said.
Her solution was to not take money away from wealthier districts in Lexington and Greenville, but to “spend our dollars smarter” and find a solution through conversations with the chairmen of the Senate and House Education Committees and South Carolina state Sen. Nikki Setzler, who she pointed out as someone with a commitment to public education.
Haley also addressed the recent criminal hack of the Department of Revenue, which put thousands of South Carolina residents at the risk of identity theft. She said the Department of Revenue is currently encrypting “all personal and sensitive data,” segmenting its networks to further protect this data and implementing additional identification tools for Department of Revenue employees.
“I’m not here to rehash that or to look backward, except to say this: When it comes to data security, the state of South Carolina should have done better in the past and will do better in the future,” she said, while noting that “there is no such thing as absolute security.”
Haley did not, however, mention anything about higher education in her hourlong speech, save for praising the South Carolina Gamecocks and Clemson Tigers on winning their respective bowl games earlier in January. Gamecock quarterback Dylan Thompson and Tiger quarterback Tajh Boyd both sat in the front row for Haley’s speech and were honored with a standing ovation from Haley, the House, Senate and audience.