Maybe he’ll show up on the stage Thursday in Greenville

NOTE: The loss of confidence in America’s economy isn’t because we’re not raising the debt limit fast enough: it’s because we have no credible plan to ever stop raising it.

The Greenville News
Don’t surrender to the debt By Jim DeMint

There are only two choices when it comes to our nation’s debt crisis. Fight the debt, or surrender to it.
Some are already giving up.

Since President Barack Obama was inaugurated, $3.6 trillion has been added to the debt and if the country continues on the path he has laid, the debt will nearly double in the next 10 years to $26 trillion. Yet many Democrats are insisting that it’s more important to increase the debt limit than it is to seek spending reforms to prevent our nation from going into bankruptcy.

Borrowing more money without any plan to cut spending is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. It won’t improve the nation’s financial standing; it will only endanger it.

Debt increase advocates are misleading the public when they say fiscal catastrophe will result from a failure to increase the debt ceiling. They are using scare tactics to keep up their big-borrowing and spending sprees, just like they did to justify their Wall Street and mortgage bailouts. The Chicken Little claims that a debt ceiling lapse would mean the nation’s creditors will not be paid are simply not true.

Next year, tax revenues are projected to cover 70 percent of federal expenditures. Only 7 percent of all projected federal government expenditures will be used to pay interest on the debt. While Washington would need to engage in significant cost-cutting measures, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service has confirmed that default would happen only if Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner chooses to let it. He has the authority to prioritize payments to ensure that default does not occur by using the available money to pay the nation’s creditors and cover essential services like Social Security payments without interruption.

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Gov. Nikki Haley today announced that the state of South Carolina has suspended the first business license under the South Carolina Illegal Immigration Reform Act after repeated and intentional violations.

Monterrey Mexican Restaurant of Killian, L.L.C., in Columbia, was notified today by the South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation (LLR) that it must suspend its operations for 10 consecutive days. Violation of the order will result in its business license being revoked for five years.

“At a time when President Obama has allowed ICE to abandon worksite enforcement and there are millions of illegal immigrants in the workforce, South Carolina is identifying the problem and addressing it,” Gov. Haley said.

Under the South Carolina Illegal Immigration Reform Act, all businesses in South Carolina have a business license to employ workers. That license can be suspended or revoked by the state if a business owner fails to verify the legal work status of employees within five business days after they are hired.

“In this economy, we need to ensure that every available job is held by an employee who is legally in this country and authorized to work,” LLR Director Catherine Templeton said. “Employers who choose to ignore the requirements of the state immigration law in their hiring practices will be penalized.”

Gov. Haley said, “What you’re seeing is an agency director and an administration that understand what it means to enforce the laws on the books.”

Following an investigation by LLR on October 25, 2010, the restaurant was notified that four of its five employees were not authorized to work in the United States, and that state law required the termination of any illegal immigrants.

The department conducted a follow-up inspection on November 5, 2010 and found Monterrey had hired five new employees without verifying their employment eligibility.

In an agreement with LLR signed by restaurant ownership on January 6, 2011, the business’ imputed license was suspended for 10 days but immediately stayed provided Monterrey terminate all unauthorized workers, pay a fine of $1,000, and conduct a self-audit to verify employment eligibility for all employees.

LLR conducted an unannounced audit of the restaurant on March 24, 2011 and found that the business had hired four new employees without properly verifying their work eligibility.

Since the law went into effect on July 1, 2009, LLR has audited 5,800 businesses and issued citations to 500 employers for violations related to employment verification. Information on employers cited can be found online.

-###-

Rob Godfrey
Press Secretary | Office of Governor Nikki Haley
O: 803.734.5074 | C: 803.429.5086

The State: Senate plan touts generic drug use, Health care dominates budget debate By JOHN O’CONNOR (joconnor@thestate.com) Patients in a state-run health care program for the poor and disabled could have to choose lower-cost mental health, cancer and HIV/AIDS prescriptions, according to a change in the Senate’s proposed state budget adopted Wednesday.
But the Senate voted down a proposal to make state employees pay a greater share of their rising health-insurance premiums. Employees will pay about $6 more a month next year for that insurance. The rejected plan almost would have doubled that increase.
Health care costs dominated the second day of floor debate on the Senate’s $5.8 billion spending plan for the state’s fiscal year that starts July 1.
Medicaid patients who already use name-brand drugs would not have to switch from those medications. However, doctors would need to try the lowest-cost drugs – typically generics – for new patients as long as those low-cost drugs are as effective as more expensive drugs.
The change will save the state about $991,000 a year, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Some lawmakers said the state should mandate everyone use the least expensive drug in order to save more money.
The bill would require the least expensive option, which could mean a generic or a name-brand drug whose maker offers a rebate or discount.
State Sen. Kevin Bryant, R-Anderson, one of three pharmacists in the General Assembly, said he supported requiring Medicaid recipients to use the least expensive drug. Bryant brought a name-brand indigestion drug and the generic equivalent to the Senate well. The generic, he noted, actually was stamped with the more expensive drug’s name.
But advocates said that no generics exist for some mental health, cancer and HIV/AIDS drugs. Other times, they said, when generics exist, they are not as effective.
Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Jeff Stensland said the agency does not support requiring prescription changes if they might impact a patient’s health. “We wouldn’t want to do anything that would disrupt what they are on now.”
But state Sen. David Thomas, R-Greenville, disagreed.
Drug companies have been pushing more expensive drugs, he said, often urging their use to treat illnesses for which the drugs were not designed. Some of those drug companies also have defrauded the state and hurt its citizens, he said.
“We’ve got to apply a tourniquet to the bleeding of this state,” Thomas said, urging lawmakers to require the use of generic drugs, a proposal they rejected.
Lawmakers also rejected a proposal to require state employees to pay more of their health insurance costs.
State Sen. Greg Ryberg, R-Aiken, said state employees should pay half the higher cost to the state for health insurance in the next fiscal year, or about $11 a month more. But senators — mindful that some state employees have not received a pay raise in four years — rejected Ryberg’s proposal, 24-16.
The Senate will continue its debate of the budget proposal today.
Reach O’Connor at (803) 771-8358.
© 2011 TheState.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.thestate.com

S.C. Senate fails by one vote
to defund rape, incest abortions

COLUMBIA, S.C. (Wednesday, April 27, 2011) –A move to strip funding for rape and incest abortions from the state employees’ health insurance plan failed by one vote Wednesday in the Republican-controlled South Carolina Senate.  Senators Kevin Bryant, R-Anderson, and David Thomas, R-Greenville, offered the amendment during debate on the 2011-2012 state budget.

In what is known as Part 1B, Section 80C of the state budget, the state employees’ health insurance coverage reads in part:  “No funds appropriated for employer contributions to the State Health Insurance Plan may be expended to reimburse the expenses of an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or where the mother’s medical condition is one which, on the basis of the physician’s good faith judgment, so complicates the pregnancy as to necessitate an immediate abortion to avert the risk of her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of major bodily function, and the State Health Plan may not offer coverage for abortion services, including ancillary services provided contemporaneously with abortion services.”

The Bryant-Thomas amendment would have removed the six words “in cases of rape; incest or” leaving the rest of the House-passed language intact.

Some courts have ruled that “impairment of a major bodily function” includes the brain and therefore abortions may be performed for the mental health of the mother.  It is unclear if the language of Section 80C excludes mental health abortions.

Numerous court decisions have held that federal, state, and local entities can prohibit government funding of abortion.

Senator Joel Lourie, D-Richland, moved to table (defeat) the Bryant-Thomas amendment. The motion to table passed by one vote.  Those who voted against tabling the amendment were voting in favor of the Bryant-Thomas amendment.

Voting for the amendment (against a tabling motion): Alexander, Bright, Bryant, Campbell, Campsen, Cromer, Davis, Fair, Grooms, Hayes, Jackson, Martin (Shane), Massey, O’Dell, Reese, Rose, Ryberg, Shoopman, Thomas, Verdin

Voting against the amendment (for a tabling motion): Coleman, Courson, Elliott, Ford, Gregory, Hutto, Knotts, Land, Leatherman, Leventis, Lourie, Malloy, Martin (Larry), Matthews, McConnell, McGill, Nicholson, Peeler, Rankin, Scott, Williams

Not Voting: Cleary, Anderson, Pinckney, Sheheen, Setzler
__________________________________________________________________

Saving babies’ lives in South Carolina’s most notorious former abortion facility.

Street address: 1411 Barnwell St. Suite 3, Columbia SC  29201
Mailing address: P.O. Box 5865, Columbia SC  29250
Phone: 803.252.LIFE (5433)  Fax: 803.252.3118
e-mail: sccl@sclife.org web: www.sclife.org
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