Kevin Bryant

I will chair a subcommittee meeting on Tuesday, December 6th at 3pm at the Anderson County Delegation office. This special meeting will be held to accommodate the chairwoman of the Cosmetology Board who has requested to be heard but cannot be in Columbia for the next scheduled hearing on Thursday the 8th. We encourage members who can to attend, and he will make the testimony part of the public record on Thursday the 8th. No votes will be taken at the hearing on Tuesday.

Please contact the LCI Committee office if you need more information or directions.

The meeting will be in the Ronald P. Townsend Building, 2404 North Main Street, Anderson, SC 29621

At this time, I oppose a subpoena of the staff of the Governor. First, the Executive Branch of South Carolina government is a co-equal branch with the Legislative Branch. I think subpoena powers should be reserved when strong evidence of unlawful activity is present.

After ten hours of exhaustive testimony on Tuesday 11.29.2011, we found nothing to indicate that following a simple request for a hearing Governor Haley or her staff made any substantive contact with DHEC board members or staff concerning this issue much less any contact of an untoward or nefarious nature.

The Committee’s vote for a subpoena would require 9 votes (not those present and voting) so absence is a “no” vote. Current issues at our Pharmacy in Anderson make impossible to attend the meeting on Friday 12.02.2011 on short notice, however, my absence is essentially a “no” vote.

Second, I do not think a disagreement with an unwise decision should affect my support for a subpoena. I do not support this decision. I wish we could have taken advantage of this certification to challenge the State of Georgia to be more cooperative in our desire to allow ports activity in Jasper County. Now that opportunity appears be lost. Also, DHEC ignored critical factors such as the potential impact upon Lakes Hartwell, Russell, and Thurmond should dredging result in a flow of brackish water further up the Savannah river basin.

I believe that DHEC made a bad decision, but not an illegal one.

It appears my friends at the SC Club for Growth and I are consistently singing out of the same hymn book. I’ve received the top score in the Legislature since they started scoring several years ago.South Carolina Club for Growth Releases 2011 Legislative Scorecards

Names 43 “Taxpayer Heroes” and 101 “Taxpayer Nightmares”

Columbia, SC – Today, the South Carolina Club for Growth released its 2011 Legislative Scorecards, awarding its “Taxpayer Hero” award to 8 Senators and 35 Representatives based on their voting records since January 2011.

Scorecard ratings (here) are based on 38 pro-growth and government reform votes taken since January 2011 – the House of Representatives had 16 scored votes and the Senate had 12. The votes scored were taken from the best version of the bill or from an amendment that would have strengthened the bill. Scores are on a scale of 0 to 100 with each vote assigned a certain number of points depending on its relative importance. Legislators earn the title of Taxpayer Hero by earning an “A” or “B” and the Taxpayer Nightmare title by earning a “D” or “F”.

Club Chairman Bill McAfee stated, “The scorecards are a valuable tool for Club for Growth members and South Carolina voters. Taxpayers in Allendale and Abbeville counties can’t watch every vote on every bill, but this scorecard gives them the opportunity to see if their legislator is just giving them lip service or really fighting for good government and pro-growth legislation. The votes on this scorecard were carefully selected to show how lawmakers voted on meaningful legislation that could bring about actual reform in South Carolina.

The 2010 election cycle showed voters are tired of politicians saying one thing and voting for another. This scorecard is a great asset to citizens heading to the polls in 2012. It helps them answer the question, ‘Is my legislator really fiscally responsible or just when they are on the campaign trail?’”

2011 FAST FACTS

– 18 Republican Representatives and 16 Republican Senators earned “Taxpayer Nightmare” awards for earning a “D” or “F.”
– 48 Democrat Representatives and 19 Democrat Senators earned “Taxpayer Nightmare” awards for earning a “D” or “F.”

Senate

– The average Democrat score was “12.6.”
– The average Republican score was “52.2.”

“Taxpayer Heroes” in the SC Senate

– Lee Bright
– Kevin Bryant
– Tom Davis
– Shane Martin
– Greg Gregory
– Mike Rose
– Greg Ryberg
– Phil Shoopman

Thanksgiving 2011

Dear Fellow American,

While today’s political correctness has attempted to confuse Americans about our heritage and the source of our “Thanksgiving,” a reading of true and unfiltered history demonstrates that our Founding Fathers and the Pilgrims who celebrated the first Thanksgiving had no doubt to Whom they were thankful.

The brave Pilgrims who endured a 66 day voyage across the Atlantic in 1620 suffered through a miserable first winter, losing many of their number. Yet their work ethic and resolve led to a new, free market system and a rejection of communal socialism. The Pilgrims consistently thanked Almighty God for His providential direction of their efforts and plans.

In the Mayflower Compact, the first social compact ever written by a free people, the primary reason for coming to the New World was, according to PilgrimGovernor William Bradford in Of Plimoth Plantation, “…having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia…”

While most American families will follow the Pilgrims’ example of enjoying a huge feast on Thanksgiving, we too often ignore the reason that the Governor Bradford and the Pilgrims set aside a special day in the first place—to give thanks to God and demonstrate their total dependence on Him.

Our trust today should be on God as well. Given our nation’s current challenges, it is my prayer today that we as a country turn our eyes back to Almighty God and acknowledge Him as Lord once again.

Governor Bradford’s words capture it best. He and the other Pilgrims were aware of their place in history, and give us a lesson that all Americans should be reminded of–that ours is a special nation and the world looks to us as a beacon of freedom and liberty.

Governor Bradford said, “Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and, as one small candle may light thousands, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea, in some sort to our whole nation; let the glorious name of Jehovah have all the praise.”

Thank you for all that you do for South Carolina and our nation. Dana, our children, and I will be praying for each of you and for our state and nation this Thanksgiving.

I am surely thankful for each one of you and for this great nation that we are privileged to live in. Enjoy your Thanksgiving meals with your families and renew yourselves for the freedom fight that we must engage in every day.

God bless you,

Chad Connelly
Chairman
South Carolina Republican Party

my recent op/ed: Higher Education in South Carolina—Bang for your bucks! The State Newspaper
A couple of weeks ago South Carolina taxpayers discovered that the University of South Carolina (USC) houses its very own Solyndra—a “green” energy initiative that it bobbled in conception, fumbled in execution and which now sits dormant on the USC campus having sucked down tens of millions of public dollars.
USC apparently entered the new century having completed its mission to educate students and therefore decided somewhere in the middle part of the last decade that it needs to be in the energy production business. It therefore contracted with Johnson Controls to build a biomass plant on campus.
USC, according to correspondence with my office, spent over $55 million to build what one of its officials labeled the “cat’s meow” of biomass fuel production plants. News reports indicate that during one two year period it produced steam for only 98 of 534 days. On June 28th 2009, it blew up. Talk about a bang for the taxpayers’ buck.
USC apparently believes its mission similar to that of Duke Energy and Santee Cooper. The problem, of course, is their mission requires your money.
USC told me that, “There were never any state or general funds involved in the transactions. The University’s utility budget is funded from other funds.” For those uninitiated in bureau-speak, this means that the state did not appropriate General Fund money for the flux capacitor, but that USC spent money from another account that, fitting for such a masquerade, is labeled “other funds”.
USC told me that, other funds include “Tuition and Fees”. They also include “State Grants and Contracts” as well as “Sales and Services of Educational Activities”. So, “other funds” include money that parents and students pay ostensibly for education, meals, football tickets, etc, except in this case they paid for what one USC official calls “scrap metal”.
“Other funds” also includes revenue generated by USC from resources paid for with public money. “Sales and Services of Educational Activities” would include revenues from the USC Press whose employees are state employees, i.e. paid with taxpayer dollars. Taxpayer resources fund the activities from which USC collects revenue that went not into lowering tuition or upgrading the cafeteria or dorms but into what the former USC vice-president for finance called “A (expletive) mess with many layers….”
USC officials ensured me that it will net nearly $19 million in savings over the next 15 years if the project goes off as planned, or at least doesn’t blow up again. That may happen, but I doubt it. Moreover, even if it does, why is USC involved at all in an enterprise that they clearly cannot manage and sits nowhere that I can see within the realm of “education”.
My belief is that USC, like much of higher education, sees itself as a sovereign empire. They style themselves, by their own admission, as agents of “economic development”. These institutions engage themselves in all manner of activities aside from education including operating an energy plant—though not effectively—and they, of course, demand your money to do so.
USC itself meddles in several “economic development” activities, and they turn out in similar fashion. The best example, of course, remains Innovista. I previously have written that taxpayers have been forced to donate “$58 million in direct state aid to Innovista. The $58 million in state money has been nearly doubled by local taxpayers. For over $100 million we now have two empty buildings down by the river.”
We recently learned that even the Innovista parking lots are losing money to the tune of $4 million over the previous three years. And four days later, right on cue, the Commission on Higher Education (CHE) proclaimed that, “renewed investment in our higher education institutions in the upcoming year is imperative.”
The same CHE, meanwhile, reports that tuition at USC has risen 138.7% over the preceding decade. The student population over that same period rose only 51%, and the number of full-time instructors rose just over 17%. Outstanding institutional debt, however, rose by more than 166%.
USC (and it by no means stands alone) has gouged the parents, leveraged the taxpayers, and still they want more to throw at boondoggles like Innovista and a biomass plant. The giant sucking sound that you hear is the siphon running from your wallet into the tank at USC.
If your wallet remains full, then you likely will disregard this column. If your wallet, however, feels about like the Mojave Desert, then you may want to let your politicians know that enough is enough.