I will be a panelist in the Sunshine Week Kick Off at 6 pm on Friday, March 12th. The event will take place at the Civic Center of Anderson in the main ballroom. The Civic Center is located at 3027 MLK, Jr. Boulevard, Anderson, SC 29625.

In early 2009, Anderson County’s website was promoted to an A+ grade by the Sunshine Review for our efforts in making the County’s financial and other pertinent public information available online. Our desire is to continue on the journey to become more open and transparent and to restore our resident’s trust in local government.

Anderson County gets favorable review from Sunshine Review:

• Council members listed and individual contact information is provided. Meeting schedule, minutes, and agendas available.^[1]
• Financial audits and budgets available.^[2]
• Zoning information^[3] and building permits available.^[4]
• Administrative officials listed under respective departments.
• The contract bidding process is online.^[5]
• Tax assessments and other tax information is available online.^[6][7]
• Information on how to make a public records request is provided on the site.^[8]
• Lobbying statistics and information are posted on activities from 2002 to 2008.^[9]

H. 3365 and H. 3841 are bills giving Higher Ed and the Technical Colleges more flexibility in their purchases. Currently, these institutions must crawl and beg permission from the antiquated Budget and Control Board for approval for many major expenditures.

I’ll support these bills as long as we can get some transparency. As you’ve heard me express before, I’m for flexibility as long as it is coupled with transparency. Well, I offered an amendment today that requires these institutions to post on their website a transaction register that includes a complete record of all funds exempted from the requirement.

Our Comptroller General has already offered assistance to any agency wanting his assistance in posting the information online.

Teachers, contributors, students,and parents have expressed their frustration many times when they’re told by administration that there’s no money for the essentials or there’s a new tuition hike. If we can grant transparency, we’ll get a clear view of where the money’s going. The taxpayer has every right to track down how every nickel and dime is spent.

Now there is a bill sponsored by Sen. Mike Rose that will require full transparency for all of higher ed’s budgets, but its in committee. So here’s an opportunity to start with a small slice of the budget to prepare for what’s coming.

I’m getting some resistance on this amendment, so the fate of these bills are in question.

I can be very rigid when it comes to flexibility without transparency!

The Greenville News article: “Clemson faces spending questions,” was very interesting. I applaud the House members, especially Rep. Dwight Loftis, who it appears is leading the effort to audit the Clemson Public Service Activities programs.

I am both surprised and dismayed that Sen. Mike Fair, who, I think is the straightest of the straight-shooters in the General Assembly, is attempting to mediate a solution that will satisfy Rep. Loftis and the other legislators without conducting an audit. But I hope they will stay the course and not be intimidated by influential people who for whatever reason are resisting, and indeed lobbying to get the Legislative Audit Council (LAC) to reject the request for the audit.

I would remind these and other legislators that these influential people hold little sway in the real world of rank and file voters in South Carolina. I would encourage them to work hard to get the support of other legislators in this effort and even consider expanding the scope of the audit to include the entire university.

It has been said that: “those most in need of scrutiny will resist it the most.” If there is “nothing to hide” and the PSA programs are being properly managed, then there is nothing to fear. In fact, if they are clean, the Legislature, in my view, will be more apt to support them on future requests.

And it is just plain taradiddle to claim exorbitant costs to conduct the audit. It will not cost one additional dime. It might delay the audit of another department, but that’s about it.

In my 20 years in the Legislature, I never refused to sign a request for an audit. Well-managed departments should welcome, indeed request, audits of their organizations. The General Assembly’s motto should be: “In God we trust, everybody else we audit.”

If the LAC rejects or even delays the audit, Rep. Loftis as a member of the Ways and Means Committee should begin immediately the effort to completely remove LAC funds from the budget as they would not be performing the functions for which they were created. When audits were necessary, they could out-source them.

Lewis R. Vaughn

Greer

Today, I had the honor of introducing my nomination to the Summary Court of Anderson County, Mrs. Wynée Eubanks. Wynée Eubanks brings 25+ years of professional proficiency that includes extensive knowledge in program/project analysis, coordination, development and implementation. Her areas of expertise are in records management; staff development and training; and program, policy and procedure evaluation. She earned her Master’s of Business Administration degree (MBA) in Business Management from Florida Metropolitan University, and her Bachelor of Science degree (BS) in Business Merchandising from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Mrs. Eubanks has held the positions of Registrar and Director of Developmental Learning at Atlanta Christian College. Wynée also held the distinct honor of being the first African-American to hold the position of City Clerk, City Census 2000 Coordinator and Superintendent of Municipal Elections with the City of East Point, Georgia. She held the position of Supervisor of the Municipal Court before being promoted to City Clerk and Superintendent of Municipal Elections.

She is currently the Executive Director of a non-profit organization called Spiritual 2-A-Days. She serves Spiritual 2-A-Days with her husband, Tony, who also is the chaplain for the Clemson University Football team. Spiritual 2-A-Days is not just another mentoring program. The word of God serves as the tool for teaching, rebuking, guiding, encouraging, and edifying of young men and women in high schools and colleges. The Eubanks reside in my district in Pendleton.

As y’all know, I share office suites with Sen. Mick Mulvaney (R-Lancaster). I wish him the best in his congressional race and quite frankly, am convinced that he’ll win. Come back and see us Congressman!

February 26, 2010

Dear Friends,

In case you missed it, Winthrop University released a poll this week showing that 64 percent of South Carolinians – and 69 percent of independent voters – disapprove of the job the U.S. Congress is doing. Even a majority (51.6 percent) of Democratic voters disapprove of Congress’ job performance.

These are powerful numbers, and the latest evidence that South Carolinians are tired of the current crop of “leaders” in Washington and are ready for a Congress that represents them. Furthermore, I suspect that had Winthrop polled “registered voters” or “likely voters,” those numbers would be even more compelling.

Huge majorities of South Carolinians – even a majority of Democrats - recognize that the current leadership in Washington is moving our country in the wrong direction. They also recognize that John Spratt – who voted with Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership 97.8 percent of the time last year – is no longer part of the solution, but has instead become a major part of the problem.

As Budget Chairman, John Spratt has presided over $3 trillion in deficit spending over the last two years alone. He’s also voted for bailouts, a socialized medicine proposal and a massive new energy tax.

My campaign is built around tax cuts, balanced budgets, free market health care reforms and an energy plan that uses all available technologies to lower our costs. My campaign is also built on a proven record, as I was one of only fifteen state lawmakers to earn an “A” grade from the S.C. Club for Growth last year.

If you’re one of the many South Carolinians tired of the status quo in Washington, you can do something about it right now.

John Spratt has loaded his campaign war chest with contributions from Speaker Pelosi and dozens of other left-leaning politicians, unions and special interests.

If you want to see a proven conservative take John Spratt’s place, I hope you’ll consider making a contribution to my campaign.

Every check – whether it’s $20, $50 or $100 – will help us in our quest to make the U.S. Congress an institution that protects South Carolina taxpayers instead of taking advantage of them.

Take care,

The founders of America recognized freedom as the fundamental right given by God to man. They enshrined freedom in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, documents that today sit perilously in the balance between those who would destroy freedom in favor of state control and those who would fight to their last breath to preserve them. Chief among the latter is Senator Jim DeMint.
Senator DeMint reminded us of the fight last week when he told an audience that, “Three years of a Democrat majority and just one year of President Obama have awakened Americans and led millions to become more passionate advocates for freedom.”
The election of conservatives such as Governor Chris Christie in New Jersey and the surge of the fortunes of conservative candidates like Marco Rubio in Florida illustrate what DeMint called “a wave of new Republicans who are embracing the energy and passion of the American people.”
The steady departure from Congress of statists like Chris Dodd reflect the fact that Americans across the land are beginning to realize that they bought a bottle of snake oil.
The statist majority in Washington, mostly located in the Democrat Party but far too often bi-partisan, has made the final push over the last year to destroy the soul of America.
Senator DeMint noted that, “we now see all too clearly that the hope and change the Democrats had in mind was nothing more than a retread of the failed and discredited socialist policies that have been the enemy of freedom for centuries all over the world.”
Government-run health care, the cap and tax energy proposal and the TARP and stimulus bailouts remain frightening examples of the efforts of the statists during the last year to destroy our freedoms and replace them with their vision of America—one of servitude to the government and its army of bureaucrats.
Senator DeMint reminded us that, “our country has been the most prosperous nation in history and exceptional in so many ways because our economy, culture and government were built on principles of freedom that were unique in the entire world.”
Those principles: freedom, justice, faith in God, all as Senator DeMint termed them, “Judeo/Christian convictions,” have weathered the assault from the left for decades. The left now sits ascendant, however, and we must fight or lose forever our birthright of freedom and, indeed, our birthright of America.
Politicians in Washington, and Columbia for that matter, can begin the renewal of freedom by heeding two simple words: “STOP SPENDING!” Spending at the state and national level has driven us to the verge of collapse.
Spending in Columbia on every festival and frog jump and local feel good project during the fat years has left us in the lean years with no money for roads or school buses or prison guards or children’s services.
Spending in Washington for bailouts of car companies and insurance companies and local pork projects like a $3 million turtle crossing in northern Florida, a $10 million renovation of an abandoned train station that has been shut for three decades has left us with a $12.4 trillion (that’s with a “T”) debt owned mostly by Chinese—not exactly lovers of liberty.
Senator DeMint reminded us that, “We should all take caution from the biblical admonition from Proverbs [that] ‘the borrower is slave to the lender’… a truth that becomes more apparent for our country every day.” I have no interest in enslavement to my own government, much less the Chinese, but that is the course that President Obama and his statist allies seem bent on pursuing.
Senator DeMint precisely identified the problem when he said that, “You can’t govern from a teleprompter. Just because you are good on TV doesn’t mean you can sell socialism to freedom-loving Americans.”
President Obama, flush with the adulation of Oprah and convinced of his destiny, apparently presumed that a vote for him was a vote for serfdom. The Tea Party movement and its prevalent symbol, the Gadsden Flag, remind us that freedom-loving Americans are jealous of their right and will not easily cede it.
And the best thing is that there are more of us than there are of them.
Senator DeMint has spent his Congressional tenure as a tireless advocate for freedom because he knows that, as one of his bumper stickers declares, “Freedom Works.” Senator DeMint was a conservative when conservative was not cool. Now he deserves the thanks of those for whom he has and will continue to fight.