Palmetto Fellows: Funded by the lottery, students must be in top 10% of class, and minimum SAT of 1200. $7000/year
LIFE : Funded by lottery, must be in top 30% of class, minimum SAT of 1100. $4400/Year
HOPE: Funded by lottery, 3.00 GPA in high school, waiting list for LIFE. $4400/year
SC Teaching Fellows: Funded by legislature, applied for by education majors. $6000/year
SC Tuition Grant: Funded by legislature, must be in top 75% of class, minimum 900 on SAT. $2350/year
Pell Grant: Need based. Federally funded.

As you know, things move much more quickly in the SC House than the SC Senate. Here’s what’s up in the House and, hopefully, we can carry some of these issues to the finish line.

SPECIAL ALERT

Voter ID (H. 3003) has now been set for Special Order in the State Senate and is on the calendar for debate next week. We are hopeful that the Senate will move quickly in taking up this reform that will create a more secure electoral process. Please pass this message along and let your Senator know you care about this bill.

Dear Friends,
The first month of this legislative session has flown by and I couldn’t be more pleased with what House Republicans have been able to accomplish so far this year. Here’s a quick briefing on the latest news from the State House:

Lawsuit Abuse Reform Overwhelmingly Passes House
In an effort to halt the abuse of frivolous lawsuits on South Carolina businesses, the House passed “South Carolina Fairness in Civil Justice Act of 2011” (H. 3375) by a vote of 100-7. More commonly referred to as Tort Reform, this bill will lift the burden of excessive, unjust lawsuits off businesses owners, create a better economic environment for the private sector to grow jobs and make our state even more attractive for businesses looking to set roots in our South Carolina. Click here to read more about the passage of this House Republican agenda item and you can also listen here for my personal thoughts on how much Tort Reform means for the business climate in South Carolina.

The “Repeal Amendment” On Deck for Debate
In the era of an overreaching Federal Government, the “Repeal Amendment” (H. 3507) will give states the constitutional power to repeal individual federal acts of Congress. As the Speaker of the House, I have joined a coalition of State Speakers from around the country in order to regain the balance of power between states and an overly intrusive federal government. Just a few weeks ago, I wrote about the need for the “Repeal Amendment” when securing South Carolina’s status as a Right-to-Work state (read the article here), and as the debate over Obamacare continues, the urgency to restore the balance of power only increases. Keep up with the latest news on the “Repeal Amendment” and the debate this week on The Speaker’s Facebook Page and The Speaker’s Twitter Feed.

Charter School Bill on House Floor Next Week
An integral part in growing a secure economy in South Carolina is developing a competitive workforce, and that means building competitive schools. The Charter School Bill, H. 3241, would expand on measures taken in 2005 and 2008 to develop a more competitive Charter School District and better prepare future generations for their role in an ever-changing economy. This bill is now on the House calendar. You can watch the debate live here when we take it up, and we’ll keep you posted.

Government Restructuring Measures Pass Subcommittee
In an effort to limit the scope of government and increase efficiency, the Constitutional Laws Subcommittee passed bills this week that would restructure the Budget and Control Board under a new Department of Administration under the Executive Branch and call for the Governor to appoint constitutional officers. The South Carolina Restructuring Act of 2011 (H. 3066) and bills regarding the statewide constitutional officers (H. 3152 and H. 3070) are all items of the House Republicans’ 2011 Agenda, and we’ll continue to update you on the status of these reforms.
As always, I’d love to hear from you via email, on The Speaker’s Facebook Page and in reply to The Speaker’s Twitter Feed. And, we’ll continue to use these tools to notify you of important action alerts, bill assignments, and scheduling. If you haven’t yet signed on to these, please do so now by clicking on these links, so you can more easily follow these important debates.

Thank you for staying up to date with conservative reforms in the House and for your continued feedback. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if I can ever be of assistance.
Sincerely, Bobby Harrell, SC Speaker of the House, www.BobbyHarrell.com

The second greatest president in American history would have turned 100 last weekend. He left America, and the world, a far better place than he found it. He conquered the tyranny of Soviet communism and the debilitating malaise here at home. By any measure, he achieved as much or more than any American in history.

Yet, many still refuse to acknowledge the factual record. Indeed, many commentators have allowed him only recognition as an optimist or as “the Great Communicator” because they still cannot relinquish their intellectual dogmas that proved wrong on so many counts.

The facts are simple. Ronald Reagan inherited an economy in its worst crisis since the Great Depression. The unemployment rate in January 1981 stood at 7.4 percent, on its way up to 10 percent. Persistent double-digit inflation had pushed interest rates to an unbelievable 21 per cent. Jimmy Carter predicted a bleak economic future.

Taxes on the average American in 1981 were high and rising. Meanwhile, the real wages of American workers fell 9 percent between 1979-1981, offsetting nearly two decades of growth and reducing them back to their 1962 level. Indeed, adding in the massive tax increases of the 1960s and 1970s, the American worker enjoyed less purchasing power than the 1930s.

Reagan reduced taxes. Reagan also indexed the tax brackets to offset inflation. In 1965, a four-person family making the median income paid a 19 percent rate. By 1980, that family in the same relative position paid 28 percent. Reagan’s 1982 budget included a tax cut of about 23 percent over three years and indexing beginning in 1985.

Total federal revenues rose from just over $517 billion in 1980 to more than $1 trillion in 1990 (28 percent in constant dollars). Individual income tax revenue climbed from just over $244 billion in 1980 to nearly $467 billion in 1990 (25 percent in constant dollars).

One dogma claims that the tax cuts favored the rich. In 1981, the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 18 percent of the total bill. By 1991, however, the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 25 percent of all income taxes; the top 5 percent paid 43 percent; and the bottom 50 percent paid only 5 percent. The revenue from the rich was used to double personal exemptions and triple the earned-income tax credit, both of enormous benefit to the working poor.

Another dogma blames tax cuts for the deficits. But, spending increases, not revenue declines, accounted for the budget deficit of the 1980s. Spending on social services tripled (in constant dollars) between 1981 and 1989. And, to defuse another dogma, defense spending under Reagan never rose above 28 percent of the budget (it had been 22 percent under Carter).

The economic facts of the Reagan presidency are clear. From 1982 to 1990, the United States experienced 96 straight months of economic growth, totaling nearly 36 percent, the longest peacetime expansion in its history. Almost 20 million brand-new jobs emerged. The stock market nearly tripled in value.

Government revenues — at the federal, state and local levels — nearly doubled. The economy grew at a 4 percent annual rate while the inflation rate ran just over 3 percent. The American economy grew by about one-third in inflation-adjusted terms. This was the equivalent of adding the entire economy of East and West Germany or two-thirds of Japan’s economy to the U.S. economy. Unemployment fell from a peak of 11 percent to about 5.5 percent at its lowest.

By 1984, the Reagan recovery was well under way. How else to explain his landslide victory over Walter Mondale? Paul Krugman, professor of economics at Princeton, describes it thusly, “I still think he did a pretty bad job of managing the budget and the economy because by the time the dust had settled, the economy at the end of Reagan’s term was about where a projection from the ’70s would have led you to expect it to be.”

Really? So, if Jimmy Carter won a second term and Walter Mondale served four years as the 40th president, 1989 would have looked the same as when the Gipper left office? That is the kind of analysis that wins the Nobel Prize.

Someday commentators will view the facts of the Reagan years and appraise them fairly. For now, most still cannot bear to admit the facts.

Fortunately, for the rest of us, it really did happen. And for that, we can thank Ronald Reagan.

P.S., he won the Cold War, too.

Daniel R. Varat holds a Ph. D. from the University of Mississippi. He is a native and resident of Greenville

S. 434 suspends 4 provisos that will allow flexibility for provider rates to be cut. As you can assume, nobody’s happy with this resolution, and this solution won’t fix our problem alone, but would assist the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in filling this hole. Last week, the Senate Finance committee gave a favorable report to S. 434, by a narrow 11-10 vote with a minority report.

You are aware that DHHS faces a current-year shortfall of $225 million and an estimated shortfall for 2011-2012 of over $600 million. You may not be aware that HHS has almost no ability to manage its own budget. The General Assembly has through the years prohibited HHS from managing its agency by mandating most provider reimbursement rates and several specific brands of prescription drugs. Mandated reimbursement rates, which sit at least 30% higher than the national average, have cost SC almost $300 million over just the last three years. Also, I’ve been informed that several of the managed care programs in the Medicaid system have been poorly managed; probably another contributing factor to this deficit.

SC furthermore deprived itself of another management tool when it cemented eligibility levels in 2009 by accepting the Stimulus. I voted against taking that money, and we were told very plainly that the strings attached included the lock-in of Medicaid eligibility which ensured the growth of the Medicaid rolls. Now, Obamacare has made that lock-in permanent. Unfortunately, the SC General Assembly did his bidding two years early.

The simple fact is that we can either find ways to cut Medicaid costs now, or we can simply stop paying for Medicaid altogether. We will run out of money. Either that or we will continue taking money from law enforcement and education until that too disappears. Unfortunately, the Budget & Control Board will recognize at least a $ 100 million deficit, which essentially, kicks the can down the road and further procrastinates reform and exacerbates next year’s budget problems.

I am committed to finding solutions to the Medicaid funding problem. Doing nothing is not an option.