South Carolina Statehouse Blog

The South Carolina General Assembly is convening for an emergency session on Monday, October 20^th to address a substantial budget shortfall. The shortfall of more than $200 million is a result of an unforeseen significant drop in tax revenues across the state. To bring light to what is happening and what should be done in response, I recently sat down with State Representative Chip Huggins of District 85, Lexington County.

In explaining what South Carolina is going through, Rep Huggins said that in the past, the state legislature has misallocated funds and overspent. However, in this current situation Huggins asserts “We’re looking at more of an economic reason for the need to make cuts and adjust our budget.” He believes that the legislature is doing a better job than in the past of reigning in unneeded spending, although they can always do a better job and learn from these troubling times.

Rep Huggins says that a lesson that we’ve all learned is that in the long-run, we need to consider saving for a rainy day. The legislature needs to understand that some times are better than others, and to construct a budget for this year based on the last year is a mistake. For instance, he explains that in 2005, South Carolina had a great year for revenues, but to construct a budget this year based on that “banner year” is foolish, and hence, we will not see the budget balance.

The problem seems to be that the economy in South Carolina is just not performing as it did in the recent past, as is the case nation-wide. Huggins says that in his 8 years in office, he has seen these budget shortfalls 3 times, but it was mainly due to overspending. In contrast to past similar situations though, he says “This one is much deeper; we’ve heard words like ‘recession’ and I think it is a reality.” This time, it is the lagging revenues as a result of the economic downturn that caused the shortfall. In addition, he says “There are a lot of wants and wish lists out there, but we’re going to have to do a better job of cutting down on needless things.”

In effect, across-the-board cuts are inevitable. All government agencies were given the opportunity to bring forward the programs and such that they can and cannot cut. Furthermore, a goal is to try not to cut funding to K-12 schools, Medicaid and the Department of Corrections. Rep Huggins stated that universities will see cuts in funding as well as the Department of Health and Environmental Control. All agencies will probably be treated equally though.

Chip Huggins says that the last thing we want to do is raise taxes and/or fees. “The worst thing to do in a tough economic time is to raise taxes or fees. It just makes things worse,” he claims.

In addressing the ramifications of these potential budget cuts in regards to his district in Lexington County, Chip Huggins explained that there will be some negative effects, due largely to the fact that there is a lot of state employment in that area. These budget cuts could potentially result in job loss. He also mentioned that there are a lot of university students who are worried about the idea of increased tuition as a result of this. He hopes the universities around the state will look deeply into their finances to keep from enacting tuition hikes, but the direction of that is not predictable right now.  

In essence, Representative Chip Huggins tries to abide by the principles of fiscal conservatism. He believes the state legislature can improve the job they are doing collectively and work together to solve this problem and be more conservative with the budget. Huggins believes they should save more for rocky economic times like these and do an even better job of cutting down on excessive spending. He is very confident that we will see a positive outcome in the long-run and South Carolina’s budget will be back on track.

Huggins says that the elected officials should be held accountable for what they do, and therefore, he supports the proposed roll-call votes. Therefore, constituents will have access to information about their elected officials’ votes. The November 4^th elections could potentially be effected by this. As Huggins states, people should and will examine this tough economic situation and vote for the people who they believe will serve them best in these times.