Boot camp was a breeze

e-mail this story Dan Hoover • Andre Bauer makes a move (05/04/03) • Hollings keeping Dems on edge (04/27/03) • Sanford averts fight over Guard leadership (04/20/03) • Boot camp was a breeze (04/12/03) • Democrats envy S.C.'s '04 date (03/29/03)

After all, you could get something done, even if it was only that last push-up.

If military training is about the art of the possible, getting a tax hike through a Republican legislature concurrent with a general tax cut in perilous economic times may be mission impossible. And Sanford is a Republican.

Sanford came back April 5 from Alabama after two weeks of training for new Air Force Reserve officers and hit the ground running.

After drawing criticism and expressions of concern about a nebulous agenda three months into his first legislative session, Sanford's tax plan began to take shape in public while aides worked behind the scenes to formulate a sweeping government restructuring package. Both were central to his campaign platform.

Last week, Sanford did a fly-around, using successful small businesses as a backdrop for some old-fashioned, media-driven consensus building for plans he says will introduce greater fairness to the state tax code, improve the business climate and — perhaps — resolve the crisis of ballooning Medicaid costs without dropping recipients, sending them to flood emergency rooms.

The plan: Add a 53-cent tax to every pack of cigarettes sold in South Carolina and earmark every dollar for the feds' three-for-one Medicaid match — and — when finances permit, reduce the state's highest income tax rate to 5 percent from 7 percent, an amount that now kicks in below the poverty level, at $12,200, a level unmatched in the region.

Sanford got what he wanted Tuesday from the Senate Finance Committee.

The rub is that the House has approved something entirely different, no cigarette tax, no income tax cut, while primarily refinancing the state's tobacco lawsuit settlement bonds for Medicaid matching monies.

Both bodies are digging in their heels.

Which one blinks first will go a long way toward determining the success and tone of Sanford's all-important first year.

"That's a fair judgment," said Sen. Verne Smith, R-Greer.

Going in, positions are hard...

Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, Finance Committee chairman, on the House plan:

"I think we can safely say that won't happen."

House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville:

"The House has spoken very clearly, that they're opposed to a huge tax increase at this time. I don't see that changing."

How much wiggle room each side has isn't clear because of each package's interlocking components where one element can't stand without the other.

For example, with so many Republicans having taken a "No new taxes" pledge, the cigarette levy isn't likely to emerge without some countervailing tax reduction. With Republicans divided and Democrats unlikely to back a tax cut, the decision will come down to some hard-nosed, closed-door conference sessions at the Statehouse.

How tough is the issue?

House and Senate leaders met Wednesday morning to lay out their positions. Nobody budged.

Instead they set aside three weeks for conferees to wrangle. Three weeks.

Smith has been in the Senate for 30 years and doesn't remember that much time ever being blocked out for negotiations by a single panel.

If Sanford gets much of what he wants, his emerging image in some quarters as detached and remote from a Legislature whose support he badly needs could be put on the shelf, giving him new strength for other battles.

He began to dispel some of that with a letter to Senate Finance Committee members warning that he would veto a food-tax reduction plan if it was included. That item, previously approved by a subcommittee, was killed Tuesday.

Smith said of the newly assertive Sanford, who unlike most of his predecessors never served the Legislature, "He's beginning to understand the system a little better."

It may be Sanford's style.

He said last week, "Part of it is finding your feet."

Still, Sanford's failure to emerge with a high-profile package bearing his imprint could make him largely irrelevant for the balance of this image-shaping session and perhaps beyond.

The carrot and stick stage seems to be at hand.

In Greenville, Sanford was asked if his success would be measured by the House caving in to the Senate and agreeing to its package.

"I don't like the word 'cave,' I like 'compromise.' "

Dan Hoover's column appears on Sunday. He can be reached at (864) 298-4883 or toll-free at (800) 274-7879, extension 4883, or by fax at (864) 298-4395.