| Democrats Respond to State of the State |
| (Columbia) - In a speech that lasted 52
minutes, Governor Mark Sanford devoted the most time to education,
primarily the topic of school choice: a plan that would allow
parents to pick their child's school. "It's going to cost $200 million a year in these vouchers that he wants to give people, where's that $200 million going to come from?" asks House Minority Leader Harry Ott, Junior. Another complaint from Democrats, the Governor used dreary statistics, numbers like half of our kids don't graduate. Numbers that State Superintendent of Education Inex Tenenbaum says not only aren't true, but insult South Carolina. "He's trying to look at the worst case scenario in order to downgrade the schools in our state," she says. Also drawing harsh criticism: taxes. Democrats say a proposal to cut income taxes would actually end up costing more. "It sends somewhat of a confusing message to me to say the economy still hasn't recovered and may not recover for a long time, yet we want to do all these big, great ideas such as income tax reductions. In 15 years it would cost almost a billion dollars," says Ott. "I guess I was looking for a little more in terms of details, in terms of substance," says Representative Jerry Govan. |