Sanford rally pushes for tax cuts

By Jim Davenport

The Associated Press

COLUMBIA - Gov. Mark Sanford tried to rally support for any kind of tax relief with a gathering on the Statehouse steps Saturday.

The hastily called rally, threatened by thunderstorms earlier in the morning, drew about 60 people. Half were from a Republican Party women's group meeting in Columbia, were political candidates and their supporters, or were members of Sanford's staff or their family members.

Some were businesspeople with ties to Sanford.

Monty Felix, chairman of Alaglas Pools, was a member of Sanford's economic development task force and sits on a board that oversees the effects of state regulations on small businesses.

Tax cuts are needed to help spur the economy by encouraging businesses to grow, Felix said. "This is the challenge to this legislature: It's about time you got with it," he said.

Sanford says the General Assembly plans to spend nearly a billion dollars more in the fiscal year that begins July 1 than it spent in the current fiscal year.

Government "shouldn't grow faster than the growth of people's paychecks and wallets across South Carolina," he said. "We ought to take some of that money and send it back to the taxpayers who are sending money to Columbia in the first place."

After property tax breaks are excluded, the current fiscal year's budget totaled $5.8 billion, compared with the $6.6 billion spending plan for the new fiscal year. Three House members and three senators began working out final compromises on the budget this week.

There's still time, Sanford said, to use money from a surging economy to cut taxes. For instance, he says there's enough extra cash to:

Give a one-time property tax rebate of $473 to each homeowner and permanently cut the school operating portion of tax bills by nearly two-thirds.

Suspend the state's gasoline and diesel fuel tax for nearly eight months.

Send out tax rebates averaging $660 a family.

Lower the state's top income tax rate to 6 percent from 7 percent.

Sanford's rally was an effort to put pressure on House and Senate leaders wrapping up details in the state budget to come up with some type of tax break during the legislative session's last two weeks.

Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom said the state is collecting too much money from taxpayers and ought to give some back.

"The very worst thing that we can do in government is to make excess collections and then shovel that feed into the trough," he said. "You can never satisfy the appetite of a hog. And the worst thing we could do is feed hogs in this state to the point that they become so bloated that they no longer serve any purpose."

It may be too late for Sanford to get what he wants this year. None of his proposals are in the Senate or House versions of the budget. If the budget conference committee embraced them, the Senate and House would each need a two-thirds vote to accept the change.

"If there's a will, there's a way," Sanford said. "The question in any political body is is there a will."

House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Cooper, R-Piedmont, said it's worth looking at some of Sanford's proposals. The Senate and House could agree to put something in a supplemental spending bill, but with the legislature scheduled to meet for just six more days, "it would be extremely tough to get it done."

The House's primary tax break focus involves reducing property taxes. "That's the only thing I've heard anybody really complain about," Cooper said.