Any Horry County senator or representative next year who pursues passage of the property-for-sales-tax-swap schemes afloat in the S.C. Senate and S.C. House should stand prepared to answer these questions:

Why would you weaken the state's cash cow, tourism?

Why would you force the people of Horry County to contribute even more of their wealth to local governments and schools elsewhere in South Carolina?

Why would you undermine the Horry County Schools?

Why would you strip away the hard-won independence of our county and municipal governments and claim that power for yourselves?

Not one of these questions exaggerates the ill that would come of the Senate and House plans to sharply curtail (Senate) or eliminate (House) residential property taxes while increasing the state sales tax to 7 cents per dollar. Both proposals, developed last week in Columbia, would use the added sales tax revenue to replace - at legislators' discretion - the property-tax revenue that local governments and school boards would lose.

In addition to shifting more of the tax burden onto the shoulders of lower-income South Carolinians - itself a travesty - such a tax swap would be a killer for Horry County. True, the legislative proposals shield hotels and other tourist accommodations from the added sales tax. But retailing also is important to tourism - whether at beachwear stores, shopping malls, factory outlet stores or mom-and-pop specialty stores. The added sales tax would increase the cost of an Horry County vacation while driving down retail employment - at a time when tourism entrepreneurs already are struggling to sustain market share.

As if that weren't bad enough, most of the statewide property-tax replacement money would come from six or seven counties, including Horry, with large retail sectors. Most other S.C. counties don't generate a high volume of sales tax revenue and therefore would be mining our county for operating revenue.

Meanwhile, local governments would become dependent on handouts from Columbia to pay for local government services, local roads, municipal trash collection, school operating costs and other costs that property taxes now pay.

Because the House and Senate plans also would slap state controls on local government spending, it's a safe bet that local councils would be hard-pressed to sustain services at current levels. Thus would legislators substitute their judgment for the judgment of the folks we elect to local offices to run local governments - bringing back the bad old days when legislative delegations ran S.C. counties.

The dislocations and misery that these tax-swap plans would cause if enacted are horrendous. And for what? So legislators can appease property owners who are displeased that the rising market value of their houses has driven up their property-tax bills.

Those folks may deserve relief, but that easily could be accomplished without blowing up the state's taxation system and forcing local governments to surrender control to Columbia. Freezing appraisals on homes rising in value until the owners sell them would help folks on fixed incomes avoid excessive property taxation. Such a system is in place in Florida and works well. Local legislators who insist on going further than that, however, risk exposure and constituent scorn for working in Columbia to disadvantage the home folks.