If we told you that the S.C. Supreme Court might put a stop to the S.C. legislative practice of attaching undebated pork-barrel projects to appropriations bills, would you agree that this is a good thing? The S.C. Constitution restricts legislators from passing bills with more than one subject. So the high court, which heard arguments into a lawsuit challenging one such bill last week, sternly should excise the bill's porkish projects, right?

Not so fast. What if we told you that the bill, passed over Gov. Mark Sanford's veto earlier this year, would put $7 million toward an international trade center in Myrtle Beach? One justice mentioned this project as an outrageous example of bobtailing in last week's hearing. So that appropriation, which would go to land acquisition, soon could be a goner.

What's that? You say this case is different - that an international trade center, which could cost as much as $200 million, is the hottest idea around for creating high-pay non-tourism jobs while attracting industry and foreign investment to Northeastern South Carolina?

You say this particular $7 million isn't pork. It's an indispensible investment in the future of the Grand Strand and the Pee Dee - possibly the whole state. If this measure got bobtailed onto an omnibus university-oriented scientific-research bill, so what? It's still a good idea, right?

Right. Only trouble is, if S.C. Sens. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, and Yancey McGill, D-Kingstree, had not attached the trade center money to the scientific-research bill, it probably would not have passed on its own. S.C. legislators have no trouble using our tax money elsewhere in the state, but many still don't "get" that the Grand Strand is as strong an economic engine for South Carolina, as cutting-edge research at our top public universities. The Strand is worth added state investment.

So, while bobtailing is deplorable in principle, the hope must be that the Supreme Court leaves the trade center money intact. It may be egregious pork-barrel spending to the rest of South Carolina but here on the coast, it's hard to imagine a better investment of public money.