The Budget is Imminent

and it's bigger than ever (which isn't a good thing).

The 2024 budget eclipsed $14.1 billion and was, once again, the largest budget in state history. Alarming, the $400 million in additional monies from the previous year represents nearly a 10% increase.

The 2024 budget, despite Republican supermajority in both Houses, failed to cut a single dollar from a single agency or program despite nearly every Republican campaigning on fiscal responsibility.

This rate of spending, and the utter disregard by the General Assembly to reduce the size and scope of government, is unsustainable.

H 5100 & H 5101 also continue to fund the very things Republicans claim to be fighting against.  Specifically, this year’s budget:

- Massively grows the Office of Resilience by 295.2%

- Spends $50 million to bring Biden’s Green New Deal to SC

-Gives away $10 million to leftist Hollywood film producers

-Hands $2.6 million to woke (and frankly, weird) artist via the Art Commission

-Contributes $10 million into a slush fund to relocate foreign companies to SC, including companies with ties to the Chineses Communist Party

-Frivolously relocates 5 agencies out of state owned buildings and into expensive, privately owned office space which would obligate taxpayers to more than $500 million in rent.

I and several of my colleagues plan to point out these errors in priorities inthe 2024 budget that funds the very programs Republicans claim to be fighting against. Millions of dollars went to DEI programs, Planned Parenthood, and advancing President Biden's climate change agenda via the expansion of electric vehicles and other parts of Biden’s Green New Deal. The 2024 budget also fails to fully support law enforcement.

The starting salary of a sheriff’s deputy would be several thousand dollars below that of a first-year teacher. We intend to cut wasteful spending and millions in pork barrel pet projects in order to supplement the salaries of county deputies and provide the Department of Transportation with the necessary funds to improve and repair South Carolina’s infrastructure.

If these problems aren’t corrected, then it is unlikely that I will be able to vote in favor of this budget. Should that be the case, I expect the lobbyist and establishment dark money groups will launch another round of lies and mistruths about me, and I’ll wear their slander as a badge of honor. I’m thankful to be able to fight to protect your tax dollars from wasteful boondoggles and backward priorities.

After the budget, I’ll be sending out a more detailed report on several bills that have passed through the House recently and a few more that we’ll likely to see soon.