GOVERNOR: OTHER GOP SENATORS “OUT OF TOUCH” WITH SOUTH CAROLINIANS

|| By FITSNEWS || S.C. governor Nikki Haley publicly thanked State Senator Tom Davis for his efforts to attach an income tax cut to the $800 million gasoline tax increase pushed through the Senate finance committee this week.

Davis’ efforts failed, as five liberal “Republicans” joined Democrats in blocking the tax cut. Then six “Republicans” then joined Democrats in approving the tax hike, which is roughly twice as big as the tax hike passed by the “Republican” S.C. House of Representatives earlier this month.

“Thank you to Tom Davis for fighting this terrible bill,” Haley wrote on her Facebook page.

She also urged citizens to contact those “Republicans” who voted for the tax hike and “remind them exactly how out of touch with South Carolinians they really are.”

Haley and Davis are facing an uphill battle, though. While liberal lawmakers in both chambers of the legislature disagree on how much to hike gas taxes – they are clearly in agreement on doing so in some capacity.

And the version of the gas tax increase passed by the House appears to have more than enough votes to survive a veto from Haley – who wants a tax swap or nothing.

We reject any tax swap or tax hike that increases the burden on South Carolina motorists – who already spend more of their meager incomes on fuel than residents of any other state save Mississippi and West Virginia.

And we reject the ridiculous notion that South Carolina lawmakers don’t have enough money to adequately maintain and rationally expand our infrastructure network.

As we’ve said repeatedly, the same liberal lawmakers who are voting for these tax hikes have approved billions of dollars in new spending on South Carolina’s worst-in-the-nation government-run school system, its duplicative and inefficient higher education system, bailouts for wealthy corporations, shady ‘economic development‘ deals and … lest we forget … dozens of exorbitantly expensive and totally unnecessary highway projects.

They have the money to fix our roads and bridges without raising taxes … they are simply choosing not to do so.

Davis deserves credit for pushing income tax relief, but we’d like to see him get back to proposing pure cuts, not carrying Haley’s water on tax swaps.