Charlie James and Elena Moore discuss SC budget earmarks and voter turnout.

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Full Transcript Charlie James: All right, well, it looks like we got a budget that's heading to the governor's desk. We got some just unbelievable information here. Joining us right now is Elena Moore with Palmetto State Watch. Elena, thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. Elena Moore: Thank you so much for having me, Charlie. Charlie James: $377 million hiding behind $1? Elena Moore: Yes. Yeah, they decided to— Charlie James: How is this happening? Elena Moore: You know, that's a great question. I keep asking myself that. And when we put our article out yesterday, even one of the legislators started making fun of it rather than taking it seriously. And it really makes you wonder: Who do we have in there making our financial decisions? Because they're definitely not being fiscally conservative at all. Charlie James: Now, I thought the big fight was between the Senate and the House, and the Senate was holding strong on, you know, cutting some of these earmarks, but apparently not. Elena Moore: Uh, they were to a certain extent until they got deeper into their negotiations, and then things started to change, as it tends to. Charlie James: So tell us about the $1 trick. How did they hide 300—almost $378 million behind a dollar? Elena Moore: Well, what was happening was the House had a lot of pet projects that they wanted to fund, and it was about $309 million worth of pet projects. Now, the Senate had less, but the ones that they did have was already baked into the budget, so it wasn't as obvious and it wasn't as much. So, the House was standing very strong that that's what they wanted. And then the Senate was outwardly standing strong on the homestead exemption, which ended up—it started out as a $150,000 homestead exemption for homeowners 65 years and older, but a deal ended up landing more around $75,000, which is only $25,000 more than what it is currently. Charlie James: Yeah. Elena Moore: Which is good. But the other things that the Senate wasn't talking about, or the House, was how they were trying to figure out how to give Scout Motors another $150 million and bake that into the budget without much of a byline to notice it with. So— Charlie James: $150 million. Elena Moore: And it seemed—and this is just my personal opinion, in obviously watching both the House and the Senate today—you see the House complaining about the Senate, the Senate complaining and putting all the blame on the House. But really, it seems like everyone kind of had their own things that they wanted to spend money on. Was the House more egregious? It seems sure, but, you know, when you're looking at $150 million for Scout Motors plus other pet projects, eh, it starts to even out a little bit. Charlie James: So in the budget, there's like, you know, all of these pet projects just have a dollar next to them? Elena Moore: Yeah, so it used to just have their earmark list, but now it says, "Oh, well, you want to fund, let's say, a daycare or something, then you're only getting a $1." What they're planning to do is—they've passed it as the $1, that's their check, it's kind of like a placeholder in a way. And last we heard, what they're going to do is put another bill together that would put all of the $307 or $309 million that has been unappropriated, but it has a placeholder in the budget, will then be used in a different bill that'll say how those earmarks are allocated. Charlie James: I mean, to me, that doesn't sound like transparency. Elena Moore: Not at all! And that was the craziest thing was listening to both chambers talk about transparency today. You would think that, "Oh—" Charlie James: Yeah. Elena Moore: I mean, it really is, "Oh, look over there! They don't have any transparency," while we don't show you what we're doing over here! Charlie James: Yeah. So $44.4 billion total spending, hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks. I mean, Elena, we got a serious spending problem—and $150 million for Scout. There ...

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