Editorials

When Google fired one of its engineers for challenging the company’s diversity policies in an internal memo earlier this week, it sparked an interesting discussion.

It’s one of the central debates of American politics: the age-old dispute between those who raise taxes to fund more services they consider important, and those who are weary of being viewed as a piggy bank for politicians.

In a ranking of states by total energy costs, South Carolina is solidly in the middle, at 24th most expensive.

When the costs of electricity, natural gas, motor fuel, and home heating oil are averaged and combined, state residents spent $278 per month.

As you assess the work of the South Carolina General Assembly, there’s no avoiding a recurring theme: economic development-related bills.

Some are overt, like one that would create two new programs and a grant fund to further integrate economic development into the school system.

It was ten years ago this month that plans began to develop for what became the state’s Fiscal Transparency Website -- one of the first such sites in the country.

The goal was to provide citizens easy access to details about how state government spends their money.

When Mike Wooten resigned from the state Department of Transportation commission, he blamed the ethics provisions in the gas tax hike bill just passed by the General Assembly, saying “The new law basically states that commissioners cannot apply for permits from SCDOT, so, if I stayed on the commission, I would have to abandon my business and I a

This week, let’s pay a visit to Abbeville, a beautiful historic and quaint Southern city.

There, it would seem that Jonathan Phipps, Abbeville County Schools superintendent, was more like TV’s Sheriff Andy Griffith than Mark Hall, the city’s police chief.

How so?

“For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.”  H. L. Mencken