Heads up: General Assembly is eyeing a sales tax increase

Fresh off their largely uncontested election, thanks to a primary season which saw over 200 challengers removed from the ballot due to technicalities and improper instructions from the SCGOP, it looks like the members of the General Assembly are going to make a push to raise the minimum state sales tax:

From FITS news:

A proposal to raise South Carolina’s statewide sales tax by one cent (or by 16.7 percent) will be pushed for during the 2013 session of the S.C. General Assembly, sources tell FITS.  And while we’re not sure which special interests will be orchestrating the lobbying effort in support of the measure just yet, we’re told by lawmakers that the proposal has “powerful support.”

Surprise, surprise … right?

South Carolina has a statewide sales tax of six percent – which is already higher than the sales tax rates in neighboring North Carolina (4.75 percent) and Georgia (4 percent).  Local sales tax rates push the rate even higher (up to 9 percent in parts of Horry County).  Of course lawmakers do provide various special interest exemptions to those who do their bidding – a process that we’ve demonstrated is infinitely corruptible.

This is just awful. Instead of improving the lives of South Carolinians by making this state more competitive, they are increasing the barriers to competition, making life harder on the small businesses and the every day people, while handing out big subsidies and tax breaks to favored corporations. If you have the lobbyists, you can avoid the crushing tax burden, but most of us aren't in that privileged class.

The answer to our economic problems as a state is to pass something like the SC Fair Tax, which eliminates all state taxes and leaves in place only the sales tax, with no exemptions. Such a system would eliminate the personal and corporate income tax, and would eliminate manufacruring property tax, which would mean that South Carolina would be the most attractive state for companies large and small with our low cost of living, and would make things easier on entrepreneurs as well. All this means jobs, jobs, jobs!

I don't like every part of the SC Fair Tax, but it would be infinitely better than the system we have now, and it would take away the power from the lobbyists and the crooked politicians who receive kickbacks from their "public/private partnerships."