At Palmetto Promise, we are always reluctant to question any move by the South Carolina General Assembly to cut taxes or flatten tax rates. So, we greet with joy the fact that in the wake of an estimated $500-$600 million state revenue surplus that has built up since 2020, the Senate and the House are
UPDATE: The SC House overwhelmingly passed S.1046, amended as outlined below. The Senate did not concur in those amendments, and the bill now heads to a Conference Committee, made up of Senators Rankin, Massey, and Malloy and Representatives W. Newton, Caskey, and Stavrinakis. At the end of March 2024, following two weeks of debate and
Palmetto Promise has been a stalwart defender of free enterprise here in South Carolina, and this week, we had the privilege of recognizing a dedicated public servant and Champion of Free Enterprise at the South Carolina Governor’s Mansion. The Honorable Terry Branstad served as Ambassador to China in the Trump Administration from 2017-2020. Before that,
The State Department of Education (SCDE) has threaded the needle amazingly well in their recently passed new regulations for school textbooks and other curriculum materials. This is the regulation that would govern which books and other curriculum materials could be in school libraries and classrooms. Because all regulations must receive the approval of the South
A version of this commentary originally appeared in the South Carolina Daily Gazette. As the South Carolina House of Representatives was debating (and overwhelmingly passing) an expansion of the state’s Education Scholarship Trust Fund (ESTF) program, it became clear that some basic facts about the concept of “school choice” and how the ESTF program in
We are back with an exciting update on our Policy Bracketology competition from the other week. In honor of March Madness, we asked you to cast your vote in the Final Four to determine which Palmetto Promise initiative deserves the distinction of being named our greatest policy win. Thank you to all who voted! Now,
Palmetto Promise is quoted in this piece by Patrick Gleason, originally published in Forbes. Kevin Costner’s character in Field of Dreams, winner of the Oscar for Best Picture in 1990, was inspired to turn an Iowa cornfield into a baseball diamond after hearing the words, “if you build it, they will come.” In the reality of
The South Carolina General Assembly has the chance this year to right a wrong and take tremendous strides ramping up free market entrepreneurship in the area of hair care and cosmetology. Will they seize the opportunity? You may recall that, in 2021, the General Assembly passed, and the Governor signed into law, a bill that
We don’t know about y’all, but March Madness has the Palmetto Promise team in a bracket-making mood. Because we’ve recently celebrated Palmetto Promise Institute’s eleventh birthday, we have been reflecting on the impact our work has had on state policy over that time and what we regard as our top accomplishments. Naturally, these rankings found
