Gas prices fell to an average of $1.86 per gallon last week in South Carolina according to AAA, providing us with a little extra cash in our pockets. That’s great news indeed…but we had better not get used to it. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of implementing three rules that a new study by the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University and Palmetto Promise Institute says will substantially drive up the cost of energy in South Carolina.

This letter to the editor appeared in The State on May 8, 2014. I appreciated Cindi Scoppe’s column in support of Sen. Paul Thurmond’s efforts to streamline our process for dealing with ineffective teachers (“The cost of one bad teacher,” April 23). Teacher quality is the No. 1 in-school factor affecting student learning, and this

This OpEd appeared in The State. Columbia, SC — Only two years ago, a lopsided majority of Americans had never heard of Common Core State Standards, and those who had either thought they were straight from Beelzebub or the greatest thing since Jadeveon Clowney. If a recent legislative hearing on the matter is any indication,

This OpEd  appeared in The Greenville News on February 2, 2014. Liberal Democrat Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and conservative Republican Senator Ted Cruz. Newt Gingrich and Al Sharpton. What agenda could possibly unite these political odd couples? Support for the rapidly expanding world of education options. Each of these leaders is part of a bipartisan

By Jim Epstein, ReasonTV “Most physicians can’t afford to accept Medicaid” patients, says Dr. Alieta Eck, a primary-care physician based in Piscataway, New Jersey. “If you’re getting paid about $17 per visit, it won’t be long before you can’t pay your staff or pay your rent.” Medicaid is the nation’s health care system for the

By Tara Servatius Charleston City Paper They pack their families like lemmings into 1,400 square-foot houses situated on postage stamps in Mt. Pleasant and tell themselves they are doing it for their kids’ education. They pay $150 a month for flood insurance on those homes to attend the highest scoring schools in the region. Other

The State OpEd by Jim DeMint ‘For every problem,” H.L. Mencken wrote, “there is a solution which is simple, clean and wrong.” Enter Obamacare and one of the main ways that it purports to reduce the number of uninsured: putting more people on Medicaid. S.C. legislators are being pressured to do just that. The House