By Lesley Lane
April 26, 2010
South Carolina gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett launched his “Putting South Carolina Back to Work” bus tour today, making a morning stop at T.W. Boons in Greenwood for a meet and greet.
Barrett spoke to a small group just before noon today, emphasizing the need for job creation in the state and sharing his visions for the future of South Carolina.
Following his visit in Greenwood, Barrett made a stop in McCormick before heading to the coast in what will be a week long, 17 stop tour.
GwdToday sat down with Barrett on a leg of his tour today, where the gubernatorial hopeful touched on issues from varying from job creation, to education and energy.
Barrett has recently touted his “Jobs Plan”. He calls it an eight step common sense plan, but readily admits that he is primarily focusing on three of the eight steps – tax and incentive reform, restructuring the Department of Commerce and filling the 40,000 vacant jobs in South Carolina. Barrett says it is these three factors that he feels can turn the state around the fastest.
With South Carolina carrying the highest industrial tax rate and 7th highest commercial tax rate in the nation, Barrett feels that reform is necessary to make the state attractive to potential new industry.
“The time has come in SC to put all the options on the table and come up with a system that is fair and encourages business to come to South Carolina,” Barrett remarked.
In addition, Barrett says an overhaul of the Department of Commerce is also necessary and something he says must be done from day one. He believes that performance based contracts as a requirment for the head of the department, and using an incentivized sales force are both keys to restructuring efforts.
“The person that heads the Department of Commerce and is head of business recruitment and development needs to be a professional,” commented Barrett.
With 40,000 unfilled jobs in South Carolina, Barrett says he plans to work to obtain funds through the SC Educational Lottery to provide scholarships that would promote training for job seekers to ensure that they have the skills employers are looking for in potential employees.
Barrett’s Jobs Plan also promotes reducing discretionary spending, fighting against unfunded federal mandates, improving the state’s infrastructure, energy independence, and tourism.
In addition to job creation, energy has also been a hot button issue with particular talk from Washington about a cap-and-trade system. The legislation would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 14% below 2005 levels by 2020; legislation Barrett says would be detrimental to South Carolina.
“The President is playing politics. He talked about lifting the ban of offshore drilling in Virginia. But what about South Carolina, Mr. President? What about North Carolina? Don’t let the federal government pick winners and losers. You give us the same opportunities,” declares Barrett. “The National Petroleum institute is telling us that we have 4 billion cubic feet of natural gas along the coast of South Carolina. If we tapped into that, they’re telling us it could mean 2200 jobs and $250 million in royalties.”
Barrett feels particularly passionate in terms of the the Federal Government’s aim at abandoning the Yucca Mountain National Repository, a proposed nuclear waste storage site. Currently, the waste is stored at 121 locations in 39 states across the nation.
“Yucca Mountain should be the national repository for this nation. South Carolina will demand it and I will make sure that we are not a defector dumping ground for this nation,” asserts Barrett.
Finally, Barrett addressed education. With massive budget cuts hitting all of South Carolina’s 85 school districts, Barrett says we must ensure that we are using money adequately and wisely.
“When I look at the per pupil cost I think it’s adequate,” noted Barrett, although questioning the effectiveness of the funds.
“For every educational dollar, according to the Budget and Control Board, we only get 44 cents in the classroom, the national average is 65,” Barrett explained, “A lot of (the money) is getting lost in a bureaucratic maze. “
With the 85 schools districts in South Carolina being funded by 65 different sources, Barrett remaked it is a system that needs to be streamlined.
The funding perils are something Barrett and his family know all too well. Barrett’s wife works as a first grade school teacher and he says she, like most other teachers, often purchase many of their own supplies for the classroom.
“My wife is not an exception to the rule. We have to make sure we are getting these dollars to the classroom,” he said.
Barrett’s stop in Greenwood was only his 2nd on a tour that will last through the week, taking him from the Lakelands to the Coast and then from the Midlands to the Upstate.
Barrett recently came out as the front-runner for governor after winning the SCGOP Straw Poll at the GOP’s annual Silver Elephant dinner. He topped the unofficial poll with 37% of the vote. Attorney General Henry McMaster came in second with 34%. Nikki Haley placed third with just over 18%, and Andre Bauer placed fourth with a little over 10% of the vote.
