As General Assembly Returns, South Carolina Chamber Releases 2010 Legislative Agenda

COLUMBIA, SC – January 14, 2010 – As the General Assembly returns to Columbia, the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce has released the 2010 Competitiveness Agenda, the business community’s annual list of legislative priorities. The 2010 Competitiveness Agenda includes: promoting economic development, reforming the Employment Security Commission, addressing workforce development needs, protecting secret ballots, achieving tort reform, addressing healthcare costs and repealing Act 388. For the full 2010 Competitiveness Agenda, visit www.scchamber.net.

“The 2010 Competitiveness Agenda focuses on key reforms and initiatives that will prepare South Carolina for the future. Business and community leaders from around the state identified these issues as being critical to the state’s business climate, and we ask the General Assembly to carefully examine them. We believe enactment of the South Carolina Chamber’s legislative agenda will place us in a favorable position as the economy recovers,” said Otis B. Rawl Jr., president and chief executive officer of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce.

Promoting Economic Development

While times are undoubtedly tough for businesses and citizens, it presents an opportunity to lay the groundwork for future success by improving the overall business climate. The key issue for the 2010 General Assembly must be job creation, including a strong economic development package for the state.

The General Assembly also should fund the South Carolina Department of Commerce (including the Closing Fund), dedicate funding towards infrastructure (including the state’s port systems), streamline the environmental permitting process, provide adequate funding for tourism marketing and matching dollars around the state and provide available and cost-effective energy.

Reforming the Employment Security Commission

The state’s Unemployment Trust Fund has been in steady decline and is now insolvent. In the past 13 months, South Carolina has borrowed more than $700 million from the federal government to pay unemployment benefits. Total borrowing, including interest payback, could reach close to $2 billion by the end of 2010, and businesses will be the entities that have to pay back this loan. The state Employment Security Commission (ESC) has proposed doubling the taxable wage base from $7,000 to $14,000 and adding an additional one percent surcharge on experience ratings. Businesses cannot afford these type of cost increases during this time.

The business community has continuously advocated for a restructuring of unemployment benefits, more accountability of who receives benefits, better matching of people with jobs and stronger management of the overall Fund. The Chamber proposes creating a state Department of Workforce, consolidating and coordinating workforce functions at the South Carolina Department of Commerce with the Employment Security Commission.

Workforce Development

Businesses are working alongside the public sector to develop a highly skilled, well-educated population with more opportunities, more job choices and more security with prosperous companies in South Carolina. Programs like Personal Pathways to Success, now in its fourth year of implementation, are preparing students for the future. The General Assembly must continue to fund key workforce development initiatives like Personal Pathways.

Secret Ballot Protection

Businesses and employees could be heavily impacted by the dangerous and misnamed federal Employee Free Choice Act, which threatens to remove a worker’s right to vote by secret ballot in union elections and could force businesses into unfair binding arbitration. A state Constitutional Amendment to protect South Carolina workers passed the House of Representatives in 2009 with 89 votes and passed the Senate Judiciary Committee by a vote of 17-2. It is now on the Senate floor awaiting debate, and the Chamber urges the Senate to take action in 2010.

Tort Reform

South Carolina currently ranks fifth worst in the nation in non-economic damages, sixth worst in punitive damages and 10th worst in class action lawsuits. Many small businesses in the state are just one lawsuit away from going out of business. The Chamber is calling for continued tort reform, including addressing non-economic damage caps, punitive damage caps, limits on appeals bonds and seat belt admissibility.

Addressing Healthcare Costs

Health insurance costs now represent the second highest expenditure for businesses after wages. Currently, 98 percent of medium and large employers provide healthcare coverage for their employees, whereas only about 40 percent of small businesses are able to provide even some resemblance of coverage. An estimated 700,000 South Carolinians are uninsured. At only seven cents per pack, South Carolina has the lowest cigarette tax in the nation. Revenue from increased cigarette taxes should be used to offset costs for small businesses struggling to offer insurance benefits or provide premium assistance to employees who purchase their own healthcare plans.

Addressing Act 388

The South Carolina Chamber believes approaching tax reform in a piecemeal fashion, whether on the state or local level, increases inefficiencies and often leaves behind long-term consequences. In 2006, the Chamber adamantly opposed Act 388, which leaves businesses responsible for much of the future increases for financing K-12 education. Now, the warnings are reality as the one penny sales tax is not generating enough money to fund homeowner property tax relief. South Carolina businesses already pay the highest property tax rates in the nation on industrial property and the seventh highest rates on industrial property. Therefore, the Chamber is calling for the repeal of Act 388.

Competitiveness Agenda Development Process

Each fall, the South Carolina Chamber, in partnership with local chambers of commerce, hosts nine regional grassroots meetings across the state. Hundreds of business leaders and partnering organizations communicate freely to Chamber officials what is needed to ensure a healthy business climate in South Carolina. From there, the Chamber’s Board of Directors releases the annual Competitiveness Agenda, key issues that will move South Carolina in the right direction by increasing per capita income and global competitiveness. Already, more than 20 local chambers of commerce have endorsed the South Carolina Chamber’s 2010 Competitiveness Agenda.

The South Carolina Chamber of Commerce

The South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s first state chamber Accredited with Distinction by the U.S. Chamber, is the state’s largest statewide broad-based business and industry trade association representing more than 18,000  businesses  and more than one  million employees, with 90 percent of membership comprised of small businesses. As the unified voice for business and industry, the Chamber is a catalyst for increasing per capita income and enhancing the state’s global competitiveness in order to improve the quality of life for all South Carolinians.