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News Stating the Obvious Stating The Obvious Is Rich Right? Candidate for SC Senate Dist. 18 Rich Bolen Speaks at C4L
News Stating the Obvious Stating The Obvious Is Rich Right? Candidate for SC Senate Dist. 18 Rich Bolen Speaks at C4L
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09 November 2011
(Photo from Rich Bolen's FB page)
At the Campaign for Liberty meeting at The Office Place on Tuesday, November 8, 2011, there was an "all star" line up of movers and shakers speaking to members and guests including SC Attorney General Alan Wilson and the SC Policy Council's Ashley Landess.
First up was Rich Bolen who is running for SC Senate Dist. 18 challenging incumbent and long term GOP Senator Ronnie Cromer.
Right off the bat as he introduced him, Talbert Black showed us a Lexington Chronicle page from several months back with articles by Bolen, Black, and Corey Norris. Black and Norris had taken stands on ending the fascist giveaways by the general assembly that gives legislators great power and breeds corruption by allowing them to sell their votes to the highest corporate bidders. Bolen favored making the concession in favor of special tax exemptions to Amazon.com after the Lexington statehouse delegation asked him to support the bill handing out yet more corporate welfare. At the time, Bolen issued a statement to the effect that he would rather not do things this way but, until the way business is done is changed in the statehouse, he wanted Lexington County residents to at least have the benefit of more jobs in the area.
Bolen was eager to address the issues surrounding the controversy, citing that he believed that the basic roles of government--essentially protecting the people from harm in a manner that equally benefits everyone and having a court system. Charity from state government, while allowed by law, he thinks should be an absolute last resort. He reiterated his belief in the rule of law and stated that he would judge each bill with basic questions rather than assuming that it is a legitimate bill:
Is it allowed under the US and SC constitutions?
Does it enhance freedom?
Is it fair?
What are the benefits vs. the costs?
Is it necessary?
Bolen went on to declare that government is inherently inefficient being, as it is, a monopoly. There is no choice when it comes to government functions and "institutional lethargy" makes the performance of government inferior to the private sector by its very nature since there are no penalties for doing a bad job. Government workers do not like change and are, in fact, often legally restrained from doing things differently.
Bolen pointed out that government wants to protect us from everything, including ourselves. His goals are to privatize where possible, have competition within government with merit pay, penalties, and a less permanent status for employees and government programs. He would work to end the spend it or lose it budget process.
Regarding Amazon specifically, Bolen doesn't agree that government should be choosing winners and losers. But, he says that it's legal for states and counties to compete with each other by doling out incentives and the like. When asked his opinion about the upcoming SC Supreme Court case of Matthew Bodman vs. State of South Carolina and South Carolina Department of Revenue, however, he stated that he thinks sales tax exemptions violate equal protection as called for in the SC Constitution and also thinks that the sales tax itself, income tax, property tax and other such taxes violate equal protection.
He is in favor of restructuring the Budget and Control Board (BCB). He sees it as "a matter of separation of powers." He wants the executive branch to have the power to spend the money allocated to it by the general assembly. He is against the current plan that does not get rid of the BCB. When asked about the state retirement system's many and unequal programs, he stated that he favored consolidation over what we have now but would rather restructure everything so that each member of the system was responsible for his own money and investments. He pointed out that the current system is unsustainable since state retirees are guaranteed payments for as long as they live no matter what the state of the economy may be.
When asked why he wants to run, he stated "politics is certainly opportunistic" and Cromer's incumbent status is now weaker due to recent redistricting. Bolen disagrees with a lot of Cromer's decisions and said, "If I'm going to complain about it, I'm going to do it." He insisted that he would not say anything bad about Cromer himself and wants to run a clean and honorable campaign. He pointed out that his ability to run due to the nature of his profession (running a law practice) is also a critical factor for him as it would be for any citizen looking to run and still maintaining an adequate income to live on.
In this writer's opinion, ANYONE is better than Ronnie Cromer for District 18. I was sickened and amazed a couple of years ago when listening to Ronnie Cromer carry on about a "three legged stool" of income tax, property tax, and sales tax when asked why we couldn't go to a low sales tax instead of taxing people's property and income in South Carolina. Despite the fact that other states do not tax income and rely more heavily on a sales tax, Cromer fear mongered the issue stating that he feared the collapse of the entire tax structure if just one of those revenue streams were taken from them.
I couldn't figure out how Cromer, a pharmacist, had evolved into such a master manipulator of OUR money in what sounded like, when he described it, a monstrously complex and delicate tax system. It can't help be thought that if someone in office in the statehouse is not attacking the current system and actively working towards reform, then he must be complicit and profiting from the corruption. Cromer's energetic defense of the corrupt system in South Carolina's governance is very damning.
Instead of worrying about increasing revenue to the state, Cromer should have been working towards starving the government of revenue in order to stop the massive and wasteful overspending and reliance on federal funds. Even if Cromer's dead, black political heart were to suddenly turn red and start beating again so that he saw the error of his ways, he has wasted so much time and is so old that any more trust placed in him by the citizens of district 18 would be a very, very poor investment.
The truth of the matter is that the tax system is broken and horribly corrupt. It needs a massive reworking to make it minimal as possible and the law written and enforced so that it treats all citizens equally across the board. The most important thing that needs to happen is to completely remove the power of the general assembly to hand out our money to corporations in order to enhance their personal power and their chances at reelection from donations and under the table and back room deals.
Corporate welfare has to end or we will continue to be tax slaves paying some of the highest rates in the country and, only due to our overall poverty, paying less in dollar amounts of taxes than most other states. Lately, members of the general assembly, including Ronnie Cromer, have been bragging about our "low taxes" as in, the low dollar amount of taxes collected compared to other states, as if they have accomplished something. In fact, they're lying. They're really just taking a larger slice of a smaller pie and, additionally, do not include the local abuse by powerful school boards and county governments. What Cromer and others are really bragging about, in essence, is our poverty insofar as we have very little for them to collect from us even with high tax rates. They can't squeeze blood from a turnip.
When the rates come down and property and income are removed as revenue streams, we will be able to make the state government dependent on a good economy and more likely to keep it that way rather than to continually pile on more and more taxes on some while at the same time granting exemptions and incentives to others. That is the way fascism works at the state level in South Carolina and it is unsustainable if we are to be treated as free adults rather than children.
The question is, despite the fact that Rich Bolen is obviously a far superior choice compared to Ronnie Cromer, will Bolen, once in office, go all the way in pushing for a legal form of government in this state? Will he be a bold leader introducing badly needed reform and revoking bad laws or will he be a weak sister and hanger-on who has to be cajoled into action?
Bolen's record has been mixed so far with his rhetoric mostly good but his actions betraying him on the key issue of corporate welfare. Taken at his word, he would rather dump the current system of corporate welfare but, at the time it came up, thought that the Amazon.com deal was one last necessary evil.
In this age of massively corrupt and fascist governance by obvious crooks in the statehouse such as Jake Knotts, Kenny Bingham, Hugh Leatherman, Bobby Harrell, Glenn McConnell, etc., citizens are naturally wanting someone in office who will resist the massive infection of corruption that rots our state from the inside out. The tea party movement and groups such as Campaign for Liberty mostly recognize that we need to take a stand against the corruption in Columbia and that the time to do so is now.
We need politicians who will stop corporate welfare; level the playing field for all businesses and citizens; no more favor factory politics; CUT, CUT, CUT state government spending with a vengeance; seek out and destroy ALL slush funds such as the I-95 corridor monstrosity, Innovista, SCRA, etc.; restore the concept of equality under the law--with an amendment if necessary; stop the memorializing of living politicians and revoke funding for existing memorials on highways, bridges, interchanges, etc.; protect SC citizens with a state law putting federal agents on notice that they will be arrested and put in jail if they do not have the county sheriff's permission to be in his jurisdiction; restore gold and silver per the US Constitution which overrides the states regarding money; pass bills outlawing and criminalizing unconstitutional federal laws such as "Obamacare;" revoke state income tax; outlaw property taxes; etc.
Rich Bolen should be elected to the SC Senate. But Bolen is going to have to immediately make a drastic distinction between himself and corrupt, business-as-usual Ronnie Cromer if he wants to win against an entrenched opponent with the power of incumbency and privileges that being a politician in South Carolina's state government have bestowed upon the senator.
Bolen can win, but he's going to have to fight on every issue and appeal to the principles of equality under the law, common sense, and morality in governance if he wants to beat a big government RINO posing as a conservative. Bolen will have to identify with upstanding citizens rather than the political powers-that-be. He's got the energy, the intelligence, and the know-how. All it takes is the will to make it happen. In the next few months, we shall see if Rich Bolen really wants this seat or not.