Christopher Sullivan

Born and raised in Greenville County SC

[Lee Bright @leebright]

SC budget debate. Don’t give ground on tax cuts. We need to be taking ground!

[Christopher Sullivan @SullivanC]

Sen Tom Davis has $5 million in earmarks he’s not going to cave to save that pork

[South Carolina Policy Council @scpolicycouncil]

The House is playing games, and the Senate is capitulating.

A 2-hour delay on today’s budget meeting. Legislators might return at 3pm.

The SC Senate should end budget negotiations. We need transparency for earmarks, where’s the money going and how will it be spent?

We need permanent tax relief, not a 1-year budget proviso.

Fall back on the CR, use “other funds” surpluses for agency necessities (they already have the power to spend it), and advance historic permanent income and property tax relief next year.

[South Carolina Policy Council @scpolicycouncil]

The House is playing games, and the Senate is capitulating.

A 2-hour delay on today’s budget meeting. Legislators might return at 3pm.

The SC Senate should end budget negotiations. We need transparency for earmarks, where’s the money going and how will it be spent?

We need permanent tax relief, not a 1-year budget proviso.

Fall back on the CR, use “other funds” surpluses for agency necessities (they already have the power to spend it), and advance historic permanent income and property tax relief next year.

[South Carolina Policy Council @scpolicycouncil]

The House isn’t going quietly into the night.

They are intent on preventing seniors from getting a homestead exemption expansion and spending as many taxpayer dollars as possible on “community projects”, otherwise known as Pork Barrel Spending or earmarks.

The budget conference committee will be back at 1pm tomorrow.

Consider contacting your state legislators, House and Senate, to let them know how you feel about that.

[Christopher Sullivan @SullivanC]

@WatchPalmetto @ThomasBeach Why don’t you use Mrs. Nordone’s last name?

[Jungleball2 @JungleBall_2]

SOUTH CAROLINA FISCAL SUBSIDY SCAM DRESSED UP AS "AFFORDABILITY". Tuition mitigation scheme is a multi-hundred-million-dollar taxpayer bailout for public colleges that refuses to demand real spending restraint. Governor Henry McMaster started it in FY 2019-20 and has demanded its continuation every single year since, including another $39.2 million in his final executive budget for FY 2026-27.
The General Assembly, Republican majorities in both chambers, has dutifully rubber-stamped it for seven straight years. The universities (especially the University of South Carolina system and Clemson, the two biggest cash cows) take the money, certify to the Commission on Higher Education that they won’t raise the tuition line item, then quietly jack up housing, meal plans, and other fees so the real cost of attendance keeps climbing.
Who’s for it? McMaster, who still sells it as a win for students. The colleges themselves, who get recurring subsidies without having to reform their bloat. And the legislature, which prefers the political optics of a “tuition freeze” over the hard work of forcing efficiency.
Who’s against it? The South Carolina Policy Council has been the clearest voice calling this out. Their analysis shows the program has poured roughly $395–453 million into these schools while spending at Clemson and the USC system continued to outpace inflation-plus-enrollment growth by massive margins. The majority of South Carolinians without a bachelor’s degree are forced to subsidize a system that serves a minority, and the subsidy itself removes the very market pressure that would force colleges to cut low-value programs, administrative overhead, and gold-plated amenities.
💩It is wrong because it pretends to control costs while insulating the institutions from consequences.
💩It freezes a sticker price while the total bill rises. It rewards the same spending habits that drove tuition up in the first place.
💩And it locks taxpayers into an ever-growing entitlement just as demographic enrollment cliffs should be forcing colleges to shrink and specialize. 💩McMaster and the legislature keep writing the checks. The universities keep cashing them. Students and taxpayers keep paying more in the end.

[Christopher Sullivan @SullivanC]

@scottlincicome Flawed charges or jury nullification and/or activist judges?

[Christopher Sullivan @SullivanC]

Hmm. Is it permitted to use other than your legal name on a Statement of Intention of Candidacy? Will she be “Darline Graham” on the ballot?

[Darline Graham @DarlineGrahamSC]

Open Letter to the Citizens of South Carolina from U.S. Senator Darline Graham

[Ryan S. Walters @ryanswalters73]

57 years ago, on the night of July 18, 1969, as Apollo 11 was racing toward the moon, Senator Ted Kennedy drove his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick island in Massachusetts. He left 28 year-old Mary Jo Kopechne to drown (or more likely asphyxiation) while he somehow managed to escape. Kennedy waited until the following day to report the incident to police, some nine hours later. He never spent a single day in jail.

[Christopher Sullivan @SullivanC]

@Thinktologist So you think we should elect someone who lacks to courage to stand up to the Bush-Rove cabal (whatever that is)?

[South Carolina Policy Council @scpolicycouncil]

What do you call it? Earmark, community investment, pet project, or pork barrel spending?

[Christopher Sullivan @SullivanC]

@sdwright93 How long should they wait to be considered “decent”?

[Christopher Sullivan @SullivanC]

@LachlanMcIntosh @KeyserSozeThree @ragley @MPowersNorrell The Tom Corbin Rule

[Christopher Sullivan @SullivanC]

On policy (personal issues notwithstanding), Mark Sanford was the best governor South Carolina’s had since Wade Hampton III.

[South Carolina Policy Council @scpolicycouncil]

Tomorrow may determine the South Carolina budget.

The SC House wants to spend hundreds of millions of income tax dollars in their districts.

The SC Senate wants to give more property tax breaks to seniors as working South Carolinians struggle to find affordable homes.

Let’s do neither, not pass a budget, and save a billion dollars to further decrease the state income tax next year.

[South Carolina Policy Council @scpolicycouncil]

Junk the state budget. Throw the whole thing out and try again next year with a transparent process for earmark requests.

South Carolinians want less government and more of their paychecks.

[Palmetto State Watch @WatchPalmetto]

For the first time in recent memory (besides COVID), South Carolina started a new fiscal year with no budget. So what's the hold up?

Both chambers are having separate fights. The Senate wants a property tax break for seniors. The House is fighting to protect more than $300 million in earmarks. Behind both sits a possible $150 million bailout for Scout Motors.

We went through and highlighted some of the most egregious pork found in their earmarks:

- $3.4 million for drones, cameras, and surveillance systems.
- $7.5 million to prep a cable landing site in Myrtle Beach that smooths the runway for a private data center project.
- $7 million for a defense aircraft paint hangar at SCTAC, a service that already appears to exist on that same field.
- $3.3 million for two zoos on one line, in two different parts of the state, with no explanation of the split.
- $7.9 million a national project.
- Numerous millions for private nonprofits.

And one that isn't even on the floor sheet…Rep. Herbkersman moved an amendment that cut $300,000 from the Jasper County School District and handed the same $300,000 to a recreational sailing LLC. It passed 101 to 4.

The Senate list is not clean either. $1 million for a hospital owned by a private system. $5 million for a university study on government efficiency. The irony writes itself.

Negotiators are back at it July 14. Read both lists. See what your legislator asked the state to fund. Then let them hear from you. https://t.co/GEBRXLprZF

[Christopher Sullivan @SullivanC]

Three years. It pays to be well connected

[U.S. Attorney SC @USAO_SC]

Charles Wright, 61, of Wellford, the former sheriff of Spartanburg County, has been sentenced to more than three years in federal prison for conspiracy to commit theft concerning programs receiving federal funds, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and obtaining controlled substances by misrepresentation.

@FBIColumbia and SLED investigated.

🔗 https://t.co/7Om1ortjnZ

[Christopher Sullivan @SullivanC]

@jkimballcook @KevinRu46435609 Which “church” are you talking about? Un-Biblical Leftist Unitarians like Julia Ward Howe I presume?

[Christopher Sullivan @SullivanC]

@jkimballcook BHR is a paean to war and a prayer for vengeance against innocent civilians. It has no place in Christian worship.