{"id":4841,"date":"2026-08-18T09:07:41","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T09:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usmovingexpertss.com\/?p=4841"},"modified":"2026-08-18T09:07:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T09:07:41","slug":"did-sc-budget-negotiations-sour-relationship-between-house-senate-for-next-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usmovingexpertss.com\/?p=4841","title":{"rendered":"Did SC budget negotiations sour relationship between House, Senate for next year?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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South Carolina lawmakers\u2019 decision to axe earmarks from the state budget for the second year in a row left sour feelings between the House and Senate as lawmakers took shots at the other chamber on the last expected legislative work day for the year.<\/p>\n

Read more Dollar feeble as rate hike bets dwindle, Iran war worries jolt bonds<\/a><\/p>\n

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With one side saying the other chamber did not negotiate in good faith, will lawmakers\u2019 ability to bring money back to their districts for community investment projects continue to be in jeopardy next year?<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be very difficult after this year,\u201d House Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister told reporters last week.<\/p>\n

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Last week, the General Assembly, where Republicans hold a supermajority in each chamber, sent a more than $15 billion general fund spending plan to the governor, which he formally signed on Monday. For the second year in a row, it did not include earmarks, even though there was an understanding when the budget process began that lawmaker directed projects would receive funding this year.<\/p>\n

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House members proposed $315 million worth of community investment projects. Senators proposed $130 million worth of projects.<\/p>\n

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Senators did not like when in the budget writing process the House proposed their projects and how much money representatives wanted to spend arguing there was an inequity.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHonestly, their position has been: \u2018We want you to cut it the way we want you to cut it, or we\u2019ll have no projects\u2019,\u201d Bannister said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Senators said the House had countered with $225 million proposal for House earmarks. Bannister said the Senate\u2019s instance of allowing only $175 million in earmarks from the House had no rationale and was more like an arbitrary cap. Ultimately lawmakers could not agree on how to close the $50 million gap.<\/p>\n

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Bannister said offers to allow the senators put their name on House earmarks to allow the upper chamber members to take credit did not work.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s just a senator saying this is the number I\u2019m going to let you have, which we were never going to get there anyway,\u201d Bannister said.<\/p>\n

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Last year, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Harvey Peeler opted not to have earmarks in the budget as the requests had gotten out of hand, but the understanding was it would be a one-year pause.<\/p>\n

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The two bodies will have to negotiate a spending plan again next year. With both chambers airing their grievances about whether to provide money for lawmaker sponsored projects, the relationship between the House and Senate budget writing committees is a bit strained.<\/p>\n

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The earmark fight had been brewing for years over how the House proposes community investment projects. The House\u2019s earmarks are in its second version of the budget after it\u2019s been returned from the Senate. Instead, the Senate wants the House to propose projects in their first version of the budget.<\/p>\n

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The Senate, which proposes its own projects, has said it does not have a chance to review House projects and is forced to fully fund an individual project or throw it out. The Senate has no option to lower the amount because of the budget process rules.<\/p>\n

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Senators also complained the House also lowered proposed funding in other parts of the budget to make room for earmarks.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey underfunded things they knew we would have to come back and fund,\u201d said Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re not trying to burn any bridges here. We look forward to next year\u2019s process. It needs to be open and transparent. There needs to be a discussion beforehand. They clearly need to put their projects in H1,\u201d Hutto said.<\/p>\n

Read more Selling grips bond markets from US to Japan as inflation, fiscal worries take hold<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Those on the Senate side of the negotiations tried to view next year more positively.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of a lot of opportunity for here to learn from this and to figure out what the rules of these projects are going to be, and that way we won\u2019t have what happened this year,\u201d said state Sen. Tom Davis, who served on the budget conference committee.<\/p>\n

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The budget conference committee agreed to set aside the earmarks into a different bill and have a new 6-member committee select which earmarks to fund and how much money they each would receive.<\/p>\n

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\u201cFor whatever reason, they decided that they didn\u2019t want to go the route they agreed to, and wanted to instead say we want this to be appropriated, so I was completely taken off guard. I was ready to do the work this fall on that committee,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n

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Some senators were frustrated over a lack of earmarks because of the effort required to ask local leaders what projects they would like to see and determine which ones would be best to move forward, only to be told at the end, the effort was all for naught.<\/p>\n

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Some of the projects included drainage work, money for fire stations, police departments, park improvements and economic development money.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThose needs didn\u2019t just disappear,\u201d said state Sen. Russell Ott said. \u201cI hear it being called pork and all that kind of stuff. I could tell you coming from a rural part of South Carolina that doesn\u2019t have the tax base that other folks can enjoy from other parts of the state, that there are real needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ott contends lawmakers and those back in their districts may have gotten their hopes up.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t have been allowed to go down this path again, if an agreement was not reached that should have been delivered to the body, and we should have been told, we\u2019re not doing earmarks because they won\u2019t negotiate and come up with an agreement,\u201d Ott said.<\/p>\n

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Amid the anger over the lack of earmarks, House members have pointed to the more than $200 million money set aside over two years to go to Clemson University to build a new veterinary school at the urging of Peeler. That school is now named for Peeler.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey have held up a budget over community investments that will impact this entire state and not just one institution, that causes a lot of heartburn to me that we\u2019re not calling out the senator and the senate on stuff like this,\u201d said state Rep. John King, D-York.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

State Sen. Margie Bright Matthews, D-Colleton, defended Peeler and the veterinary school.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cSen. Peeler ain\u2019t going to that veterinary school. It might be named after him, but it\u2019s for all of South Carolina, and we needed it,\u201d Bright Matthews said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As the two chambers took shots at one another, it might have been better if they listened to another rather than talking simultaneously, Bright Matthews said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no way for us to get this right for the people of South Carolina unless we listen first and then communicate,\u201d Bright Matthews said.<\/p>\n

Read more China lowers flag, tightens security for funeral of economic reformer Zhu Rongji<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Carolina lawmakers axed earmarks again, leaving House and Senate relations strained and casting doubt on funding for local community projects next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nDid SC budget negotiations sour relationship between House, Senate for next year? - US Moving Experts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usmovingexpertss.com\/?p=4841\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Did SC budget negotiations sour relationship between House, Senate for next year? 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