What can South Carolinians so be proud about?
To the editor:
Just read your article [Brack, Stop shortchanging South Carolina] in the Wednesday, Oct. 14 edition of the Hartsville Messenger, which our neighbor passes on to us.
You have so hit the nail on the head. We moved to Hartsville last November to be near my brother who’s lived here about 35 years. I have never been so disappointed in anything in my life as I’ve been in our move to South Carolina. Had I known that taxes are higher here than in Georgia, we would have never moved. And I cannot see what on earth the tax money is spent on – it’s certainly not roads, which are the absolute pits.
The sales tax in Darlington County is 8 percent. Georgia’s highest counties are 7 percent — 1 percent of that is for education. Now Darlington County has added a 2 percent hospitality tax so if you eat in any restaurant, even Subway, you wind up paying 10 percent sales tax.
In Georgia, ad valorem tax on vehicles was rescinded in 2013. The 2012 vehicles were grandfathered in if you paid an additional tax which, in my case on a 2012 Cruze, meant I paid $135 to never have to pay property tax again on my vehicle. Moved here and immediately had to pay $270 tax to get a tag. And this will be ongoing every year. For what? Sure can’t see it in the roads!
And homeowner’s and vehicle insurance are higher here too.
Lived in Georgia 70 years of my life and I never thought of it as a progressive state until moving to South Carolina. This place strikes me as the most podunk place we could have moved to. What are the people here so proud of – it can’t be the roads, it can’t be the tax structure, so what is it?
— Marilyn Davis, Hartsville, S.C.
Flooding not really caused by hurricane
To the editor:
I really enjoyed the latest issue of Statehouse Report. One correction is needed to the transportation/flooding article. Ask any meteorologist and they will tell you that a weather system separately from Hurricane Joaquin created the flooding. There was incidental moisture from the hurricane, however, it was not the cause.
— Ed Greenleaf, Columbia, S.C.
Thanks for coverage of critical issues
To the editor:
Thank you so much for writing on these critical issues now made even more so by recent weather damage.
Today my daughter, considering moving here from Boston, called from the road on Interstate 77 traveling to Winston Salem. She was so aghast at her experience on I-26 — what she called white-knuckle driving. That says a lot considering her being from Massachusetts.
— Harriet Smartt, Isle of Palms, S.C.
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We Can Do Better, South Carolina!