SC lawmakers prefer their budget to be opaque and secretive

By Barton Swaim | The Nerve

Your state will spend around $25 billion this year. That is a vast amount of money, but you know virtually nothing about what’s being spent, or why. That’s not because you’re uninformed or lazy. The state budget is designed to be as opaque, secretive, and abstruse as possible.

The state spending plan is supposed to begin with a hearing on the governor’s budget by the House and Senate budget committees, and by law that hearing is supposed to be open to the public. But as The Nerve and its parent organization, the South Carolina Policy Council, have revealed, lawmakers simply ignore that law. Instead, the budget begins in a dizzying array of committees and subcommittees, making it literally impossible for even experienced budget-watchers to have any firm idea of what’s happening.

at The Nerve.