More than 500 members of the community packed Seven Oaks Park on Wednesday to hear GOP Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney share his vision for our country! Representative Huggins and I were pleased to see several Irmo and Chapin Chamber members there as well as several small business owners and families.

This week’s visit marks the second time Romney came to our community during this campaign cycle! Last May he made his first SC visit to my home and our area before gearing up for a campaign that has focused on the main objective for Republicans come November: beating President Obama and fixing our ailing economy.

You don’t fix Washington by electing an insider! Governor Romney has spent his career outside of Washington in private business, creating jobs. In his short time as CEO of the bluest state in the country (Massachusetts), he was able to create surplueses from deficits. He also rescued an Olympics (Salt Lake) that was myred in controversy and scandal. Romney has the business credentials and management skills/style needed to break the gridlock in Washington and restore free-market principles our country was founded upon.

For those reasons and more , Karen and I will be casting our vote this afternoon at Lake Murray Elementary for the next President of the United States, Mitt Romney!

Representative Nathan Ballentine introduces Gov. Mitt Romney at a campaign event in Irmo, SC.

Representative Nathan Ballentine made a special stop at Columbia’s Rotary Club to appear on a local Internet show, called Pub Politics. This week’s episode was filmed high a top downtown Columbia in the Summit Club. Representative Ballentine and the show’s hosts, Phil Bailey (Democrat) and Wesley Donehue (Republican), discussed many issues: the recent DHEC ports decision, the GOP presidential primary, and much more. To see the enitre episode (23 mins) or forward thru the segments, click here.

Representative Nathan Ballentine stops by the State House grounds to chat with the Occupy Columbia protesters.

Was pleased yesterday to see more support for my ongoing efforts to change the appointments process in Richland County. (Thanks to Sen. Joel Lourie for his consistent bi-partisan support of my efforts).

Being one of two members of the General Assembly to serve on both Richland AND Lexington legislative delegations (Sen. John Courson is the other), I have a chance to learn from both.

It’s my opinion that we should have all applicants to our boards and commissions be vetted by the entire delegation and not just five members of an appointment committee. My concern is not with “which Representative or Senator’s constituent is selected” but rather which applicants can best serve our county using his/her talents, experience, and vision.

Much work is done on all the boards and commissions that we appoint. If we are to be sure Richland County – and the Midlands of SC – keeps up with the rest of the state, we must appoint our best and brightest. Just as the Upstate and Lowcountry work together; so should we in the Midlands.

More importantly, so should every region work together to lift the entire state of South Carolina!

To read more, visit Sydney Cummins report on WLTX.

It’s hard to believe that Representative Chip Huggins and I first started this event six years ago at my church, Riverland Hills Baptist.

We like to think of the event as the unofficial kickoff to the Okra Strut and have always hosted the breakfast the Thursday morning before the Okra Strut. Today was the sixth one and even the rain didn’t keep friends and neighbors away.

Seven Oaks Presbyterian served as the host church this morning as guests listened to a message from local businessman, Steve Arnold . Steve’s message was personal and from the heart as he shared that God is in control and knows what he’s doing in – and with – our lives!

Special thanks to this year’s sponsors (most of who have been there every year from the beginning): Babcock Center Foundation, SC Representative Nathan Ballentine, SC Representative Chip Huggins, Irmo Insurance Agency, Inc., L.R. Enterprises, Inc., Rotary Club of St. Andrews, Rotary Club of Lake Murray-Irmo, Lexington Medical Center, Debra and Mike DuBose, Columbia Conference Center/ Blake DuBose, DuBose Web Group, Palmetto Health Parkridge, The Warren Group.

Below are a few other quick videos/info from the previous breakfasts:

2010 First Baptist of Irmo -speaker Adrian Despres, chaplain USC football team
2009 St. Mary’s Episcopal – speaker Eddie Walker, then principal of Irmo High School
2008 Gateway Baptist – speaker Jeff Davis, former Clemson football player
2007 St. Andrews Presbyterian – speaker A.V Strong, director A Better Way, Project Gang Out
2006 Riverland Hills Baptist – speaker Bob McAlister, McAlister Communications

From the Associated Press -

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, fresh from picking up former rival Tim Pawlenty’s endorsement, criticized the Obama administration’s links to organized labor, arguing that a National Labor Relations Board’s complaint against Boeing is White House payback to unions.

Touring the aeronautics giant’s new $750 million plant in South Carolina, Romney drew loud applause from about 60 people in the North Charleston City Council Chambers when he suggested that any stimulus package to boost the economy should include legislation telling the NLRB to drop its Boeing complaint. The package also should block the agency from pursing similar action elsewhere in the country.

The agency has filed a complaint against Boeing alleging that the plant, which opened earlier this summer in North Charleston, was built in violation of labor laws to avoid unionized labor in Washington state. The NLRB claims Boeing opened the new plant to punish Washington state workers for past strikes and wants the company to return the work to Washington.

“It’s an egregious example of political payback where the president is able to pay back the unions for the hundreds of millions of dollars they have put into his campaigns at the expense of American workers,” Romney said.

Read more…

Earlier today the House GOP Tax Study Committee met to continue discussions on ways to reform our overall tax code to not only reduce the burden on South Carolinians but also improve our business climate and encourage/attract employers to grow their operations in SC. Not just large corporations but small business owners as well.

We’ve heard information regarding sales tax exemptions, Act 388, corporate income tax, corporate property tax, Fee in Lieu, and many other complicated data that combine to impact the overall tax structure of our state.

Every meeting we move closer to drafting a proposal we plan to present to the House GOP Caucus in time to have a bill filed and get a full debate on the House floor in early 2012. If the committee (and the full House) can pass a comprehensive bill early next year, it’s our hope that the bill could become law before the end of the current two-year session in June.

As always, I appreciate feedback and suggestions from you. Whether you’re in House District 71 or from other areas of the state, your input is important as we work towards this lofty goal.

Members of the committee include:

Tommy Stringer, Chair
Rita Allison
Nathan Ballentine
Shannon Erickson
Dan Hamilton
Jenny Horne
Tommy Pope
Rick Quinn
Garry Smith
Eddie Tallon
Bill Taylor
Mac Toole
Brian White
Tom Young

Enjoyed time this morning to talk Presidential Politics on WACH Fox 57.

I want to share with you a five-minute clip that I hope will give you, in layman’s terms, a look inside the largest budget passed by a SC General Assembly.

While everyone has their opinions (some saying it’s conservative ; others saying it’s not ), I wanted you to see a floor discussion (not really a “debate”) so that you can maybe decide for yourself (if you haven’t already).

By now, you probably know the 2011-2012 Budget passed by the slimmest of votes. The House passed it by only 3 votes. The Senate passed it by only 7 votes.

I voted “no” on the budget after it came back from the Senate; but instead of attacking or grandstanding my position, I simply asked questions (which is how we state our position usually when not at the podium) to the former Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. You’ll see he replied accordingly and the vote was taken after this clip. You’ll hear the Speaker add to our discussion by sharing more information about how much control we may/may not have over certain parts of the budget.

For reference: H.4657 (“the 2010-2011 budget”) appropriated and authorized $21.1 Billion. When it was all said and done; however, the budget became $21.8 Billion.

H.3066 (“the 2011-2012 budget”) appropriates and authorized $21.9 Billion; however, when it’s all said and done it will at least be $22.5 Billion.

You may ask how the budget “grows” from what we pass the SC General Assembly may “appropriate and authorize”.,

As a very simple example: Let’s say an agency is funded by “Other Funds” (aka fees and not a line item in the General Funds portion of the budget). Suppose that agency comes to budget writers with a basic premise that said agency will “sell 1,000 licenses this year and that each license costs $10″. If approved, that goes into the budget and, assuming we notice, said agency is appropriated $10,000 in the budget. We vote. We leave. Then what? What if that agency ends up “selling 2,000 licenses”? That’s actually $20,000. But we (General Assembly) only appropriated $10,000. Where does the extra $10,000 go? Almost always, it goes to that agency…while we’re away out of session.

To our credit, the House began to work on ways to reform “Other Funds” this year and I hope we do even more next year. While the General Funds portion of the budget hovers around $6 Billion, the Federal Funds portion and the Other Funds portion both hover around $8 Billion each.

In a year that started with what many considered would be an $800 million (or almost $1 Billion) shortfall, it quickly turned into more funds than ever before. While we did make wise choices on certain line items and while we can debate how much we “control” the Federal Funds and Other Funds portions of the budget; I don’t feel we can argue we just witnessed the passage of the largest budget in history.