Tinkler, Thurmond Tackle Education, Ethics Reform and I-526

With all of the focus on the court battle over the ballot for the S.C. Senate District 41 race the candidates made the most of Monday night's forum to draw distinctions between themselves.

Moderator Bill Sharpe opened the forum by asking where the candidates stood on whether to finish I-526.

Republican Paul Thurmond said unequivocally that he supports completing the project, and that he thinks it will be an economic boon for the area. He added that the traffic problems John's Island residents are experiencing are the result of poor planning and zoning decisions by the City of Charleston, and he accused the Coastal Conservation League, which has been fighting against 526, of driving up the cost of the project by dragging the process out.

"They should be held accountable," Thurmond said.

Democrat Paul Tinkler noted that the decision on 526 is no longer in the hands of the State Legislature because state lawmakers decided recently to send the decision back to Charleston County Council. He said he has heard and understands both sides of the argument and that he thinks the County Council will make the right decision, whether it puts the question to voters in a referendum or makes a decision at the council level.

Thurmond pounced and said Tinkler's lack of a definitive answer on the question is one of the key differences between the two.

"I told you where I stand," Thurmond said. "He's right down the middle."

Both men said they were disappointed by the revelation that a hacker stole approximately 3.6 million Social Security numbers from a state database, but both said it was too early to start casting blame.

Thurmond said leadership is about standing up and telling people the truth, and making sure mistakes aren't repeated.

"I don't know if the governor's response was the proper one, but I do know if I were governor and I found out who was responsible for it, heads would role," Tinkler said.

When asked if the state spent too much or too little on public education Thurmond responded that he is not one to continue throwing good money after bad. He said the state needs to focus on fixing the education system; it needs more charter schools and it also needs school choice, including tuition assistance for parents sending their children to private schools.

Tinkler came out forcefully against a school choice voucher program.

"One thing I'm sure of is we don't need taxpayer money funneled away from the public school system," Tinkler said.

He went on to attack Thurmond for accepting more than $3,000 in campaign contributions from Howard Rich, a wealthy New York resident who has been funding school choice campaigns in South Carolina for several years. And Tinkler said Act 388, the 2006 law that removed property taxes on primary residences from the source of funds available to school districts in the state, had gutted the public education system and needs to be repealed.

Thurmond countered that repealing Act 388 would effectively double the property tax bills for state residents. He pledged that he would not cut public education funding, but maintained his support of a voucher, or tuition assistance, program.

Thurmond said the way to create jobs in South Carolina is to reduce taxes because people are already starting to go back to work, and a tax reduction would accelerate it.

Tinkler took the position that to grow jobs in a specific location, people and employers will have to want to locate there. He pointed to Charleston being a desirable location as evident in its being named the top tourist destination in the world by Conde Nast recently. He said that was due largely to the good management of Mayor Joe Riley and the City Council, on which he served for nine years. The state doesn't have good management when it is ranked among the most corrupt places in the country.

"One thing we need to do is pass ethics reform," Tinkler said. "Until we address public trust in our government we can't begin to tackle our other issues."

One of the few things both men agreed on was that Gov. Nikki Haley was off base when she had SCDHEC issue a permit to the State of Georgia to deepen the Port of Savannah.

Another stark difference showed in answers to one of the final questions of the evening; how each felt about the possible unionization of the Boeing plant in North Charleston.

Thurmond said he is "totally against unions."

Tinkler said the decisions whether to unionize is entirely up to the workers.

"It is up to them and they should be allowed to do it without interference from any state official," Tinkler said.