Putnam: State Must Be Business-Friendly

Rep. Joshua Putnam said his job is putting South Carolinians back to work.

Putnam recently spoke to Powdersville Business Council members about legislator’s efforts to make South Carolina friendlier to existing and new businesses and industries.

Putnam said he believes that getting men and women back to work will solve the state’s other problems.

“If we can do that, everything else trickles down,” Putnam said. “Even domestic violence – it trickles down from not having a stable home. Even kids’ education, if you take a kid from a home where the parents are struggling to provide for them, that kid is going to struggle in the classroom.  My job is to get people back into work  - not give you a government job, but give you a private sector job and make our markets very business-friendly.”   

He said the House passes many bills that are business-friendly.

“Unfortunately, it goes over to the Senate where it just sits there and dies,” Putnam said.

He said legislators “walk on eggshells” during election season.

“Nobody wants to do anything too crazy, nobody wants to do anything too bold,” Putnam said. “Nobody wants to upset anybody.”

He said legislators did tackle unemployment fraud, state workers’ retirement and right to work laws

“Those are some positive things we were able to accomplish out of General Assembly this year,” Putnam said.  

But legislators will tackle “big problems” during the upcoming session, Putnam said.

“If we can make South Carolina the strongest, most workforce-friendly state, if we can keep unions out of this state … we can set ourselves to a standard that’s higher than any other state,” he said. 

South Carolina isn’t only competing with foreign countries, but the other 49 states, he said.

“Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas – those are our competition in the workforce in drawing new business here,” Putnam said. “We’ve got to make sure our laws open up our markets to be business-friendly. When a business is looking in this type of market, with them being taxed to death, regulated to death by the federal government, with such a sluggish, slow economy, they’ve got to make the most profits out there to stay in business. So we’ve got to figure out how to make South Carolina the best place for them to make their profits. We’ve got to strive to be better than every other state.”

The Port of Charleston is essential in “keeping South Carolina open for business” and attracting new business and industry to the state from around the country and around the world, Putnam said.

“We’ve got to make sure the Port of Charleston stays up to date,” he said, adding the legislator is allocating money for the deepening of the port.  

The state is facing competition from the Savannah River Port, Putnam said. 

“We’re racing against Georgia right now,” Putnam said. “They’re trying to dredge the Savannah River to deepen it, so these massive ships that will be coming through the Panama Canal can come in. They have to have deeper water to move their products out of the channels

“We’ve got to be business-friendly,” Putnam said. “It’s got to be deepened, so we can get these large ships into our state so we can move cars, tires, we can move our products out. Because once that port opens, those ships will start coming, and they will come to whatever port is open. Either we fix it now or we lose that business in the future.”