Campaign News
“Jobs now. Jobs for a Strong Future.”
Rex unveils plan to turn economy around, put South Carolinians back to work.
(COLUMBIA) State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex, the Democratic frontrunner in the race for Governor, today unveiled a two-part plan for re-energizing South Carolina’s economy and getting the state’s citizens back to work. The comprehensive proposal is comprised of an aggressive short-term action plan to protect jobs and create new ones, as well as a medium-to-long-term plan to prepare the state’s workforce for jobs in innovative new fields and expand jobs in current sectors that provide the kind of good-wage opportunities that will move the state’s families and its economy forward.
“South Carolinians are hurting. Our state is adrift, while our political leadership is preoccupied with personal scandal and petty partisanship, neither of which does anything to help get us through this crisis. For too long, we’ve allowed short-term thinking and special-interest politics to get in the way of economic progress. If we are going to succeed at creating stable, good-wage jobs in our state, we need to focus on the unique assets that make us strong and competitive,” said Rex.
The Rex plan builds on those assets with a twelve-point program called “Jobs Now.” The program is aimed at creating jobs quickly and supporting South Carolinians as they further their education and training to compete for higher wage jobs. It includes making the GED free to those who enter approved adult education programs, extending unemployment benefits to those getting retrained, and tuition reimbursement in high demand fields.
In his plan, Rex also calls for a complete overhaul of the state’s Employment Security Commission with a focus on requiring accountability, cutting through the red tape to better connect job seekers with employers, and providing more user-friendly, targeted information about available jobs, as well as training opportunities for becoming qualified for them.
“During these challenging times, most South Carolinians are looking for a hand up, not a hand out. That is why it is infuriating that some people are collecting unemployment insurance after being fired for misconduct, voluntarily leaving work or turning down jobs. We need to keep our unemployment compensation system strong to stretch scarce dollars to cover legitimate unemployment and retraining needs – not to pay those who choose not to work,” said Rex.
Rex focuses a portion of the plan on supporting South Carolina – based companies and putting our own purchasing power to work. Under the program, South Carolina state agencies, which purchase more than $1.3 billion a year in goods and services from out-of-state businesses, would be required to use more instate services, goods and labor to support the growth and development of the state’s own small businesses.
“To regain the jobs that have been lost we must do more than recruit a Boeing-type industry to our state every decade or so. We must also focus on helping thousands of small business open or expand in our state,” said Rex.
To help small businesses, Rex’s plan reduces taxes and unnecessary red tape, creates purchasing pools so that they can afford health care and other critical business services, and develops microfinance credit programs with private sector partners to expand agricultural and small-business access to capital.
Rex called on the Legislature to immediately raise the cigarette tax to the national average and indexed to track the average going forward to help pay for South Carolina’s health care responsibilities under new federal health care legislation and provide a boost to our health care sector, which creates good jobs with good benefits.
“South Carolina has the lowest cigarette tax in the nation. That means that nonsmokers pay more for health care and taxes to cover the rising health costs of smokers. Increasing the cigarette tax means that smokers would pay a greater share of the financial burden they create and generate revenue that can be used to reduce health care costs on working families and small businesses,” said Rex.
To ensure long-term job growth and development, the Rex plan calls for the creation of Regional Economic Development Task Forces that would be organized under a new statewide Office of Job Creation. These task forces would work with local political and civic leaders, representatives from the business community, and senior-level representatives of that region’s universities and technical colleges to identify top challenges and opportunities for job creation unique to their areas and to determine what needs to be done to train or retrain the region’s workforce to be prepared for those targeted jobs.
“While each region will pursue industries that match its strengths and resources, we also need a concerted statewide push to support and expand specific key areas in the future,” said Rex. Among the areas outlined in the plan are clean energy technologies, renewable energy, nuclear power, and quality health care.
Finally, Rex said it is time to fully fund the Education and Economic Development Act (EEDA) in order to ensure full and effective implementation in every community across South Carolina. In 2005, South Carolina passed the EEDA, creating a national model that gives us a competitive advantage over other states. The Act improves accelerated learning within and outside the classroom, establishes regional education centers offering professional development and career planning services, and provides the guidance and mentoring that students need to develop a solid mix of technical and academic skills to compete in the global economy.
“Ultimately, our economic success depends on our hardworking South Carolinian people. We must ensure that we have the strongest competitive workforce possible,” said Rex.
He concluded: “The most prosperous states of the Twenty-first Century will be those who best prepare for the opportunities that lie ahead. The second decade of this century is our opportunity to prepare South Carolina to become a national and global leader in sustainability and the knowledge economy. It’s time to turn South Carolina around.”