The Spartanburg Chamber set its Legislative Agenda, which includes advocacy for economic development incentives, infrastructure funding, affordable health insurance for small business, education issues, comprehensive tax reform and workers’ compensation reform.

The following is the Chamber’s 2008 Legislative Agenda:

Affordable Healthcare for Small Business:

This issue is the Chamber membership’s number one issue it faces. Rising healthcare costs put small business owners in a tough spot. If small business owners continue to pay for rising healthcare, then they are more likely to reduce capital investments, benefits and pay increases, which hurts the economy, unemployment rate, and the state’s per capita income. Conversely, if small business owners decide that healthcare costs are too expensive, then more people go uninsured.

The Chamber supports legislation that allows the formation of association health plans. Furthermore, it supports tax incentives for small businesses that offer health insurance to their employees. Though these are not silver bullets to fix the entire system, the Chamber believes that this is a good start to deal with the health insurance crisis.

Economic Development:

A perennial issue, economic development plays a vital role in the state’s ability to compete at a global level. The Chamber supports tax incentives to support new, existing, and expanding businesses. Furthermore, the Chamber supports legislation and other resources that will support entrepreneurs and new, high-impact organizations.

Workers’ Compensation Reform:

After a great bill that was passed last year due to the efforts of many Upstate legislators, including Senators Larry Martin and Jim Ritchie, and Representative Harry Cato, all of whom were on the Workers’ Compensation Conference Committee, the only main item not passed was the implementation of guidelines by which the Commission would hand out awards. The Chamber supports implementing the American Medical Association (AMA) Guidelines in order to reduce the subjectivity of the Commission when handing out awards to the plaintiffs.

Roads and Bridges:

All three play an integral role in businesses’ ability to move people and goods. In order to do that effectively, the Chamber supports more funding to fix South Carolina’s roads and bridges.

Comprehensive Tax Reform:

For years, the Chamber has been calling for a comprehensive look at the state’s tax structure. Two years ago, the Legislature passed a property tax bill that increased the sales tax by one cent while eliminating residential homeowners from having to pay the school portion of their property tax. Unfortunately, businesses were left holding the bag: though businesses have to incur an extra penny sales tax, costing businesses $400 million per year, businesses were not given any property tax relief. The Chamber supports the Legislature to revisit this entire issue in order to develop a fair system for all taxpayers.

Education:

The Chamber historically has taken on the role of supporting funding for the Education and Economic Development and the Center for Accelerated Training; the Chamber will continue to do so.

For more information, contact John DeWorken, Chamber vice president of public policy and lobbyist, at 864-905-5529.

Click here for the Chamber's position of federal issues.