COLOMBIA, SC (AP) – The Republican leader of the South Carolina budget drafting committee said he expects more guidance before making any recommendations on how to spend the $ 1.9 trillion state portion on COVID-19 relief from the federal government.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson joined colleagues in 20 other states in a letter asking Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for clarity on how the money can be spent, saying that preventing lawmakers from using the money to cut taxes would be “breathtaking”.
Budget leaders in South Carolina have not announced how they could spend the state’s $ 2.1 billion portion of the last federal relief from COVID-19. An additional $ 1.5 billion is going directly to local governments. The authorities will probably have up to three years to spend the money.
“We are not rushing now without any knowledge of what the rules of the game are,” said House Ways and Means President Murrell Smith.
The state could seek tax breaks, again reloading unemployment insurance accounts with federal money instead of charging companies or subsidies for small businesses. But it depends on what the federal government says, said Smith.
“If you put this in the direction of restoring unemployment, is this considered a tax cut for companies?” Smith said. “If you wanted to create a small business grant program, would that be, in quotes, a tax cut for small business owners?”
Smith plans to create a committee later this month to analyze how the state should spend its most recent COVID-19 relief and more than $ 500 million from an agreement with the federal government on plutonium storage at Savannah River Site, a former power plant nuclear weapons near Aiken.