The State
May 16, 2016
BY CASSIE COPE
About 50 proposals, ranging from requiring stamps on cigarettes to show S.C. taxes have been paid, to a $40 million proposal to offer grants to S.C. farmers who lost crops during last year’s historic flooding.
Gov. Nikki Haley has until Tuesday to veto the farm aid proposal, which she has said she will do, arguing it is unfair to help one business sector in South Carolina and not all.
Neither farmers nor the S.C. Small Business Chamber of Commerce are buying that argument.
“The governor should not use small businesses as an excuse not to help our farmers recover from last year’s floods,” said Frank Knapp Jr., president of the Small Business Chamber. “Our small businesses want our farmers, who contribute to the economic health of our state, to recover. They don’t begrudge farmers from receiving funds available to them just because other small businesses don’t have the opportunity.”