After two long days of bitter infighting between Republican regulars and members of the hard-right S.C. Freedom Caucus, the S.C. House passed its first draft of the $14 billion 2025-26 state budget 99-13 just after midnight on March 12. It passed to the Senate on March 13.
Statehouse observers say the lopsided final margin reflected the budget’s broadly popular spending priorities, with billions for tax cuts, teacher pay raises and roads and bridges.
But that didn’t make getting there any easier, as members of the chamber’s Republican supermajority took turns denouncing each other’s proposals as “crap” from the well of the House.
“Can you say ‘no’ to the budget?” Freedom Caucus Rep. April Cromer (R-Anderson) demanded. “I can, because it’s chock full of crap.”
The “crap” she was referring to? A billion dollars in so-called “wasteful” state spending that she and her Freedom Caucus colleagues claimed their amendments would cut from the budget. Proposed cuts included virtually the entire budgets of agencies like the Sea Grant Consortium and the South Carolina Arts Commission.
But House Majority Leader Davey Hiott (R-Pickens) pushed back hard, saying the South Carolinians who’d benefit from the budget — teachers, students, law enforcement officers, taxpayers and more — “aren’t crap to me.”
“I’m sick and tired of this crap, coming up here and making a farce out of what the state of South Carolina deserves and needs,” he said. “That’s all this is — it’s a show.”
What’s more, he noted, the Freedom Caucus’s math appeared to be off by a factor of 10, according to staff budget experts.
“If you add up all the amendments the Freedom Caucus has put up, they’ve put up a hundred million [dollars] in cuts total,” he said. “And they’re gonna cut a billion dollars?”
And in the end, they didn’t cut a billion dollars — or even, as an amendment by Lexington County Freedom Caucus Rep. Jay Kilmartin proposed, 10 cents from the state Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism.
Kilmartin argued the amendment was a useful test of whether his fellow Republicans were willing to cut even one dime from the state budget. Opponents noted that it would cost taxpayers more than 10 cents to print up the change if it passed.
And on the back-and-forth went until the early hours of Wednesday morning, when all but 13 of the chamber’s 88 Republicans joined with Democrats to push the budget though. Almost lost in the debate? What it would actually do.
OK, so what’s in the budget?
Though not identical, the $14 billion House budget is broadly consistent with the executive budget presented by Gov. Henry McMaster earlier this year. Among its top spending priorities are:
- Tax cuts: The spending plan includes two major tax cuts totaling more than $1 billion, with $211 million in income tax reductions, which will bring the top income tax rate down to 6%, and $814 million in property tax credits.
- Teacher pay: A $1,500 raise for all state teachers, bringing the minimum salary up to $48,500. Though still short of McMaster’s recommended $50,000, the new state minimum beats those in North Carolina and Georgia.
- State employees: The budget includes $61 million for employee raises of 2%-17%, based on occupation and time in service. Also included is $89 million to cover most of the cost increases for state health insurance policies, though for the first time since 2012, employees will be asked to pay more — about $37 a month.
- Tuition mitigation: $61 million to extend the freeze on in-state tuition for current students at state colleges and universities. Budget writers said they limited the subsidy to current students because rising costs have made the five-year-old freeze unsustainable.
- Critical infrastructure: In addition to $250 million for state roads and bridges, the budget includes $20 million to bolster rural water and sewer systems.
- Hurricane Helene: $270 million to offset recovery costs associated with the Category 4 hurricane that claimed the lives of 49 South Carolinians in September 2024.
- Conservation: $12 million for the state Conservation Land Bank to acquire additional acreage. Currently, 3 million acres are protected by conservation easements in S.C. McMaster would like to see that number rise to 6 million by 2050.
Lingering tensions
After the final vote, members expressed frustration with the process.
“I couldn’t be more disappointed,” Cromer said in a Freedom Caucus video. “I feel like we let the people of South Carolina down today with the budget we just passed.”
But Rep. Gil Gatch (R-Dorchester) told Statehouse Report he was “super-proud” of the spending plan — particularly the $1 billion in tax cuts, and the targeted investments in roads and teacher pay.
“This is a very conservative and responsible budget,” he said.
And as for the Freedom Caucus?
“Those guys aren’t serious,” he said. “They’re a made-for-TV bunch.”
On the other side of the aisle, Charleston Democratic Rep. Spencer Wetmore echoed those comments, noting that Freedom Caucus members seemed to be more interested in good video clips than good arguments that might win votes in the chamber.
For instance, she said, many Freedom Caucus amendments were defeated because they were challenged and found to be out of order under House rules. But when those challenges were being debated, they didn’t argue that their amendments were in order and should be allowed. Instead, they just stuck to their talking points.
“It’s like they weren’t serious about getting their policies into the budget,” she said. “They were just serious about saying what they wanted to say, so they could film themselves and take the clip for social media.”
The S.C. Senate will begin its own budget process this month, with a floor vote expected the week of April 20. The two chambers will then have to work out any differences between the two spending bills before giving it final passage in each body.
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