Meet Tim Scott, Republican for Congress
Thursday, March 25th; 6pm – 8pm

T Bonz Gill & Grill; 1169 Seaboard Street, Myrtle Beach
*appetizers will be served*

Click below for flyer.
Meet and Greet Tim Scott for Congress

That is why I’m running for Congress. I want to renew the American ideals of the free market, the entrepreneurial spirit and limited government. If you agree with me that America doesn’t need another government solution, but a way to empower American citizens, please join my growing team of supporters.

Read the full article from The Politico below.

POLITICO

Jobless rate stays at 9.7 percent
By: Eamon Javers
March 5, 2010 08:54 AM EST

The White House had spent the previous week trying to blunt the impact of Friday morning’s unemployment figures — but it may not be enough to soften the blow of government statistics that show the nation’s unemployment rate remains stuck at 9.7 percent.

White House economic adviser Larry Summers and Democratic economists had tried to “pre-but” the release of the February numbers with an argument that last month’s “snowpocalypse” in the Northeast corridor significantly affected Americans’ ability to get to jobs.

According to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy shed an additional 36,000 jobs, leaving the grim number of 14.9 million people out of work. Earlier in the week, Summers predicted that the number would be artificially low for February because some snowed-in workers weren’t paid for hours they didn’t work. “The blizzards that affected much of the country during the last month are likely to distort the statistics,” Summers told CNBC.

Some economists predicted the snow effect could shift the jobs number south by as much as 100,000. Other economists weren’t so sure — and Republicans can be expected to pounce on a dismal jobs report, snow or no snow.

The loss of 36,000 jobs announced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, then, is significantly less than many had expected — the Obama administration argued that there could have been job growth in February had it not been for the storm.

“Although the labor market remains severely distressed, today’s report on the employment situation is consistent with the pattern of stabilization and gradual labor market healing we have been seeing in recent months,” said White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairwoman Christina Romer in a blog posted Friday. “The impact of bad weather on the February employment number was likely substantially negative.”

Nonetheless, the political reality is harsh for the Obama administration. With just eight months to go before Election Day, there is almost no way for the economy to rebound to the point at which it would make a significant dent in the out-of-work population. Even an economy that grows at 100,000 or 200,000 jobs per month will have a long way to go before chipping away significantly at the more than 14 million unemployed.

That presents a political opportunity for Republicans, who argued that the Obama administration’s yearlong battle to pass a controversial health care bill has distracted it from working on the issue Americans care about most: jobs.

“Mother Nature is a force to be reckoned with, but it’s the blizzard of higher taxes, wasteful spending and reckless borrowing coming out of Washington that’s destroying jobs in this country,” said House Republican leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). “President Obama and Democratic leaders will come out of the woodwork today armed with rehashed promises to do better, but their top and seemingly only priority remains this unpopular, unaffordable government takeover of health care.”

But Democrats, too, have an argument to make — they will very likely point to Kentucky Republican Sen. Jim Bunning, whose days-long effort to block an extension of unemployment benefits collapsed this week in the face of weakening Republican support. And Democrats have already floated one obscure economic statistic to help make their case: In 1996, severe snowstorms did affect the monthly jobs report, they say, but the next month’s report rebounded by just as much — meaning we can expect the March report to be much sunnier.
© 2010 Capitol News Company, LLC

The organization, regarded as one of the oldest and most reputable pro-taxpayer organizations in the state, cited Scott for his pledge to oppose tax-increases.

Of 14 candidates running for Congress in the First District, only Tim Scott can point to a proven history of stopping tax increases at both the local and state level. No other candidate can match Tim Scott’s record of fighting for the taxpayers. See official release from SC Association of Taxpayers below.

Since being elected to County Council and the South Carolina of House of Representatives, Representative Tim Scott has upheld his promise to the people of Charleston and Berkeley Counties and South Carolina to fight all efforts to raise taxes.

While some politicians see that promise as political rhetoric, Representative Tim Scott understands it is good economics. As a leading Taxpayer’s Advocate Representative Tim Scott has:
• Earned one of only eleven “A” ratings in the S.C. House from the SC Club for Growth.
• Signed and delivered on the SC Association of Taxpayers “NO NEW TAXES PLEDGE”
• For his 12 years of service before signing the No New Taxes Pledges, Tim held the line in opposing tax increases on Charleston County Council and worked to cut out of control government spending.

The SC Association of Taxpayers extends its gratitude and appreciation to Representative Scott for his tireless service and for being a leader who is as good as his word.

Reprinted from TheSunNews.com

A $10 million federal stimulus grant announced Wednesday will kick-start the key Interstate 73 interchange at I-95, a move that supporters say is a major boost to the planned highway.

“This is great news for South Carolina, as we’re now $10 million closer to completing I-73,” said state Rep. Alan Clemmons, R-Myrtle Beach, chairman of the National I-73/74 Corridor Association.

The money will be used to begin work on a segment of the project that is estimated to cost more than $300 million.

The grant “reaffirms the importance of I-73 and provides a sound investment in a very important project,” said Rep. Tracy Edge, R-North Myrtle Beach, who co-chairs the S.C. I-73/74 Corridor Association.

The long-awaited highway would be the first interstate to link to Horry County. Planned to run from near Myrtle Beach to the Canadian border at Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., it was designated by Congress in 1991 but without specific funding, leaving most of the building to the six states it traverses.

South Carolina lists I-73 as its top priority for new construction. The state has completed most of its preliminary plans, as has Virginia, and some sections of the road have been built in North Carolina and West Virginia.

South Carolina has received about $100 million in federal money over the years for planning and right-of-way acquisition.

The target of the money announced Wednesday is the interchange or 5-mile segment on each side of I-95. The total costs of the project are estimated at $360 million, and the state Department of Transportation applied for $300 million from the special federal fund.

Mitchell Metts, a DOT engineer who has worked on the I-73 project planning, said he isn’t sure how the $10 million would be applied because it isn’t enough to build the interchange or even the 5-mile section from I-95 to U.S. 501.
Right-of-way plans for that section of the project are finished, Metts said, and the agency has started work to buy the rights of way.

The state DOT commission agreed last summer to seek federal stimulus funds to start construction on I-73 at the I-95 interchange.

Leaders hope to be able to make the connection to U.S. 501 as a quick way to help speed tourism traffic to Horry County.

The commission was to have its regular monthly meeting today, and use of stimulus funds was on the agenda, but Metts said he did not know if the I-73 grant would be discussed. John Walsh, a DOT engineer who was to discuss stimulus funds with the commission, could not be reached for more details.

However, the $10 million carries with it the possibility of more money for I-73.

According to the federal announcement, the state DOT “will have the opportunity to work with the USDOT on an innovative financing approach, which would include a direct loan for the project through the USDOT Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act credit assistance program.”

The entire 60-mile South Carolina portion of the project was estimated at $2 billion, with tolls expected to be used to help pay for it.

U.S. Reps. Henry Brown, R-Hanahan, John Spratt, D-York, and Jim Clyburn, D-Columbia, issued a joint statement saying the grant allows the state to use the $10 million to cover a federal loan of $100 million for the project.

The three represent areas the road will cross and say they met with federal Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in December to discuss the need for federal money for I-73.

Brown said he has worked to make I-73 a reality for his entire congressional career and that the grant is an important step.

“Myrtle Beach is currently the busiest resort destination in the nation without an interstate connection, leaving them with a competitive disadvantage against other destinations,” he said.

Clyburn also called the grant a “great step” toward making the highway a reality and said he was pleased the delegation worked together on it.

Spratt said there is a long way to go to full funding of I-73, but the grant is “a good beginning and will be used to leverage state-issued bonds, which results in each dollar of federal funding providing up to 10 times more in credit assistance.”

Also hailing the grant from the stimulus money was Gary Loftus, an Horry County councilman who served on the state DOT commission in the early days of I-73 planning.

The grant, and the possibility of the loan, “entails a lot of hard work on the part of a lot of people,” Loftus said.

Tim Scott announces his run for the First Congressional District.

Tim discusses the federal government and healthcare to upstate GOPers.

So by the time I entered the ninth grade, I was flunking out of high school. I failed world geography, civics, Spanish and English.

When you fail Spanish and English, they do not consider you bilingual. They consider you bi-ignorant because you can’t speak in any language.

And that’s where I found myself. I found myself in a position where I felt like the future was nonexistent. The only way I could find my way out of poverty was through entertainment, whether it be a football player, cutting up in school or something like that.

I had the good fortune the next year to meet a mentor, a guy named John Moniz. John was an interesting man. He was a conservative, he was an entrepreneur; he ran the Chick-fil-A that was right next door to the movie theater where I was working, and he took a special liking to me.

I remember I used to go down to the Chick-fil-A and get french fries all the time. One day, he asked why I always bought just the french fries and not the Chick-fil-A sandwich. I told him that the fries were cheaper.

One day he came down to the movie theater and slid a Chick-fil-A sandwich across the desk. John was smart enough to know that food is a good way to start a conversation with a kid who likes to eat … which probably means all kids. What a guy!

Over the course of three or four years, John transformed my way of thinking, which changed my life. It was interesting because the lessons that John was teaching me were maybe simple lessons, but they were profound lessons.

He taught me that if you want to receive, you have to first give. Embedded in that conversation, I came to realize, was the concept that my mother was teaching me about individual responsibility.

John was simply saying that enlightened self-interest requires you to give first, and then the receiving part takes care of itself. John taught me that the difference between my paycheck and his paycheck was a couple of zeros. He taught me how to be more valuable in my own eyes so that later I could be more valuable at work, which would add zeros to my paycheck. He made me feel more valuable!

I learned later that the placement of the decimal with those zeros would be very important. He was teaching me the process or the concept of multiplication, that if in fact the zero was on the lefthand side of the decimal a dollar became 10, 10 became 100, and so on.

Years later as an entrepreneur and as a conservative, I see that the lessons John Moniz was teaching me still ring true today. Perhaps more so.

As I venture through life, business and politics, what I realize is that our greatest future is somehow connected to the folks who mentor us, who engage us in conversations that are in our enlightened best interest, but the manifestation of which might not occur for decades. I’d like to encourage all mentors to not only be a mentor but to know that the difference they are making may not actually manifest itself for a decade or two. In my life, not only did John Moniz transform my thinking, but he changed my life.

Many of the lessons he taught me never manifested themselves until after he sadly passed away. He will never know how thankful I am that he never gave up on me; that he was wise enough to know that growth takes time, especially for a teenager.

He didn’t need to do what he did. He didn’t need to feed me sandwiches or words. But he took the time to change the life of a youngster who had the good fortune to work close by.

Boeing CEO James McNerney called Graham’s Senate office, saying what a difficult decision he had to make in choosing between South Carolina and Washington state, where the aircraft maker assembles all its commercial planes.

Governor Mark Sanford, surrounded by South Carolina lawmakers, signs into law an incentive package passed as part of a successful bid to bring the airline maker Boeing to North Charleston to build a second production plant. (Grace Beahm/The Post and Courier)

- Grace Beahm
CLICK FOR MORE PHOTOS

Graham and McNerney were talking nearly every day as Graham acted as go-between with Boeing and S.C. officials. As they spoke, McNerney was worried about the cost of building a new plant in the South versus using existing operations in the Northwest.

The conversation had the tone of breakup.

“He said, ‘You couldn’t have treated us any better, but we have a big footprint in Washington,’” Graham said last week. “I told him, ‘Do what you think is best for Boeing. We will be the best partners we can be, but we understand this is a negotiation, a business decision.’”

Graham’s reaction was part of an ongoing soft sell he thought would appeal best to the Boeing executives, who were in contentious negotiations with union workers in Washington.

Those talks broke down last weekend, setting into motion a final push by S.C. recruiters and lawmakers.

On Wednesday afternoon, Graham was leaving the Senate gym when McNerney called: “We’re coming to South Carolina.” In the end, Graham figured, “Southern gentility was more attractive.”

South Carolina won Boeing’s new assembly line for the 787 Dreamliner despite the company’s last-minute request for $37 million, losing out on Boeing’s first 787 assembly line six years ago, doubts about the state’s workforce and South Carolina’s history of political friction.

The impact of the Boeing deal is huge for South Carolina, a state staggering under the nation’s fifthhighest unemployment rate:

-$450 million in state incentives to attract a company that will employ an estimated 3,800 workers by the middle of next decade.

-$750 million in initial investment from Boeing — the state’s biggest, topping the $500 million BMW pledged in 1992 for its Greer plant, a number since far surpassed.

-$10 billion in direct and indirect investment over the next 15 years from Boeing and its suppliers, according to a forecast from a state economist.

The timing of Boeing’s announcement was helped by a special session that started Tuesday to correct an unemployment benefits glitch.

That gave lawmakers a chance to approve the incentives package — a show of faith just as Boeing’s board met in Chicago to choose a site.

As the deal became public, lawmakers and lobbyists around the State House last week said they have never seen the leaders of the House and Senate work so cooperatively together as on the Boeing project.

What else but the state’s largest economic-development deal would have Gov. Mark Sanford praising one of his chief nemeses, state Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence?

State leaders each played a role, stopped politicking — and kept their mouths shut, state Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor said.

Taylor negotiated with the company. Graham and Sanford worked their contacts at Boeing. Leatherman assembled the incentives package. And House Speaker Bobby Harrell and Senate Pro-Tem Glenn McConnell, both Charleston Republicans, rallied their troops. It was a united front.

“That helped foster a sense of trust with Boeing,” said state Sen. Larry Grooms, R-Berkeley.

HELPED BY A FAILURE

Winning Boeing’s new 787 assembly line started when South Carolina lost the last one.

In 2003, as Boeing planned its first 787 assembly line, then-S.C. Commerce Secretary Bob Faith offered the aircraft-maker two S.C. sites, one in Charleston and one in Myrtle Beach. Both were near a port and an airport with the long runways that Boeing requested.

Boeing said no thanks to Myrtle Beach but took Charleston into serious consideration. The company began talks with Faith, Harrell and then-Charleston County Council Chairman Tim Scott.

“I had that first tingle of ‘Man, we may have a shot’ when Boeing executives flew in, and I met the (executive) in charge of the search,” Faith said.

He saw an advantage: The Boeing executive, like Faith, was from Oklahoma.

The Boeing team, along with Harrell, Scott and others, had dinner that evening, overlooking Charleston Harbor.

“It was one of those big dreams,” said Scott, now a state representative. “We had had some unsuccessful bids in bringing some other big industry to the area so we were cautiously optimistic. We started looking at what we considered landing a whale.”

Early on, government officials showed they were willing to make the deal happen.

On County Council, Scott helped push through incentives, including a freeze on the company’s millage rate for 20 years, ensuring its county taxes would not increase.

And Faith threw a party at his house for the executives. On the guest list: lawmakers, Low-country leaders and businessmen, including leaders from BMW’s Greer mega-plant.

“I really felt like we were going to win that assembly plant,” Faith said. “We had tons of momentum.”

Then the bottom fell out of the deal.

“Their (chief financial officer) resigned and, ultimately, their (chief executive officer) stepped down, and they, ultimately, decided to put that first line in Everett (Washington),” Faith said. “We felt like we had won the deal, but because of all of their internal difficulties, moving to South Carolina was a bridge too far.”

Still Faith thought the initial effort proved South Carolina was serious about doing business with Boeing.

It cleared the way for South Carolina to land two Boeing suppliers, Vought and Alenia plants, for North Charleston shortly thereafter with an estimated $120 million in state and local incentives.

The plants, which make and assemble the rear fuselage for the 787, now employ about 2,500.

“It was a heck of a consolation prize,” Faith said.

Because of those plants, an aviation infrastructure began forming. Trident Technical College, for instance, began developing an aerospace training program to prepare workers in aviation.

“We wouldn’t even be in the conversation if we hadn’t negotiated the Vought-Alenia deal,” Harrell said. “Getting to this point has been the goal all along.”

KEEP LOBBYING

South Carolina continued to lobby Boeing after North Charleston landed the Vought-Alenia fuselage work.

Sanford and Taylor, who had succeeded Faith as Commerce secretary, went to the international air shows around the world and met with Boeing officials.

At the time, Sanford wondered why Taylor insisted they go to the shows.

“You go to these events and they’re massive, and it’s hard to get singled out. You question the value,” Sanford said Friday. “Turned out, he was right.”

A couple of turning points came in July.

That month, Taylor met with the state’s Joint Bond Review Committee, which includes members of the House and Senate and oversees debt raised to pay for big projects.

The committee is led by the Leatherman, chairman of the Senate’s influential Finance Committee. Senate leader McConnell also is a member.

Tired of other states beating out South Carolina for business, Leatherman said he wanted to build a ready incentive pool to close a big development deal.

Taylor, who said Boeing was not discussed at the meeting, expressed concerns about the incentives that other states had offered to some companies, saying the investments did not pan out.

Leatherman said Taylor agreed to think about the incentive pool and get back to him.

It didn’t take long to find a project that fit Leatherman’s ambitions.

In July, Boeing bought Vought’s operations in North Charleston — a move that came after complaints about delays at the plant.

That gave Taylor hope that South Carolina might be in the running for a long-discussed, second 787 assembly line: “It just made business sense. But it came faster than we expected.”

The next month, Boeing officials came to the state and “wanted to learn just how quickly they could do it,” Taylor said of a new assembly line.

The state didn’t hesitate.

“We permitted the whole site,” Taylor said.

S.C. A PAWN?

The question on the minds of many S.C. officials: Was Boeing just using South Carolina as a pawn to extract promises from Washington state?

Grooms, a Charleston-area senator who is running for the Republican nomination for governor, said he asked that question when he met with Boeing’s officials in August. Billy Wilkins, a former federal judge now practicing with the Nexsen-Pruett law firm, asked the same question of a friend who is a Boeing executive.

Boeing told Wilkins and Grooms its interest was genuine.

Wilkins pulled together an experienced business law team — one that included a former S.C. Department of Revenue director — to handle negotiations for Boeing. Those relationships were critical because “when I talked about South Carolina, it was believed,” he said. Wilkins’ call to his friend at Boeing set in motion a series of mid-August meetings in Charleston that put the project on a fast track. A group of four state senators — Leatherman, McConnell, Grooms and Sen. Paul Campbell, R-Berkeley — met with Boeing officials.

Meanwhile, Harrell met separately with Boeing executives at the S.C. Research Authority’s nearby offices, not far from where Boeing will construct the new assembly line.

“My very first meeting, I believe, was them trying to figure out if we could deliver the things Commerce said we could,” Harrell said. The S.C. House speaker urged the Boeing officials to call executives with BMW, Nucor steel, Kimberly-Clark and other companies that had located in South Carolina to see if the state lived up to its promises.

“I felt very comfortable after the meeting that we were in the game.”

‘NOT … A PROBLEM’

But Boeing had its questions, too: Could South Carolina bring the workforce that it needed?

Wilkins assured the company that the state could deliver on its end.

Sen. Campbell said Boeing officials needed convincing that local workers were at least equal to those of Washington, where the aeronautics industry long has been part of the regional culture. Campbell answered questions on labor relations, workers’ compensation and other on-the-ground realities of S.C. manufacturing.

He was able to give Chicago-based Boeing officials a critical insight into the capabilities of the S.C. workforce, having overseen for years an Alcoa plant in Bellingham, Wash., and retired after 10 years as Alcoa’s regional president at its plant in the Lowcountry, just outside of Berkeley.

“They needed that. This is a leap of faith for Boeing,” Campbell said.

Boeing declined to discuss details of its negotiations over the new 787 assembly line.

Graham, familiar with the aircraft maker as a member of the Senate Armed Services committee, suggested Boeing officials speak with executives at Michelin, which has S.C. plants and makes aircraft tires. Graham also touted the state’s skilled exmilitary veterans and its technical colleges, known for working closely with businesses.

There was an opportunity to convince Boeing, Graham discovered.

During a meeting a few months ago in Graham’s Senate office, Boeing boss McNerney talked about how labor relations with workers in Washington state were a problem. A strike last year lasted two months.

“He was openly frustrated about the interruption due to the strike,” Graham said. “I told him, ‘South Carolina was not going to be a problem.’”

And Leatherman said he pitched how South Carolina workers — averse to unions — were capable and motivated, just wanting a day’s pay for a day’s work.

Then, Leatherman pushed to sweeten the pot.

“I found we were at a competitive disadvantage to many states,” said Leatherman of his discussion about incentives with Taylor. “I said, ‘We need to put together a package.’”

That led to creation of an incentives package that eventually included $170 million in taxpayer-backed bonds, eliminating Boeing’s S.C. corporate income taxes, as well as a handful of sales tax exemptions for computers, fuel for test flights, and construction material and equipment.

THE SANFORD ISSUE

A question asked quietly was whether Sanford would go along with the incentive-laden deal.

Sanford was elected twice promising, in part, to reduce government involvement in the business marketplace.

Boeing was not concerned about the governor, Taylor said.

“They wanted to know if this administration makes a commitment that the next administration will keep it,” he said.

Taylor would not disclose his discussions with the governor, but in general, he said, “We’re not in the business of picking winners and losers or offering incentives that give one company an advantage over another company.”

“But,” he added, “there is nobody else in the state making airplanes.”

Sanford — a fiscal libertarian who opposes incentives but now is under siege by scandal and threats of impeachment — was not an issue in the talks with Boeing, Graham said.

“Mark has his philosophical views about recruiting,” Graham said. “At one point, I told him, ‘You have to spend money to make money.’”

Despite his reputation for eschewing incentives, Sanford said he understood Boeing’s potential was different. The incentives did not bother him.

“What we had here is run-of-mill stuff,” he said. “These were normal in the tool kit for the state. … We went aggressively after it. As a rule, I don’t think (incentives) are the best option.

“But not all your decisions come from what you believe philosophically. My job, in this case, was to govern.”

THE FINAL WEEK

Just days after getting the call that made it sound like Washington would get the assembly line, Graham got a different message from McNerney.

“We want to let you know we’re really, really serious about this,” Graham recalled McNerney saying. “And I said, ‘We’re really, really serious, too.’”

The talks with the union representing workers in Washington were going nowhere. The Machinists union offered a 10year, nostrike pledge, but added other demands that displeased the company, according to reports in the Seattle Times.

Last weekend, Graham got a call from Boeing general counsel Michael Luttig, a former federal appellate judge whom Graham had supported as potential Supreme Court nominee.

Luttig told Graham that South Carolina’s incentive package was great, but Boeing officials had run the numbers again and had a last-minute request. Boeing wanted to make sure that making the request would not anger S.C. officials.

The request wasn’t small: Boeing wanted another $37 million in bond money, Graham said.

“I said essentially, ‘If it makes good business sense, then go ahead. We can ask but don’t be greedy,’” Graham recalled.

Sanford said the final $37 million was money that Boeing would have received in the future anyway but decided to get it upfront.

Still, it was a delicate matter, days before the General Assembly’s special session and an expected final decision by Boeing’s board on an assembly line site.

Graham spoke with Leatherman and Taylor. Both raised their earlier concerns about South Carolina being used as leverage against Washington.

“We never knew how much they were playing us off each other,” Graham said. “I spoke with Leatherman and told him I knew these business people pretty well and they’re honorable folks.”

That convinced the powerful Florence legislator.

“He said, ‘Senator, I stand ready to have the Senate stay in session to get this money,’” Graham said.

Boeing lawyer Luttig came to South Carolina on Monday to finish the details on the incentives package with Leatherman and Taylor. The same day, Boeing’s board met in Chicago to decide where to put the assembly line.

To make sure no one backed out, at the end of Monday, the sides agreed Boeing would announce South Carolina had landed the assembly line after the state Senate passed the incentives.

As lawmakers in special session scurried about Wednesday, some complained about all the waiting around that was taking place. They were aware of afternoon Internet reports that said the contract negotiations between Boeing and the Machinists union “were dead.”

Soon after the final passage on the incentives deal Wednesday afternoon, Leatherman stood at the Senate podium and announced: “Boeing has chosen North Charleston!”

Then, the chamber filled with thunderous applause

Every media market in South Carolina has a conservative talk radio show enjoyed by thousands of listeners. It may be a nationally famous commentator like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, or a local host.

Two markets in our state are served by liberal-focused Air America affiliates and in the Midlands listeners can hear liberal commentators from National Public Radio. The ratio of liberal versus conservative skews far to the right — far more stations carry conservative programming than liberal. The reason for this is simple: In South Carolina most listeners are conservatives themselves, so the free market provides more programming geared towards that audience.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates broadcast and cable media as well as Internet transmissions, recently held a seemingly innocuous field hearing in Charleston to solicit public input as they develop a National Broadband Policy. Although you may not have heard about these hearings, they are nothing more than a back-door attempt by elements within the government to restrict and regulate speech under the guise of promoting “diversity.”

Part of the diversity advocated by the FCC is expanding broadband into rural and lower-income areas, which would be a much needed improvement. The Internet is our most important communications and educational technology and the more folks who have access to it the better. But access is one matter, regulating content is another. The concern is that some of those involved in developing the federal broadband plan could very well use the access and diversity issue as a means to accomplish their true end: driving conservative talk radio and Christian broadcasting off the air.

Case in point: The senior adviser in development of the broadband plan is Mark Lloyd, the FCC’s new Chief Diversity Czar. In his 2006 book, “Prologue to a Farce: Communication and Democracy in America,” Lloyd describes his view of free speech this way: “At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies. The purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance.”

Lloyd clearly supports policies and rules over what he sees as the “farce” of freedom of speech. Now he is dangerously close to being able to force his beliefs on the rest of us.

Lloyd’s distaste for the First Amendment is further explained in his 2007 study for the Center for American Progress titled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio,” which details his scheme for using radio station licensing rule-changes to suspend the forces of the free market and bring political balance to the airwaves.

By limiting ownership of commercial radio and television stations Lloyd seeks to remedy the “problem” of having too much conservative and Christian programming. Commercial station owners who continue to meet the demands of the marketplace and thereby fail to comply with these new rules would be forced to pay a fee to support public broadcasting — all in the name of diversifying the message and the messenger.

Another alarming idea put forward by Lloyd comes from his work with the ironically named Free Press and its avowed Marxist founders. This organization seeks to reorganize the media market by simply eliminating advertiser-supported media altogether; abolishing traditional First Amendment protections for commercial speech; and imposing new taxes on consumer electronics in order to fund government-controlled media outlets.

While the FCC and its radical allies deny any effort to push for re-instituting the so-called Fairness Doctrine, it’s painfully obvious they hope to accomplish their goals through back door regulations.

This concept of developing a national policy that will help diversify media outlets is little more than a clever way to regulate speech the Obama administration doesn’t want to hear. The FCC is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist and they are doing it at the expense of the First Amendment. Stand up with me and fight to protect free speech and limit government intrusion in our lives by telling the FCC and Mr. Lloyd that the First Amendment doesn’t need their fixing.

Tim Scott, a Charleston Republican, represents District 117 in the S.C. House of Representatives.