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The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly South Carolina Bills · Conversations With the Hoff

• 1:13
  It's a beautiful day on the South Strand.
• 1:16
  Welcome to Conversations with the Hoff.
• 1:19
  I'm Steve Hoffman, your host, and with me in the studio today is the creator of Liberty on Nicotine Nicotine, not Nicotine, and the executive producer of Liberty Crack Media, Trip Detmering.
• 1:32
  Hey everybody, good morning.
• 1:35
  So today we don't have a call-in guest.
• 1:38
  Instead, I'm going to comment on the good, the bad, and the ugly.
• 1:43
  The emphasis on the ugly.
• 1:45
  Definitely.
• 1:46
  That characterized the 2025-2026 session of the South Carolina legislature.
• 1:54
  Before I get into specific bills, I want to paint a picture of why us small government types cringe whenever the legislature is in session.
• 2:04
  Jonathan Hill does a great job of describing the shenanigans that goes on in Columbia with his periodic bad bill sheets.
• 2:14
  He evaluates bills on the following criteria.
• 2:19
  They're a bad bill if they lack substance, if they're non-binding or unenforceable, if they're just plain unlawful or unconstitutional, if they grow the size of government, which happens all the time.
• 2:35
  Amen.
• 2:36
  If uh reduces accountability, if it contradicts separation of powers, which is kind of ridiculous in South Carolina, seeing how the legislature controls everything, if it constitutes legal plunder, or if it infringes on rights or liberties, in other words, the nanny state.
• 2:58
  Yeah.
• 3:00
  Or if non-government alternatives exist.
• 3:03
  You know, hey, let's give the free market a chance once in a while.
• 3:06
  That would be a novel idea.
• 3:08
  Yes, it would.
• 3:09
  Or if it raises taxes or fees, which they're very good at doing.
• 3:15
  Or any legislation that increases debt.
• 3:19
  That's his major criteria.
• 3:22
  And if you want to look at what happened in the last legislature, he's got a very good summary chart that shows that there were 56 bad bills that actually passed the legislature.
• 3:34
  Wow.
• 3:36
  Twenty-nine of them, because of his exposure to these bills, were actually killed.
• 3:42
  And six.
• 3:43
  Yeah.
• 3:44
  Yeah.
• 3:44
  Yeah.
• 3:45
  So we one of my goals is to make sure that more and more people in South Carolina are aware of Jonathan Hill's bad bill sheet.
• 3:54
  Even though we're non-aggression, we are aggressive when it comes to killing bills.
• 4:00
  Yeah, definitely.
• 4:02
  So what I'd like to do is focus on the bills that went through and were passed during this legislative session.
• 4:12
  And I'm going to do it in reverse order.
• 4:14
  I'm going to talk about the ugly bills first.
• 4:17
  Yay! And then we'll move on to the bad and then the good.
• 4:21
  So the first ugly bill is the state budget, H 4025.
• 4:28
  Ugh.
• 4:30
  If you listen to conversations with the Hof, you've heard me in the past talk about how our representatives go to Columbia and they grow the size and scope of the state government every year.
• 4:44
  I mean, two sessions ago, they increased the budget by 500 employees, or the government by 500 employees, unelected bureaucrats to control our daily lives.
• 4:58
  And then last year, they increased it even further.
• 5:03
  They added another 600 unelected bureaucrats to help help us uh keep from harming ourselves.
• 5:11
  So we're up over a thousand now.
• 5:13
  Oh, two-year period.
• 5:15
  Okay.
• 5:16
  So was enough enough is enough?
• 5:18
  Well, no.
• 5:19
  This particular session, they authorized$41.6 billion in total spending.
• 5:28
  That's a historically high figure for South Carolina.
• 5:33
  Now, if you're a limited government type who really loves individual and economic freedom, well, my condolences because the government growth in South Carolina is far outpacing population growth.
• 5:52
  Which means that uh the population has to pay for this growth.
• 5:57
  Somebody's got to pay for it.
• 5:59
  And out of this budget, they don't even address anything like spending caps.
• 6:06
  There's no mechanism in place to restrain future growth.
• 6:11
  And they also have a lot of other funds in the area, like fines, fees, dedicated revenue.
• 6:18
  And I'm sure tons and tons of paperwork and regulation to go along with it.
• 6:23
  Well, let's talk about those regulations.
• 6:26
  So the are the are the legislators actually increasing the state budget so that the state legislatures can determine what's what's done?
• 6:38
  No.
• 6:39
  That budget is heavily reliant on federal funds.
• 6:44
  Ugh.
• 6:44
  It includes$14 billion in federal money.
• 6:49
  So that means they're having the South Carolina suck at the teeth of the federal government.
• 6:55
  Right.
• 6:55
  What happens when the federal government gives you money?
• 6:58
  Then you are under the auspice of another bureaucracy.
• 7:04
  Right.
• 7:05
  You got to do what the federal government tells you to do.
• 7:08
  And I thought that our Constitution kind of recognized a thing called state sovereignty, states' rights.
• 7:15
  Well, the more funding you get from the federal government, the less you're going to have states' rights.
• 7:21
  And of course, every legislature, every legislator in at the Columbia has their own pet project.
• 7:28
  And this funding bill is loaded with earmarks and pork barrel spending.
• 7:35
  This means a lack of transparency of what's in the budget.
• 7:39
  There's a risk of cronyism.
• 7:42
  They put these things in there to uh enrich their pals or buddies.
• 7:48
  And it could be like a misallocation of state resources.
• 7:54
  There's also what we call uh these uh provisos, and basically they expand agency power, they expand the power of the unelected bureaucrats.
• 8:08
  These unelected bureaucrats, what do they do?
• 8:12
  They spend their time writing what we call shadow laws.
• 8:18
  These provisos can change policy without going through the legislative process.
• 8:24
  And it's like agency creep, mission creep, reduced accountability.
• 8:29
  You and I, even at the at a voting block at the voting station, do not have control over the unelected bureaucrats.
• 8:41
  Absolutely.
• 8:45
  And again, if we could get the listening public to really glom on to what we're saying, is that they're growing the monster that keeps killing our freedoms.
• 8:55
  Definitely.
• 8:56
  So yes, there's been uh uh massive increases in uh spending to increase the police powers of the state, massive spending on uh educational spending without any kind of structural reform.
• 9:09
  You know, we have some of the we're always rated one of the worst states in the nation when it comes to education.
• 9:15
  Oh yeah, yeah.
• 9:16
  But yet we keep we keep throwing money at a bad system without any real reforms enacted.
• 9:24
  It's just one thing after another.
• 9:26
  And matter of fact, this budget, South Carolina has a billion dollar, or it's even more than that, surplus.
• 9:34
  Yeah.
• 9:35
  Was there any tax relief in the budget?
• 9:38
  None whatsoever.
• 9:39
  No broad tax cuts, no structural tax reform, no spending caps, no debt reduction.
• 9:47
  So all in all.
• 9:48
  No potholes taken care of either.
• 9:51
  So, all in all, this was an ugly bill.
• 9:55
  Yes, it was.
• 9:56
  Oh, well, thank you for getting that one.
• 10:01
  Now we're going on to the next bill.
• 10:03
  The next ugly bill is H3557, candidate filing fee hike.
• 10:11
  So we have the Uniparty.
• 10:13
  You have the Republicans who control our state legislature, and then they throw in a few Democrats just to keep things exciting.
• 10:21
  And do they like competition?
• 10:23
  No.
• 10:24
  So they do everything in their power to make sure that other parties or other independents don't really ever get a voice in the state legislature.
• 10:33
  And by increasing candidate filing fees, they do just that.
• 10:40
  Uh filing fees used to be like if you wanted to run for a state auditor, you had to pay you know$500 to for that particular uh to file for that position.
• 10:53
  Nowadays it's based on what the salary of that position is.
• 10:58
  Wow.
• 10:58
  And it's a certain position of the salary.
• 11:01
  And in some of these positions, the filing fee can go from$500 to$10,000.
• 11:10
  So essentially what they're doing is if somebody is such a great candidate that's independent, they're going to punish you because you're taking away that salary from that controlling party.
• 11:23
  Definitely.
• 11:24
  Yeah.
• 11:25
  So not only do you have to pay more, but the filing fee window has been shortened.
• 11:33
  And this actually benefits the incumbents.
• 11:36
  You know, they have people that monitor this and they know when they have to file.
• 11:39
  Yep.
• 11:40
  File, they know when they have to submit the ethics reports and stuff like that.
• 11:43
  You know, they know all this stuff.
• 11:45
  So the insiders have up here to have an edge.
• 11:50
  And uh basically it's a way that the the incumbent parties control who gets on the ballot.
• 11:59
  Yeah.
• 12:01
  In plain English, these uh this particular bill raises the cost to run for office, shortens the time outsiders have to file, gives major parties more control, and makes ballot access harder for independents and minor parties.
• 12:20
  Now, if you're a limited government person, you'd like to see open competition, minimum barriers, and a decentralized political power.
• 12:31
  This bill does everything just the opposite.
• 12:40
  That's another ugly bill.
• 12:41
  Yep.
• 12:43
  Okay, let's talk about energy and energy policy.
• 12:48
  Most South Carolinians, by now, I hope you're aware that when the state government got involved in energy production, it was not a pretty site.
• 13:01
  The VC Summer Nuclear Plant was run by a consortium of independent energy producers and state-owned or partly owned, like Santi Cooper's partly state-owned.
• 13:17
  That was such a fiasco that it cost taxpayers, it will cost them eventually,$9 billion.
• 13:26
  Oh my gosh.
• 13:27
  It was a massive failure.
• 13:30
  So our illustrious representatives want to fix the energy policy in South Carolina.
• 13:37
  So they enacted H3309, South Carolina Energy Security Act.
• 13:43
  I always find it remarkable how they Energy Security Act is going to help us have energy in the future.
• 13:49
  Isn't it wonderful that they're going to take care of us and make sure we have our energy needs?
• 13:54
  And isn't it ironic?
• 13:55
  Usually when they name something, it does the opposite.
• 14:00
  So we probably won't get energy and we'll have energy shortages, and the energy will definitely be insecure.
• 14:06
  Yeah, they're playing the same game that the federal government does, the Affordable Care Act.
• 14:11
  Yeah.
• 14:12
  Talk about a misnomer.
• 14:13
  That made it No care, and it's not affordable.
• 14:16
  Yeah.
• 14:16
  Right.
• 14:18
  So so what actually what this bill does is it kind of streams line the approval for large natural gas plants.
• 14:26
  In other words, uh the Dominion, Santay Cooper, what they call the Kennedys Project.
• 14:31
  So that's a special interest project.
• 14:35
  It allows joint ownership of new natural gas generation facilities.
• 14:40
  Wow.
• 14:40
  It creates a statewide energy assessment and action plan.
• 14:44
  Okay.
• 14:45
  And it allows for annual rate adjustments by the utilities.
• 14:49
  Okay.
• 14:50
  It adds new rules for solar development, advanced nuclear and fusion.
• 14:57
  But it also removes protections for landowners.
• 15:01
  Okay.
• 15:03
  Now the concern by us small government types is that it's a massive expansion of state power over the energy market.
• 15:13
  Amen.
• 15:14
  Again, every marketplace there is a commodities market, a service market.
• 15:20
  Whenever the government interferes with that market, bad things happen.
• 15:25
  And bad things are going to happen again with this new H 3309 law as it gives the state government more control over the energy marketplace.
• 15:39
  So I've already talked about weakening and landowner protections, reduced, oh, it reduces the public oversight, and it's hard harder for to challenge the uh utility plans.
• 15:51
  Basically, it's just that it's a bad bill.
• 15:54
  It's one of the worst bills that passed the legislature this session.
• 16:02
  Now for the next bill.
• 16:04
  Yeah.
• 16:04
  Now this is Jonathan Hill's nominee for the very worst bill that passed the legislature this session.
• 16:15
  And it's S831.
• 16:18
  South Carolina Department of Transportation Modernization Act.
• 16:23
  Jonathan calls it the Toll Road Proliferation Act.
• 16:29
  Yeah.
• 16:30
  Now, the Department of Transportation, if you live in South Carolina, you know that it's currently a mess.
• 16:37
  One big mess.
• 16:39
  It's controlled by the all of the activities are controlled by the state legislature.
• 16:44
  There's various agencies that have to get involved in this.
• 16:47
  Nobody's really in charge.
• 16:49
  There's nobody who's really responsible.
• 16:51
  So this time the legislation, legislator said, we're going to put this now under the executive branch.
• 16:59
  So you now are going to have a single secretary appointed by the government who controls all Department of Transportation actions.
• 17:10
  Now, originally, this would sound pretty good.
• 17:13
  You know, originally, unfortunately, according to Jonathan Hill, it's actually going to reduce the checks and balances because it'll be like a transportation czar.
• 17:24
  Uh-huh.
• 17:24
  Yeah.
• 17:24
  It'd be very difficult to challenge their decisions.
• 17:29
  And it's going to extend.
• 17:30
  Remember, I talked about the public-private partnerships that were the that caused the uh the Simmons uh fiasco, the government-owned uh utilities and the private ones get merged together, uh public-private partnerships.
• 17:47
  This bill actually expands the ability to have public-private partnerships.
• 17:52
  Forget about the free market.
• 17:54
  You gotta have the government in there somewhere.
• 17:56
  Yeah.
• 17:57
  State NGOs kind of thing.
• 18:00
  Yep.
• 18:02
  And another thing uh that's gonna happen is uh there's only a very few number of toll roads in South Carolina today.
• 18:10
  This bill is gonna make it much easier to have more and more toll roads.
• 18:16
  Oh Lord.
• 18:17
  And one of the things, when the toll roads came under the uh legislative control, the amount of money that can were was collected by the toll roads up up in uh the Greenville area, yeah.
• 18:29
  Well, did that money go to maintaining and uh you know making the toll road?
• 18:35
  Keeping the potholes uh filled?
• 18:37
  Yeah, no.
• 18:38
  No.
• 18:38
  That they actually took some of that money and put it in the general fund.
• 18:42
  Of course.
• 18:42
  To fund other things.
• 18:43
  Of course.
• 18:44
  So just because they have you're gonna have toll roads in Florida, yeah, they've made it easy to have alternative routes to bypass congestion and stuff.
• 18:53
  And and though there are a lot of them are gonna private.
• 18:55
  You know, we have a private toll row in Washington, D.C.
• 18:59
  As long as it's run from a free market perspective, where the money actually goes for the toll road, I have no objective objection to it.
• 19:08
  Matter of fact, we believe in user fees.
• 19:11
  Yeah.
• 19:11
  So those who use the roads probably should pay for them.
• 19:14
  And toll roads are a good idea.
• 19:16
  They're a good idea if you keep the state out of it.
• 19:19
  Amen.
• 19:20
  Yep.
• 19:20
  So this is uh, like I say, one of the bills that Jonathan Hill says is the ugliest of all the bills that passed during this legislative session.
• 19:36
  Okay, so let's talk about some bad bills.
• 19:39
  Um there was a bill that I'm sure we all appreciated.
• 19:44
  I would love to give myself a pay raise.
• 19:47
  I I deserve a pay raise.
• 19:49
  My wife needs more stuff.
• 19:52
  So I'm gonna give myself a pay raise.
• 19:55
  So the first bad bill is S933, the legislative pay raise.
• 20:03
  Your state legislatures in South Carolina now are compensated at$47,500 per year.
• 20:14
  And they built in future raises based on the rate of inflation, capped at 5% every two years.
• 20:24
  Now, if you're a small government type, this has got to concern you quite a lot.
• 20:30
  Because it's self-dealing.
• 20:32
  They didn't go to the public and say, hey, what should we be paid?
• 20:35
  No, they determined how much a pay raise was going to be.
• 20:39
  And it's basically a lack of accountability and an expansion of the political class benefits.
• 20:47
  Matter of fact, the uh the pay raise for the speaker, the Senate President, Speaker Pro Tem, all get massive increases also, more than just the 47,500.
• 21:00
  Now, let me take a break here just for a second.
• 21:04
  Now, this forty-seven thousand dollars, and this is what they're currently getting?
• 21:10
  No, this is what they're gonna get.
• 21:11
  They're gonna get$47,500.
• 21:13
  And how how long are they in session?
• 21:15
  How many how many days or weeks?
• 21:17
  January, 1st of January to about the 15th of May.
• 21:21
  January, February, March, April, May.
• 21:23
  So that's five months.
• 21:25
  Five months, yeah.
• 21:25
  Okay.
• 21:26
  So the median income of the household income in South Carolina is a little under sixty-eight thousand dollars.
• 21:40
  And that's for twelve months.
• 21:44
  And these guys are going to get more than two-thirds, almost three-quarters of that for a salary to work less than half a year.
• 21:58
  But they deserve it.
• 21:59
  They're the political class.
• 22:02
  But they don't produce anything except more debt and more uh more misery on our economic and individual freedom.
• 22:11
  Exactly.
• 22:12
  So that's one of the major objections is that it's it it expands the political class, high salaries, automatic raises, leadership bonuses, a more entrenched professional political class.
• 22:26
  And this is the opposite of the citizen legislature model that our founding fathers were viewed.
• 22:33
  Yeah.
• 22:33
  They wanted.
• 22:34
  But I I heard a politician sit there and say, well, it's a lot less than what the median income is in South Carolina, not pointing out that they work or they're in session for less than half a year.
• 22:47
  And this is supposed to be a voluntary uh position, voluntary, temporary position for them to go and do to supplement what they are already doing.
• 23:01
  So this doesn't, I mean, I you know what.
• 23:04
  I would go along with it if they could not if they put in that bill, you cannot have any other in outside income.
• 23:12
  Uh no, not there.
• 23:15
  Wouldn't that be wonderful?
• 23:16
  See how see how much they would gravitas to that.
• 23:19
  Because I'm I'm betting dollars to donuts that half of these douchey people that want this are attorneys.
• 23:31
  Yes.
• 23:32
  And they they don't come cheap.
• 23:35
  Well, a lot of our legislators are attorneys.
• 23:38
  Practice.
• 23:38
  And they make millions of dollars on the side.
• 23:40
  Yeah.
• 23:41
  Yeah.
• 23:42
  And then along with this, I'm suspecting, I'm suspecting the they don't they have additional benefits that are also uh not included in that uh that dollar amount that they have in there.
• 23:56
  I don't think you want to know all the Bennies that they get.
• 24:00
  I probably would want to and then get rid of them, but yeah.
• 24:05
  Um so I'm I'm guessing probably with the benefits and everything else, it it it surpasses what we have for the medium income of the South Carolina families.
• 24:16
  So there's no built-in incentives for these raises.
• 24:19
  Everybody across the board gets these raises.
• 24:21
  Ugh.
• 24:22
  The raises are not tied to performance, they're not tied to fiscal responsibility, they're not tied to limiting government, they're not tied to reducing spending.
• 24:31
  Instead, they're just tied to inflation.
• 24:34
  And that means that they're gonna get a raise every two years.
• 24:38
  Yeah.
• 24:38
  Yeah.
• 24:39
  So well, my parking went up.
• 24:42
  Yeah.
• 24:44
  So here again, our illustrious legislators are gave themselves a pay raise.
• 24:53
  Yeah.
• 24:53
  In a time when most Americans, because of inflation and the economy, are not doing as well that they used to do.
• 25:01
  No.
• 25:02
  Okay, now this is one that touches home.
• 25:06
  Keep your hands off my gummies.
• 25:09
  How many times have you heard the Hoff say that?
• 25:13
  This is yeah, this is the Hof bill.
• 25:17
  This has been directed directly at him as punishment.
• 25:21
  Right, definitely.
• 25:23
  And this is definitely a bad bill.
• 25:25
  H.
• 25:25
  3924, hemp derived consumables bill.
• 25:32
  Very concerned about this because it expands the state power and the free market for those who sell, manufacture, distribute hemp products.
• 25:43
  And uh it it obviously, you know, you can probably tell right away, it increases the regulatory power of the state, even creates a new state authority to look over this particular market.
• 25:58
  It adds licensing requirements, it adds inspection and enforcement powers, and it even has criminal penalties for victimless conduct.
• 26:11
  You can get fines and potential imprisonment for selling hemp products without a permit, if you violate the packaging requirements, if you exceed THC limits, or for selling to adults under 21.
• 26:29
  Now that's an issue there because under federal laws, hemp-derived products can be used legally at age 18.
• 26:39
  But in South Carolina, because we want to protect the children, we have now raised that to age 21.
• 26:46
  Yeah, the children uh marching off to war.
• 26:49
  Yeah.
• 26:49
  Indubitably.
• 26:51
  Now, this also uh requires all hemp retailers to hold a beer and wine permit.
• 26:59
  What?
• 27:00
  Yep.
• 27:01
  It's uh it's a way of of making it difficult to enter the market.
• 27:06
  Well, uh do you think maybe the beer and wine lobby has something to do with this?
• 27:27
  Perhaps you mean it could benefit the existing alcohol licensed retailers?
• 27:34
  I have my suspicions.
• 27:36
  Uh oh, cronyism.
• 27:37
  Now that would never happen in the state legislature.
• 27:42
  So basically, this is a uh a bad bill.
• 27:46
  Um the it even violates the uh federal 2018 Farm Bill.
• 27:53
  Uh it bans chemically altered cannabinoids as Delta VII, Delta 10, and HHC.
• 28:03
  And even though these things are legal under the Farm Bill, they're widely used by adults, they're already regulated by market forces, you know, the free market regulates itself.
• 28:13
  Yeah.
• 28:14
  So we we really look at this as an overreach in the personal choice.
• 28:20
  Freedom of choice.
• 28:22
  We should all have freedom of choice without government interference, without the government picking winners and losers among hemp products.
• 28:31
  Hey folks, I'm gonna take a little bit of a uh little bit of a side break here uh now that we've gone through these bills, and in order for us to keep supporting uh uh the Hoff and his addiction to his gummies.
• 28:45
  I got it.
• 28:46
  Um but we do have uh we do have during this month of June the Project 2027 um campaign.
• 28:56
  And I would highly, highly please beg, and I have got my tin cup out, and uh and I'm begging everyone to go to our website, Libertycrackmedia.com, and go to the menu to the uh to the Project 2027 and uh click on it, find out more about it, uh, and hit that button.
• 29:19
  And if you can give us five bucks to help, you know, with uh with the Hoffs addiction, that would be great.
• 29:28
  So, all right, back to some more of these lovely, lovely bad bills and the lovely work that uh that the uh legislatures in South Carolina are doing to ruin our lives.
• 29:42
  Okay, so as you know, our children are often using social media.
• 29:48
  And of course, we all know in South Carolina that all these social media platforms are corrupting our children.
• 29:57
  Think about the children.
• 29:59
  Yes.
• 29:59
  We've got to protect our children.
• 30:01
  Protect them from Liberty Crack Media.
• 30:03
  Yes, there you go.
• 30:05
  So, yes, our legislature took that up and they passed H 3431, South Carolina Social Media Regulation Act.
• 30:16
  Now, this is literally, literally being a nanny state.
• 30:21
  Yes, most assuredly.
• 30:24
  This bill actually requires these social media platforms to exercise what they call reasonable care with minors' data.
• 30:35
  It restricts how much data can be collected from minors, and it mandates parental control and age-related features.
• 30:44
  It requires these social media platforms to submit annual compliance reports, and it establishes enforcement mechanisms by the state if the platforms failure to do this.
• 30:59
  Now, let me stop you right there, Steve.
• 31:03
  If I've got a platform and this sounds like it's going to cost me a lot of money and having to comply, um I would probably have, and just hear me out on this, uh, when people sign up or uh use the platform and they put in their their data of being um their zip code or something and it's in South Carolina, and I say, I'm sorry, you can't use this platform.
• 31:35
  Now, who does that hurt?
• 31:38
  It hurts uh freedom of speech.
• 31:41
  It hurts the people of South Carolina.
• 31:43
  Yes.
• 31:43
  Yeah, they want to use it.
• 31:45
  They want to get alternative forms of communication.
• 31:47
  Right.
• 31:48
  Or just just that they they want that pl platform just say, for instance, to play games or to, you know, because this is gonna go against things like Twitch, that has nothing to do with, you know, giving information or anything like that, if people want, you know, just the gaming aspect of it, or some of these other ones that come out.
• 32:08
  So um essentially what they're doing is they are carving out our state from being able to access, not they're not controlling and protecting, they're actually chasing these platforms away from users that are here.
• 32:28
  Now, again, you and I both know that there are ways around that.
• 32:32
  All we have to do is get a VPN and say, I live in Las Vegas, use a Las Vegas, you know, thing when I sign up and we're all good.
• 32:42
  I'm not telling our listeners that that's what they need to do, but uh this is something that they they would do.
• 32:48
  And then even when they get these datas and reports and so on, it's only gonna have South Carolina things that these people would be reporting on.
• 32:57
  And so uh, or but that they won't get any report because they're allegedly blocking people from South Carolina from doing it.
• 33:05
  So it's a useless piece of of legislation, really.
• 33:09
  With all of the uh bureaucratic uh paperwork that has to be done, it'll actually won't impact the large companies at all.
• 33:17
  No.
• 33:18
  Because they can they can absorb the costs.
• 33:20
  If they want to, if they choose to.
• 33:22
  If they choose to, right.
• 33:23
  Yeah.
• 33:23
  It'll it'll really impact the small businesses, the small because they don't have the excess money.
• 33:28
  But I don't I don't think the large paperwork.
• 33:30
  If I had the large company, I I think I would not absorb the cost of having that additional.
• 33:36
  I would just block South Carolina users.
• 33:40
  And that's probably what you're gonna get.
• 33:42
  Yeah.
• 33:42
  When you go to the website, you'll get a pop-up that says, you know, not allowed, not allowed in South Carolina.
• 33:48
  Yeah, yeah.
• 33:49
  Right.
• 33:50
  So one of the things that this particular piece of legislation does is it forces them to moderate their content.
• 33:58
  So here we have the government now that boy, they're gonna eliminate about half of my uh Twitter posts, you know, or or most of my Facebook posts.
• 34:08
  And uh it's gonna restrict features and it's gonna limit interactions involving minors.
• 34:15
  This is what you call backdoor speech regulations.
• 34:19
  It is, but the thing is, you and I both know.
• 34:22
  You and I both know.
• 34:24
  Uh that's their intention, but everything know we all know that those intentions backfire.
• 34:33
  Any 13-year-old is probably going to be able to know how to go work around it.
• 34:37
  Oh, I'm absolutely.
• 34:39
  And what it's gonna do is it's going to escalate the problems, not not de-escalate the problems that they're trying to prevent and create.
• 34:47
  But these representatives can now go to the home district and at the town hall meeting say that look, I protected our children and made sure that they're not gonna commit suicide when they browse these different platforms.
• 35:02
  Yeah.
• 35:02
  But then I protected them.
• 35:04
  I alone stood as a vanguard to protect our children in South Carolina.
• 35:09
  But then when the backlash comes and people are angry because they can't access things, then they're gonna say, Well, that's not my fault.
• 35:19
  That's not what my intention was.
• 35:22
  But they the consequences.
• 35:24
  They when they write these things, they don't look at, they don't have this kind of conversation like you and I have just had.
• 35:31
  Unintended consequences.
• 35:32
  They don't talk about those unintended consequences, nor do they ever want to imagine that there are unintended consequences to all the stupid things, and these really are stupid, that they they put out and legislate.
• 35:46
  And that the the fact that the majority of people voted for this has got to show you about the low IQ level that we have sitting in Columbia at this stage in our lives right now.
• 36:02
  Yes, whenever the state legislature is in session, I go through an incredible amount of gummies.
• 36:09
  It really, really concerns me every day.
• 36:11
  Every week, when I read Jonathan Hill's Bad Bill sheet, I just go grab a bunch of gummies, relax a little bit.
• 36:20
  Well, we're gonna regulate that out of your hands.
• 36:23
  So the last piece of uh legislation is what Jonathan Hill calls the legalizing automobile theft by cop.
• 36:35
  Another great idea.
• 36:37
  And again, they phrased it in a very pleasant way.
• 36:41
  They call H-4292 the Roadway Safety and Protection Act.
• 36:47
  Isn't that nice?
• 36:49
  Our roads are going to be safe.
• 36:50
  Yeah, because you won't have a vehicle to ride on them.
• 36:54
  Basically, it uh it it it develops more criminal statutes that interact with existing police powers.
• 37:04
  It turns our police into criminals.
• 37:06
  Well, yeah, it uh three main areas.
• 37:10
  It it it it broadens the aiding and abetting language.
• 37:14
  Yeah.
• 37:15
  So if you're involved in one of these uh highway blockage or whatever type things, that it's a criminal, uh it's already uh uh against the law.
• 37:25
  If you're a bystander, the police can charge you.
• 37:30
  Yeah.
• 37:30
  You're not act actively involved in the criminal activity, but you're a bystander.
• 37:35
  If you're filming what's going on, the police can charge you.
• 37:40
  Oh, of course.
• 37:41
  You can't uh how dare you expose this.
• 37:44
  Yeah.
• 37:45
  And if you have a car that's present during the activity, but it's not participating in that activity, the police can do what they normally do if you're engaged in a criminal activity with a car.
• 38:00
  They can impound the car.
• 38:04
  What this does, it leads the way to increased civil asset forfeiture within the state.
• 38:12
  South Carolina already ranks as a D or an F for the Institute of Justice as far as our civil asset forfeiture policies.
• 38:21
  Yeah.
• 38:22
  We're already already at the bottom of the heap.
• 38:25
  We've given our police massive authority to confiscate our private property.
• 38:32
  And to destroy it uh with the these ridiculous uh no-knock warrant type things.
• 38:40
  Yeah.
• 38:41
  So so basically, even though this bill does not particularly address civil asset forfeiture, it's a slippery slope to doing just that.
• 38:52
  Yeah.
• 38:53
  So those are the bad bills.
• 38:56
  And there's actually a lot more.
• 38:57
  There's probably hundreds of more bad bills.
• 39:00
  Well, thank you for bringing it to our attempt.
• 39:04
  So I'm I shouldn't be uh a total pep pessimist.
• 39:09
  So I asked my asked my uh Japanese buddy, Mr.
• 39:12
  Ai, I pronounced AI, I said, did anything good come out of the last South Carolina legislative session?
• 39:20
  No, it did not.
• 39:21
  Oh wait.
• 39:24
  So his response was there were a few good things if you want to really kind of expand the definition of good.
• 39:33
  Uh we did we did get some school choice expansion where they expanded the education savings accounts.
• 39:42
  But here, this is a government incentive.
• 39:45
  Yeah.
• 39:45
  They didn't open up all education to the free market.
• 39:48
  They just expanded your ability to use government assistance to go to a maybe a government school.
• 39:56
  So you can actually use your money to educate your child.
• 40:02
  You still pay to educate everybody else's child.
• 40:05
  All kind of property tax.
• 40:06
  But you don't have that money going to be taxed.
• 40:10
  So you get to put it into that tax-free educational account.
• 40:15
  A minor, yeah, I I wouldn't say it's a win, but it it cuts our losses.
• 40:22
  Now, there was some progress on liquor liability and tort reform.
• 40:26
  If you've listened to my program in the past, you've heard that many small bars or liquor stores actually went out of business because they couldn't afford the excessively high liability insurance.
• 40:40
  Yeah, yeah.
• 40:40
  It was millions of dollars.
• 40:41
  They had to have millions of dollars of coverage, and it was very expensive.
• 40:45
  They did start to reduce the costs.
• 40:49
  They uh from our respect perspective, it reduced some of the excessive litigation incentives.
• 40:57
  Yeah.
• 40:58
  And it should improve the business climate a little bit.
• 41:02
  And it did start to limit government enabled legal distortions, and it should help some small businesses survive.
• 41:12
  So it was just a start.
• 41:13
  So this should be viewed somewhat positively.
• 41:17
  Because I want to bring a story uh up, and I think it was probably around 2020 twelve, not quite sure, but what it was is a uh, and I'm not sure if it was here in South Carolina either.
• 41:29
  So, but it was a case where uh a drunk driver uh smashed into a car and killed a woman, and they held the restaurant liable because they served the driver wine.
• 41:50
  The problem is, even according to his bill, he was only served one glass of wine.
• 41:58
  Prior to that, he went to some dive bar and got absolutely toasted and wasted, and then met his date at the restaurant.
• 42:12
  The people didn't go after the dive bar because the dive bar was, even if they won, it didn't have much assets to go after.
• 42:28
  So they went after the restaurant that sold him one glass of wine.
• 42:34
  Now, even with that, the waiter said, I wasn't clear whether it was the glass of wine was going to him or to her.
• 42:47
  It wasn't clear to me.
• 42:50
  And that evidently didn't sway the jury, and they ended up getting hammered.
• 42:57
  But there was so much confusion because of the way that the uh the trial went that there were restrictions on the uh defense to be able to one bring up that he had been drinking prior.
• 43:14
  Uh the defense also could not bring up anything on the conversations between the waiter and the uh and the uh people ordering because it would be hearsay.
• 43:29
  And uh for some reason the woman who was the date was unavailable and not allowed or uh was allowed to skip out of being uh called in for that hearing.
• 43:44
  Right.
• 43:44
  Yeah so you're you're commenting on the limiting the government-enabled legal distortions.
• 43:50
  It's that's one of the legal distortions of the system, right?
• 43:53
  Exactly.
• 43:54
  Now there were there was also some movement during this session on reducing the income tax.
• 44:01
  And I I I want to emphasize the word movement.
• 44:04
  Yeah.
• 44:04
  They uh did pass this new income tax that is supposedly going to reduce the income tax, but what it actually did, it raised the income tax for middle income owners.
• 44:16
  Unintended consequences.
• 44:17
  And it reduced the income tax for high income earners.
• 44:21
  Yeah.
• 44:22
  So overall it was kind of a wash.
• 44:24
  Yeah.
• 44:24
  But here again, they could go back to their town hall meetings and say, I reduced the income tax in South Carolina.
• 44:32
  Well, no, no, you did not.
• 44:36
  You know, this good news is not even really that good.
• 44:40
  No, it's it's basically optics.
• 44:42
  Yeah, yeah.
• 44:43
  They say they did one thing, but they really didn't do it.
• 44:46
  And there was also a lot of discussion, a lot of efforts for deregulation.
• 44:51
  Now, they talked a lot about it, but what we really want to see is fewer licensing barriers, less administrative overhead, reduced compliance cost, and easier market entry.
• 45:07
  The state legislature did begin to address these issues.
• 45:10
  Yeah.
• 45:11
  Now, did they do anything?
• 45:13
  Sorry.
• 45:19
  Okay.
• 45:20
  So the Hoff is is obviously a small government, more freedom type of person.
• 45:28
  That's what that's what rumor has, yeah.
• 45:31
  And if you ask me, I would like to see the South Carolina legislative session last only one week.
• 45:40
  And during that session, no legislation could be passed that increased over government oversight of my life.
• 45:48
  Or that infringed on my individual equ or economic freedom.
• 45:53
  The only thing that could be passed during that session would be laws to rescind previous laws and regulations.
• 46:00
  Abolishment, yep.
• 46:02
  We got way too many laws on the books now.
• 46:04
  It's time to actually sit down and say, hey, look, we gotta reduce the size and scope of government.
• 46:10
  And that's the only way you're gonna do it.
• 46:12
  So by now, I hope you understand why us small government types cringe whenever the largest herd of rhinos outside of Africa gather in Colombia in January every year.
• 46:27
  Thanks for listening to the Hoff rant about being trapped in a world of big government.
• 46:32
  Now a word from our glorious leader, the executive producer of Liberty Crack Media, Tripp Detmering.
• 46:39
  Oh, thank you, uh Steve.
• 46:41
  Now, I just want our listeners to understand that we do have this project 2027 campaign that's going on in the month of June, and we really could use your your help.
• 46:52
  And uh I'm not going to waste any time for uh pretending what the optics are.
• 46:58
  We are not, I'm gonna repeat, we are not a uh a nonprofit organization.
• 47:06
  We're not even incorporated at this point in time.
• 47:09
  What it is, it's uh it's just a hobby.
• 47:12
  Uh it's it's considered a hobby uh business as a sole proprietorship.
• 47:18
  And we're going to be changing that in 2027.
• 47:21
  And that's what we need to do is to bridge ourselves to get to that point.
• 47:25
  Um the money is going to be used for our operating, and this is operating over overhead expenses, not rentals or anything like that.
• 47:33
  It's what we have to use for uh the money we have to put out for our uh well, our our podcast um applications and uh the different types of um boy, I'm losing, I'm almost losing all the the words in my vocabulary.
• 47:52
  There we go.
• 47:52
  The mixer, the microphones, the headphones, Steve's gummies, and also Steve's gummies, cables, uh you know, just silly things we don't even think about sometimes.
• 48:02
  And so we're trying to get uh$2,700 to get us to January 1 of 2027.
• 48:11
  And um, you've heard us talk about before, we're trying to build the major live studio for a radio station and for podcasts in the Nashville area.
• 48:21
  That's our hopes and dreams uh that should be coming about.
• 48:24
  But in order to bridge that time, we need some gifts.
• 48:27
  And if you can help us out in any way, just a five dollar donation, but if you can do more, you have options to do more, just go to libertycrackmedia.com and uh hit go to the menu and get to the project 2027 page, or just go to the straight to the donate page.
• 48:46
  If you just want to donate, uh that gives you an option to be a subscriber to.
• 48:50
  When you do uh go in there, you also will have an option in there to sign up for um our monthly newsletter.
• 48:58
  If you contribute any money to us, you will be eligible for getting that monthly newsletter.
• 49:04
  Now, some people don't want to be bothered by having something hit their inbox, so you can opt out of having the monthly newsletter.
• 49:13
  But uh I I'm hoping it's going to be something that's entertaining, informational uh for everybody that wants to join.
• 49:20
  So again, LibertyCrackmedia.com, please donut donut donate and uh and gummy for all of us here at Liberty Crack Media And again tune in next week for conversations with call for glow from campus quads to the capital steps We're talking who we are What comes next Conversations with the Hall Where the big ideas kick the shoes off Liberty tradition side by side on your life conversations with a hop Turn it up and turn it over in your mind Next to the hill or live the low chapter Conversation with the haw with the big shoes conversation with the haw turn it up and turn it over in your mind Is it either law or in between Old School roots and a freedom dream pull a thread see what you find one more question We're out of time Conversations with the Here the big ideas kick the shoes off Liberty tradition side by side Argue laugh and let it ride Conversations with the Hall Hit subscribe and take a little time to think it through