Researchers in the Self Center provide insight and analysis on timely state issues.

Carbon Trading: Opportunities, Challenges and Distributional Effects in the United States

The Cigarette Tax: More Support From New Numbers

Education in SC: A Capital Investment for All

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Policy Briefs on Taxation
This series of policy briefs written by Senior Scholar Holley Ulbrich offers clear, concise analysis of current tax issues in South Carolina aimed at the average interested citizen who wants to understand what is at stake in proposed legislation or in reconsidering existing tax policies.

Assessment Caps and Point of Sale Provision

Comparing Taxes Across States

Why You Should Care About the Index of Taxpaying Ability

This updated 2009 Financing Education in South Carolina: A Citizen’s Guide outlines K-12 public education finance and school governance in South Carolina and current policy issues.

by Holley H. Ulbrich and Ellen W. Saltzman

Download Guide

South Carolina’s population growth, increase in developed land, test score rankings, and poverty indices are under scrutiny and facing unprecedented change. In the midst of these changes, it is important to assess how the state’s citizens perceive they are faring. Understanding concerns, where needs are going unmet, where there is optimism, and where resources should be targeted is the goal of the Self Portrait: How Are We Doing in South Carolina? An ongoing biennial survey developed in collaboration with the University of South Carolina’s Institute for Public Service and Policy Research Survey Laboratory, this project is designed to help us better understand South Carolinian’s perceptions of the state’s current and future outlook, if attitudes are changing over time and where changes in priorities may be in order.

The Self Portrait: Results To Date
  Surveys 1-3: Presentation
  Survey One: Executive Summary
  Survey One: Full Report

The significance of our natural resources and the desire to conserve what we have is becoming increasingly important to South Carolina’s citizens.

Click here to access the planning guide.