But while the Senate bill allows the governor to appoint the director of his choosing, so long as that person meets some basic qualifications spelled out in the law, the House bill requires him to appoint or reject the one candidate hand-picked by a powerful new committee controlled by legislators. Even the compromise that House leaders will ask the House to approve this week requires the governor to pick from among three candidates hand-picked by the new review committee.

That's a significant improvement over the current system, in which the director is hired and fired by a full-time commission made up of three former legislators who are elected to their well-paid positions by the Legislature and can't be removed before their terms end. We've seen how well that system works.

But it doesn't give the governor the ability to appoint the person he wants to appoint unless the committee of three senators, three representatives and three gubernatorial appointees decides to let him. And so it still represents meddlesome interference on the part of a Legislature that just can't seem to comprehend the line that's supposed to separate the legislative and executive branches of government. It's as if the president had to pick his secretary of state not from the universe of U.S. citizens but from among three people chosen by a handful of members of the Congress, who might or might not be trying to torpedo the president's agenda.

Lawmakers say they just want to make sure the governor doesn't politicize the appointment, but another part of the compromise that a handful of senators and representatives have worked makes that claim dubious. The bill creates a new review panel within the Workforce Department to hear the appeals that are now heard by the three commissioners, who also run the agency. Like those commissioners, the hearing officers would be elected by the Legislature. But while the super-powerful review committee would nominate three candidates for the governor to appoint to run the agency, thereby limiting his choices, it would merely screen the people who apply to be hearing officers; the Legislature would be free to elect anyone who passes screening.

That's a significant step backwards from the insufficient 50-cent increase the House overwhelmingly approved last year, it's inappropriately included in the state budget bill - and not even included in a way that will put any pressure on anyone to support it - and it is certain to provoke the governor's veto.

That makes it tempting to call this at best a colossal waste of energy. But it serves one very useful purpose: It shines a spotlight on the refusal of the state Senate to so much as consider the tax that we know for a fact will save hundreds of children from becoming addicts every year, by pricing them out of the tobacco market.

On April 2, the House voted 97-22 to increase the cigarette tax - an astounding margin given the vehement opposition in the lower chamber to any sort of tax increase. One reason was that the increase was offset by a convoluted system of tax credits that businesses could claim for purchasing health insurance. The reason supporters worked so hard to put together that bulky package was that three-quarters of voters support the tax increase, but Gov. Mark Sanford has promised to veto it unless it's offset by some other tax increase - and in fact did just that to a previous bill.

For 10 months, the bill has been sitting unmolested on the Senate's calendar. Senators couldn't get around to it last year because they were just too busy dawdling away the final month of the session bickering over a letter to the Congress informing it of the Legislature's love for the 10th Amendment. (We like the 10th Amendment too, but we're not lunatics about it.)

Council members trampled the law Monday when they met to discuss police plans to monitor the biker group Hell's Angels despite being warned that they were required to give the public a day's notice before holding a council meeting.

Council members' justification for the slight ring hollow: Mayor Randy Halfacre said he arranged the briefing "to give us an update" as council members gathered for a meal prior to their public meeting. He said he doesn't see a violation because the meeting was informal. And he doesn't remember being told it was improper. Councilman Todd Shevchik also characterized the session as more of a briefing than a meeting and added that he doesn't know all the rules.

Ignorance is no excuse. As elected officials chosen by voters to oversee the public's business, Mr. Shevchik and his fellow council members are obligated to find out what the law is and obey it. And the fact that town attorney Brad Cunningham and administrator Jim Duckett say they told the council its actions were improper belies claims of ignorance. Unlike the council members who broke the law, they have no reason to lie.

Mr. Duckett said he "told them they shouldn't, they couldn't do it" without abridging the state's open meetings law. The fact that Messrs. Cunningham and Duckett would criticize the council speaks volumes about the egregious nature of the violation, and we commend them for being forthcoming. All too often, staff remain silent or try to find a way to justify their councils' poor decisions.

The American Heart Association's Start! Midlands Heart Walk, sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, provides an opportunity for us all to get involved. Funds raised through the March 27 event, which will be held at the Colonial Life Arena, will be used to fight heart disease and stroke. The goal for this year's Midlands walk is to raise $600,000.

In addition to raising money, the 30-minute walk serves as an example of the kind of regular activity we all need to incorporate in our lives. A leading risk factor for heart attack and stroke is the lack of physical activity. Adding a routine brisk walk can go a long way toward battling cardiovascular disease, which claims the lives of nearly 2,400 Americans each year and is South Carolina's leading killer for men and women of all racial and ethnic groups.

While many say they can't afford to carve out the time to walk - or simply aren't motivated - the fact is that we can't afford not to be active. Our lives depend on it. And many more lives depend on the fundraising efforts of the heart walk. Go out and participate. Not only will you be helping raise funds for a great cause, you'll be helping your heart.

That's good news for a city that has spent years - and millions of dollars - trying to boost downtown development. Columbia has struggled to make Main Street a major retail and commercial corridor with only limited success. A strong, vibrant city core is essential if the entire Midlands is to thrive.

For a time, the building vacated by long-time clothier Lourie's stood as yet another reminder of the city's downtown slump. It was difficult to sell, falling from an initial listing price of $2.5 million to $799,000. But things took a sharp turn for the better when Mast bought the three-story building Lourie's had operated out of so successfully for decades.

City leaders have said the store's decision to locate on Main Street will be a catalyst for growth in a part of downtown they have struggled to revitalize. At the same time, company officials said Mast chose Columbia because of its revitalization efforts that already have drawn jobs, homes, restaurants and arts facilities to Main Street. The city has spent $4.7 million in water, sewer and streetscaping improvements on the part of Main Street that includes the Lourie's property, but that's yet to get the retailers and restaurants desired.

The real gains downtown in recent years have been in the form of three new office towers along Main Street. But that's hardly all: The area also has seen a small influx of new restaurants, a developer has announced plans to convert a hotel at Main and Lady streets into apartments, and the Nickelodeon art house cinema plans to move to the former Fox Theater, adjacent to Mast. Of course, the gains are tempered by a major employer and Fortune 500 company, SCANA, moving its 900-employee workforce from the 20-story Palmetto Center to a new campus in Cayce.

Assuming that Covanta Energy is indeed able to operate a waste-to-energy incinerator that is safe to the environment and public health - and that is a key assumption, on which there can be no compromise or equivocation - it's hard to argue against the idea.

Ah, but implementation is another thing entirely, and that has far more to do with who we are in South Carolina than with the company, its idea or its technology.

We in South Carolina have a very bad track record with waste in general and incinerators in particular. We don't adequately vet proposals for new garbage facilities before they are approved. We don't regulate them sufficiently to protect the public once they are operating. And even when it is obvious that they need to be rejected, or shut down, our Legislature lacks the backbone to act and doesn't hesitate to prevent regulators from acting. It allows what is usually a small minority of lawmakers, who often benefit in some way from the waste companies, to block any efforts to act in the public's interest.

Beyond the health and environmental shortcomings, this has produced a more intangible image problem. For years we were the nation's dumping ground - for nuclear waste, chemical waste, bio-hazardous waste.

Sunday's editorial ("Don't play politics with Yucca; work to save it") incorrectly suggested that Attorney General Henry McMaster held a news conference to announce a lawsuit challenging the president's plans to abandon construction of the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. He did not attend a news conference, and his actions were independent of the partisan demagoguery by other elected officials and candidates that the editorial condemned. Furthermore, his lawsuit is not inappropriate.

Granted, a $16 million tax cut is a drop in a $5 billion budget bucket, and it won't show up until the 2011 budget. But when $500 million already has leaked out, and you're expecting even more leakage next year, you need all the drops you can get. That $16 million is enough to spare 300 prison guards or Highway Patrol troopers or teachers a trip to the unemployment line.

The Economic Competitiveness Act of 2010 was dreamed up by a handful of business leaders hand-picked by House Republican leaders to produce a wish-list of incentives. The package - whose price tag eventually would grow by tenfold - increases some targeted tax breaks and inducements, tweaks several more and phases out the corporate income tax, which at $168 million a year generates more money than all other state revenue sources except the sales, individual income and insurance taxes.

The theory is that the tax breaks will entice people to start and expand businesses and move jobs to South Carolina. That might work with some of the incentives, such as temporarily reducing the withholding tax a business must pay for each new job it creates. But there's a limit to how much difference a lower tax can make when there's no market for a company's products or services. And the stimulative value is particularly questionable when the tax is relatively low to start with. That's why we never have been convinced that supply-side economics can work at the state level the same way supporters say it works at the federal level.

Eliminating the 5 percent income tax would benefit not just businesses that create new jobs but also those that lay off more workers. And the plan is to phase it out over 20 years, by reducing it a half a percentage point each year.

It would take 20 years before the Congress managed to officially designate a giant hole in the Nevada dessert, which the nation already had spent billions of dollars testing, as the site for the facility.

Progress has been no smoother in the eight years since. In 2006, when the Democrats took control of the U.S. Senate and Nevada's Harry Reid went from minority to majority leader, the Yucca Mountain site was all but given up for dead. Just so no one was unclear on that, the 2008 Democratic presidential candidates - including Barack Obama - vowed to "move on."

Meantime, the waste has continued to pile up at the Savannah River Site and other weapons complexes and at nuclear plants at Jenkensville and across the state and nation. And the need to build a new generation of nuclear power plants becomes more obvious by the day.

President Obama was wrong in 2008, and he is wrong today to try to abandon the only plan our nation has come up with in more than a quarter century of trying to deal with the deadly byproducts of the nuclear age. Claims that his decision has nothing to do with Harry Reid's political power - or Mr. Reid's political vulnerability in this year's elections - are absurd.

Tens of thousands of South Carolinians were left out during the last census. The Palmetto State had the country's second-worst response rate to mailing back census forms in 2000, trailing only Alaska. Census officials had to mail more forms and send people into neighborhoods to knock on doors. Even with that effort, officials estimated that 48,000 South Carolinians were missed. We can't afford to let that happen again.

Undercounts are costly to states and their citizens because one of the ways results are used is to determine how federal aid is distributed. Federal officials put the amount at $1,200 annually per person counted. That means South Carolina missed out on about $58 million every year for the past 10 years - perhaps more, depending on the actual number missed.

Census numbers also are used to allocate congressional seats, and population-growth estimates suggesting that South Carolina could receive a seventh congressional seat mean the count could be worth far more than usual in terms of our say on the national scene. Moreover, the Legislature uses the census when it draws state and federal voting districts.

Far too many people have been overlooked or have opted out of the census over the decades. State and local government officials, civic leaders, church leaders and neighborhood organizations must work to help residents understand the importance of the census.

The public bus system run by the Central Midlands Regional Transit Authority is the building block for transit in our community. It could shut down in late 2011 if it doesn't get needed financial support.

Richland County is committed to keeping the buses running, but Lexington County and its municipalities, even those that get limited bus service, have refused.

Most Lexington governments never have enjoyed bus service, and they understandably don't want to subsidize the service in Richland, where 80 percent or more of the service is within Columbia's city limits. But each county should fund service within its boundaries and be open to expansion. If this region is to reach its full potential, it needs a high-quality transit system that goes to the right places - the suburbs, business districts, high-employment areas and sports and entertainment venues - to support the economy, and address traffic congestion and air pollution.

If Lexington County officials don't embrace the vision, regional transit is dead.

That's an absolute a no-no. There is no reason for the council to lock citizens out of a meeting about a study that purports to tell the city how it should manage the people's budget and government.

Frankly, this study never was justifiable. A sure sign of that was the fact the council had to ask the city manager to find money to pay for it. It's City Council's job - not a consultant's - to oversee and balance Columbia's budget. Instead of making the tough decisions required to dig the city out of its hole, the council decided to cop out and hire a consultant.

The study conducted by EquaTerra, an international consulting firm, doesn't even provide any answers. The summary report has 13 findings for a total savings of $5.3 million. The full report, yet to be made public, has 42 findings for a total savings of $11.9 million.

Many of the recommendations noted thus far - such as cutting back on employee overtime and buying out employees close to retirement - already have been implemented by the city. Others - including charging residents a garbage collection fee - were rejected during last year's budget cycle. As a result, the city was $5.3 million under budget as of the end January.

Eventually, though, you'll wreck. Maybe the first time, maybe not until the 500th time.

You can't send a text message or an e-mail without looking at the phone or computer screen. That means if you're driving, you can't send a text message or an e-mail without taking your eyes off the road for a few seconds; the average is 5. Which means that if you do that enough times, you're going to have a wreck. The only question is how many times is "enough."

The reason we don't have a law that prohibits people from deliberately closing their eyes while they're driving isn't that it's a safe practice. It's that nearly everybody has sense enough not to do it. We shouldn't need a law to prohibit people from typing - or reading - messages on a tiny keyboard while they're driving. But we do because an alarming number of people - and the number seems to be growing exponentially - don't have sense enough not to do that.

It seems clear that this dangerous behavior is related to the addictive nature of text messaging and the aura of invincibility that envelopes the young and the immature. But in addition, because we had not envisioned such behavior, it became an epidemic before we recognized it - much less sent a clear message that it is not acceptable. That message is essential to combating a practice that grows out of a culture that promotes selfish instant gratification and ignores any concept of personal responsibility.

We didn't know it would be so soon - less than a month after the new law was in effect. But legislators are scrambling to close loopholes that payday lenders are exploiting in an effort to continue stripping millions of dollars from S.C. consumers.

It's no surprise. The deep-pocketed legalized loan sharks have made an art - and a very handsome living - out of side-stepping regulations that states have passed in an effort to rein them in. They were at work finding ways to exploit or avoid South Carolina's new law well before it went into effect Feb. 1. The lenders refused to put outstanding payday loans into a mandatory statewide database, temporarily neutralizing the key protection in the law: a limit of only one outstanding loan of no more than $550 per customer at a time. Some customers have two, three or even 10 loans outstanding. Not placing those already over the new legal limit in the database put them in position to get yet another loan and fall deeper into debt.

While lawmakers say there's little they can do to fix that particular problem - it will eventually work itself out, although many will be hurt in the process - some legislators do want to close two other loopholes.

Sen. Wes Hayes and others have sponsored a bill that attempts to stop payday lenders from obtaining supervised lenders licenses in an effort to escape the payday lending law. Under state law, supervised lenders, such as title lenders, can charge any interest rate they want as long as they are licensed, notify the state and post the rate. They can offer small unsecured loans over longer terms than the two-week payday loan.

Because of this community's generous, caring collective heart, the United Way of the Midlands expects to reach its $10.2 million 2009 campaign goal. As of Thursday, agency officials were projecting they would come in $70,000 short of the mark but were discussing ways to close that gap.If the agency reaches this year's goal - there's still time for those who want to give to do so - it would rank among just 15 percent of campaigns nationwide to top their previous year's total. Last year, the United Way of the Midlands raised about $10 million.

The Midlands' generous response to the United Way couldn't have come at a more critical time. The brutal recession has ravaged family incomes across the nation. The city of Columbia has been hit particularly hard. More than one of every four Columbia residents is living in poverty, according to a study by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think thank. The poverty rate within Columbia's city limits is 28 percent - up more than a quarter from 22 percent a decade ago.

And don't be mistaken; the poor aren't simply people who don't have jobs. The fact is that many working people are struggling to make ends meet, a problem the United Way discovered in doing its latest community survey, Facing Facts. The survey identified poverty and the struggle to meet basic needs, access to affordable health care, education for the work force and transportation among the community's top priorities for funding assistance. The United Way supports programs in Richland, Lexington, Fairfield, Newberry, Orangeburg and Calhoun counties.

Human service needs in these areas were great even before the economy faltered. Not surprisingly, those needs have grown rapidly as people have been furloughed, had their pay cut or lost jobs. Fortunately, the United Way and the agencies and initiatives that benefit from its fundraising will be better able to help those going through difficult times.

So the proponents of state-sponsored gambling hauled out statistics from an Atlanta Journal-Constitution marketing survey that showed the average Georgia lottery player was a white man who made more than $35,000 a year.

The data were clearly misleading, as they told us only whether individuals ever play but ignored how often they play and how much they gamble. And in fact by the time proponents in South Carolina started using them, the newspaper had ditched its marketing company and had new data that showed that those who played five or more times a month were disproportionately black and poor.

It was an important learning experience for opponents, who though unable to stop the lottery still were in a position to help shape the rules. One of those rules was that the lottery had to collect data showing who was gambling. Although it's probably futile to think that our state ever would get out of the gambling business, it's at least theoretically possible that at some point legislators could decide that the way the lottery was being operated was unconscionable, and order changes.

But we never got the data we envisioned. Lottery officials chose to collect and report the information that would make the lottery look like a wonderful, egalitarian thing that was supported mostly by upper-income folks who just wanted a bit of a distraction. And critics, worn out from the fight, did little to protest.

-To jump start the state's laggard commercial real estate market.

- To reduce the inequity between taxes for commercial and owner-occupied property.

- To reduce the pressure the Legislature has put on local governments to raise taxes even when they don't need to.

The problem is that the legislation would actually do more harm than good.

Theirs tend to be the first budgets cut when money is tight and the last ones restored when the economy roars back. And adding insult to injury, the legislators who lead the charge to slash their budgets complain the most when they raise tuition to make up the difference.

In any event, the precipitous decline in state funding has strengthened the colleges' hand, making it more difficult for lawmakers to argue when officials say that if the state isn't going to fund them, it shouldn't be telling them how to do business.

That's not an entirely illegitimate argument, although it's not as airtight as proponents believe. But if the state can't afford to fund higher education adequately right now, the answer isn't to give up and cut the colleges loose. The answer is the same as it always has been: The Legislature needs to set our state's higher education policy, and it needs to pay to implement that policy.

We are fortunate right now to have excellent leaders of all three of our research universities, and at several of our teaching colleges, who are committed to working together in the best interest of our state.

And it's all being done to accommodate one business - a business, we might add, that willfully put itself in a position to be in possible violation of the smoking ban. The proposed change could potentially open the floodgates to others opportunists looking for a way around the restrictions. That must not be allowed to happen.

The amendment City Council is considering would exempt a cigar bar, defined as a bar that "generates 35 percent or more of its annual gross income from the sale on the premises of cigars, tobacco products and other paraphernalia." The amendment would not apply to cigarettes. Columbia's business license division would determine a cigar bar's eligibility by reviewing its financial documents.

Councilman E.W. Cromartie was right to characterize this as a "backdoor way to have smoking in bars." He also said that it "guts the whole essence of the ordinance if we allow bars to be in a position to have people smoking in them." The council must remember that many bar owners were unhappy when it approved the workplace smoking ban in 2008 that included bars and restaurants. There had been an attempt to exempt bars, but that, fortunately, failed.

If the council proceeds with this ill-advised change, it will create a problem that wouldn't have existed if the business it now seeks to appease had not changed its status. The business - The Tobacco Merchant on Bower Parkway -already was covered under an exemption for retail tobacco stores, defined as stores that sell tobacco products and other products that are "merely incidental."

If the police officer doesn't arrive until after the robber has made his get-away, you can find out the same information. You can even get the officer's name.

If emergency medical technicians arrive too late, or if your child dies while the ambulance sits in your driveway waiting for a backup driver to show up, you are in the dark. State law says it's none of your business how long it was between the time you called 911 and the ambulance headed for your house, which means it's none of your business whether 911 operators dropped the ball or EMS dropped the ball or no one dropped the ball. It's none of your business how long the ambulance was tied up by bureaucratic rules. It's none of your business who the emergency technicians were, which means it's none of your business whether they were rookies or veterans, or whether they had a history of arriving late.

In fact, you can't even get the raw data that would show average EMS response times, which local governments often use to determine how much public money to spend on staff and equipment.

If you think that's an outrage, you're right.