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Businessmen form club to curb government spending
By Dan McCue
Staff Writer
It began, like many organizations with a philosophical or political bent, with a regular gathering of friends in a downtown tavern.
In this case the meeting place was the Bull Market Restaurant and Tavern in the Congaree Vista section of Columbia, and the friends were Ben Rast, founder and senior partner of the Rast Group, a Columbia-based financial consulting firm; Don McLaurin, president of Leeward Management Consulting LLC; and Thomas L. “Dusty” Rhodes, president of National Review magazine and a founder of a national organization called Club for Growth.
“I had been interested in economics and philosophy from the time I was an undergraduate at USC, and throughout my life in business I’ve always believed in individual liberty, limited government, free trade,” Rast said of attendance at those gatherings in late 2002 and 2003.
“I’d also toyed with the idea of becoming actively involved in some kind of nonprofit activity involving politics, but, owing largely to the fact that I have five children, didn’t want to leave South Carolina.”
Like, Rast, McLaurin’s interest in limited government and a belief in a direct correlation between government spending and the well-being of business and economic development took hold early.
Soon after he and Rast began discussing their mutual interest, McLaurin enlisted his friend Rhodes and the trio launched a South Carolina chapter of Rhodes’ national political-action committee, which they dubbed the S.C. Club for Growth.
“My main interest in getting actively involved in politics was my feeling that it doesn’t do much good to have a philosophy that doesn’t get translated into action,” McLaurin said. “I think for the good of the business community, it’s important that we get ideas about limited government into the government arena.
“That’s a far more difficult task than you might imagine. And that’s why I’m so happy to have found Chad,” he said, referring to Chad Walldorf, a co-founder of the successful Sticky Fingers restaurant chain in Mount Pleasant and former deputy chief of staff for Gov. Mark Sanford.
Today, the S.C. Club for Growth is chaired by Walldorf and is growing in influence. It has aligned itself with Sanford and has gotten actively involved in a number of state House and Senate races. The group also has begun publishing an annual list identifying state lawmakers and the specific “pork” projects they’ve advocated during the preceding session.
In large part, that activism can be directly attributed to Walldorf.
Walldorf, whom Sanford recently nominated to lead the state Budget and Control Board —a nomination that was ultimately rejected by the panel—said his interest in the Club for Growth and his willingness to accept the chairmanship of the S.C. chapter stemmed from a desire to encourage policy reforms that would spark economic growth.
“The nucleus of the group is a network of fiscal conservatives across the state who are very concerned about the tax and spend policies in the state,” Walldorf said.
“We’re not a group that supports one political party over another. In fact, we’re angry at members of both parties for supporting what we see as unsuitable policies.”
The problem is that when government spends unwisely, it takes money out of the economy that could be better invested by the people in economic development and business startups and business expansion, McLaurin said.
“Unfortunately, when people get elected—and this, I think, is true nationally as well as here in South Carolina—they suddenly feel they have to do something, anything, to earn their keep. They seem to start to think about money as a hammer and every problem looks like a nail,” he said.
Political parties are “notoriously unreliable carriers of ideas,” Rast said.
“Political parties exist for one thing and one thing only—to win elections and maintain their position…not the position of an idea,” he said. “What we do as a club is focus on a handful of economic issues—the restructuring of government, tort reform, and school choice—and concentrate our efforts on a few key races, backing candidates who believe in the same things we do.”
By winning a few key races, the club hopes to bring about significant change for South Carolina’s business community, Rast said.
But the S.C. Club of Growth’s political activities don’t end there, and that’s where the annual list of what it deems wasteful spending practices comes in.
“We don’t only strive to elect candidates, we keep an eye on what they do after they’re elected, making sure they deserve our continued support and pointing out to our members when they don’t,” McLaurin said.
The club looks for consistency in the candidates it supports, Rast said.
“For example, Mark Sanford has done a remarkably good job at being consistent. His views and his actions come as no surprise to us—which is remarkable for a politician who has been in office as long as he has,” he said.
“On the other hand—and let me emphasize that I am neither a registered Republican or a Democrat—President Bush has been inconsistent in his support of business and I’ll give you one example: He campaigned for president as a Republican, a party that traditionally supports free trade, but one of the first things he did after taking office was impose significant steel tariffs. That’s the kind of inconsistency I’m talking about.”
Walldorf’s recent nomination to the state Budget and Control Board’s directorship has also served to draw attention to the group and its positions.
A recent report by the Government Efficiency and Accountability Review Committee, presented to the Budget and Control Board in July, suggested that South Carolina could save more than $500 million by changing the way the Budget and Control Board does business.
For his part, McLaurin believes the GEAR committee’s report, and Walldorf’s role as chairman, helped to legitimize the positions the S.C. Club for Growth espouses.
“The State newspaper tries to portray us as anarchists and crazy people who don’t believe in government,” he said.
“But there’s a huge difference between espousing limited government and no government.
We simply believe government should operate efficiently, and that lawmakers need to realize that not every problem is for the government to solve.”
Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.
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