The last time the state’s budget was this small, gasoline cost a buck a gallon and South Carolina had a half-million fewer residents.
That was in the fall of 1999, when George W. Bush was running for his first term as president and the Internet stock bubble had yet to pop.
Now, more than a decade later, we’ve been through two recessions and just about everything costs more — fuel costs have more than doubled, college tuition has nearly tripled, health care has soared.