PARENT'S RIGHTS NOW!

According to an article in Sunday’s Post and Courier, Congressional lawmakers are considering raiding a victims' assistance fund that helps pay for rape and crisis centers in South Carolina and other states.

The fund was set up in 1984. Federal criminals are charged fees and that money is distributed to rape and abuse programs nationwide. In recent years, there have been shortfalls in funding and the money collected had to be subsidized from the general fund. However, a $214 million surplus in collections last year for the federal Crime Victims Fund has some legislators seeking to utilize the fund to help pay for shortfalls in the general budget.

We wonder if the South Carolina Legislature will eventually attempt to use fines from the proposed Domestic Violence Bill as a revenue raising/general budget balancing mechanism. We hope that this will not be the case, but statewide trends do not provide us confidence that South Carolina can resist temptation.