Washington — Growing up in Bamberg, S.C., Nikki Haley was a frank girl — for good reason. By age 13, she was doing the accounting for her family’s fashion-retail business and had to keep a close eye on the bottom line. Two decades later, Haley, the Palmetto State’s 38-year-old governor-elect, pledges to bring that same business-friendly, just-the-facts approach to the state capital. This week, she sat down with National Review for a wide-ranging interview about her gubernatorial goals and the future of the Republican party.
Haley, before having even taken office, is widely considered to be one of the GOP’s rising national stars. With her wide smile, Sikh-American heritage, southern charm, and conservative values, she has been cited in Beltway circles as a potential 2012 vice-presidential pick. Haley shrugs off the big-ticket buzz. “I can’t even imagine that,” she chuckles. Governing — not veep chatter — is on her agenda. The new gig, she notes, is “not a stepping stone.”
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But Haley does hope to play a role in moving her party to the right in coming years. Already she has been tapped as the next recruitment chair for the Republican Governors Association. Top congressional leaders have noticed her, too. On Wednesday, she huddled with Speaker-elect John Boehner of Ohio and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky at the Capitol.
At a press conference following the meeting, GOP brass made sure that Haley was standing front-and-center at the media stakeout. As Boehner beamed behind her, Haley said now is the time “to start conversations about why we don’t need mandated health care and what we as states can do with solutions instead. . . . We are not just going to say no, but we’re actually going to tell our federal leaders what we can do instead so that they can go back and fight for why states should have more rights.”
SHE MEANS BUSINESS Haley says states need to rethink their relationships with the federal government. “They have gotten to where they take federal funding because they just think, ‘It’s there,’” she says. “We want to go back to the idea that you don’t take federal dollars just because they’re matching something; if it doesn’t meet the core functions of your agency, we don’t want it.”
“People have lost faith in Congress, and it’s up to the governors to really step up and show what good reforms are,” Haley says. “You will see me fight to eliminate the corporate-income tax in our state. We are already a right-to-work state. If we can eliminate the corporate-income tax, we will be a magnet for companies that want to move here.”
Washington can also do its part. On extending the Bush-era tax rates, Haley argues that failing to extend the current tax rates would amount to raising taxes — terrible policy during tough economic times. “We can’t have [that],” she says. “You are going to increase unemployment by doing that. You’re going to close down businesses by doing that.”
“I think we have to understand that if you take care of your small businesses, you take care of jobs, the economy, and everything else,” Haley says.“If you give small businesses cash flow, if you give them profit margins, they don’t go out and go on vacation — they hire people, they expand their businesses. That’s the key.”
South Carolina has been fortunate in the last few years. We have a great oppportunity with Boeing moving into Charleston. We have a new Govenor with fresh ideas and we have Tim Scott. Senator DeMint always does a good job for us. This is going to be a good year for SC conservatives.
As a resident of SC I am glad my wife and I voted for Nikki Haley, Jim Demint and Tim Scott. We the people are sending a clear message to Washington.
We will get our financial house in order by getting ride of government excess and waist.
As a Haley supporter, it is important not to inflate expectations beyond reality. South Carolina has a constitutionally weak excecutive; the real power remains with the legislature which is loaded with big-spending crooks and morons of both parties.
It is hard to imagine Haley or any other Governor being any more successful than Sanford at fighting the inbred culture of cronyism that infects the state - until and unless we are willing to clean the legislative houses with a stiff broom, and apparently that day has not yet come.
I'm a little uneasy that Ms. Barbour is already so much in the tank for the existing Republican leadership.
Why? Because these same Republican leaders failed us when Bush was in power, and now they're back. I'd like to see a strong movement to get rid of all R leadership who were a part of the last Republican administration.
Ok, I am now a very strong supporter of the Gov. elect. I've read a number of articles and interviews in the different archives and am very pleased with her approach and attitude.
May she flush out the deeply dark corners of the state government and get back to a strong conservative structure. Maybe we can get rid of Lindsey Graham, too.
The next responsibility of the citizens of SC is to remove Graham and replace with a true conservative. You don't need a finger in the wind checking the direction of the breeze.
Haley needs to look at California for the failure of term limits. I once supported them, but the terming out of legislators created an amateur senate and assembly who looks to lobbyists for answers. The lobbyists are former state officeholders who now know how to game the system!
Democrat Willie Brown is a perfect example of the failure of term limits. He ran the state and met budgets with Democrat and Republican Governors. Didn't like him much at all then, but wish we had him running things now!
Solve the representative problem with NO gerrymandering, restrict lobbyists with sunshine laws, and don't let any politician collect retirement benefits until they are old and can't double dip.
