YOUR TAXES AT WORK

I-73 isn’t the only phantom interstate heavily subsidized with tax dollars.

From 2006 to 2013, SC lawmakers quietly appropriated $4 million for the “routing, planning, and construction” of I-74.

The interstate would pass through North Carolina.

An annual $500,000 was authorized as was another $500,000 yearly for the proposed I-73 to Myrtle Beach.

The Commerce and Transportation departments were asked under the SC Freedom of Information Act for records on how $4 million for I-74 was spent.

Commerce spokeswoman Alex Clark said the money was transferred from Commerce to the DOT.

The DOT said it has “no documents responsive to your request.”

That $4 million is more than goes to about a dozen state agencies including the Ethics Commission, Inspector General’s Office and the Legislative Audit Council.

As with I-73, no concrete has been poured for I-74.

Yet DOT spent at least $77 million since 2004 on the I-73 project and can’t account for $8 million of it.

A lobbying firm hired by Gov. Henry McMaster for $15,000 a month has been spending part of its time working to win federal funding for the I-73 project.

DOT applied for a $348 million federal grant for I-73 from Marion County to near Myrtle Beach.

A map on the website of a Myrtle Beach-based National I-73/I-74/I-75 Corridor Association shows a merged I-73/I-74 from North Carolina between Charlotte and Fayetteville into South Carolina through Marlboro, Dillon and Marion counties.

I-73 and I-74 would be about 175 miles in NC.

The organization’s board chairman is SC Rep. Alan Clemmons, R-Horry, and former state DOT Commission chair Mike Wooten is the secretary-treasurer.

The last publicly available income-tax return for 2009 shows the association had $114,500 in revenue and $102,419 in expenses. $72,461 of it went to advertising and promotion.

Association officials did not return phone calls.

Brundrett is the news editor of The Nerve. Contact him at 803-254-4411 or rick@thenerve.org .