Joey Millwood is a newspaperman and lifelong resident of Spartanburg County. He is a product of Spartanburg public schools, having attended Z.L. Madden Elementary, Whitlock Junior High, and Spartanburg High School.
As a journalist, Joey has written for the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, the Tryon Daily Bulletin, Hometown News, and the USC Upstate Carolinian.
Joey is also a lifelong conservative. He helped found "South Carolina Conservatives". When he was at USC Upstate, he was a member of College Republicans, and helped organize the Rally for America. Joey is currently the Republican President of the Landrum Precinct. Joey will work to bring our conservative values back to Columbia.
Joey also has a history of community activism and volunteerism. His involvement as a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity when he was at USC Upstate included being the author of the community service newsletter, public relations chairman, and finally President of the fraternity. Joey is now the fraternity’s Alumni advisor.
Joey has also been an active volunteer with:
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Adopt a Highway, |
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Multiple Sclerosis Society, |
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Cancer Society, |
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American Red Cross, |
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Greyhound Rescue, |
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IMPACT at the University of South Carolina Spartanburg, and |
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Rita Allison’s campaign for Lt. Governor |
Joey and his wife, Erin Henderson Millwood, have a newborn daughter, Eliza. The family resides in Landrum.
ISSUES
JOEY MILLWOOD: A CONSERVATIVE FOR A CHANGE
I believe we need to bring conservative reforms to the State House in Columbia.
You would think that with Republicans in charge of Columbia, government spending would be getting cut, and programs would get reviewed every year to see what works and what doesn’t.
And you would be spectacularly wrong.
Even while Republicans have held the House, the Senate and the Governor’s Mansion, government has grown by 41% in the last three years alone. Our government remains in an out of date structure that costs our taxpayers 30% more than average taxpayers in other states. As a party, we have lost what it means to be fiscally conservative!
I want to bring that conservatism back to the way we govern South Carolina in the legislature. Imagine – if we had put a reasonable cap on the growth of government spending in 1995, allowing government to grow no faster that our citizens ability to pay, we would have had enough leftover revenues to eliminate the state income tax – next year!
That is the first thing I want to accomplish in Columbia – a state spending cap that is tied to the state income tax rate. In fifteen short years, we could eliminate the state income tax, saving South Carolina families an average of $2500 a year! Businesses have been known to relocate to states without income taxes – which would certainly be a boon to our state’s unemployment rate, which now consistently lags in the bottom five.
Our state’s unemployment rate is also harmed by unfair competition from illegal immigration. Illegal aliens will also cost our state $186M in taxpayer dollars this year.
I will support measures to rein this crisis in by doing what other states have done – make those who apply for state benefits prove they are legal residents of our state, make police officials check the immigration status of everyone they arrest, and make businesses that want to contract with the state verify the legality of their workers before getting state money.
These are just a few things we could do to kick start our state economy and restore fiscal discipline to Columbia. But they are the necessary first steps that I will take if I am elected.