Over the last two weeks, the Senate has debated several options to fund road repairs and improvements. They should be commended for making the effort.

After considering redirecting General Fund revenue to the SCDOT, rasing car registration fees, indexing the gas tax and borrowing funds, they decided on – you guessed it – borrowing funds.

Their latest proposed plan is to redirect $50 million from the General Fund to the State Infrastructure Bank where it can be used to issue up to $500 million in bonds.

While that sounds like a lot of money – and it is a lot of money – we should remember that the SCDOT needs an increase of that amount each year to properly fund our roads.

So, does this mean that we will redirect $50 million each year to issue a new set of bonds while paying back the old ones thereby driving us into massive debt and ruining our credit rating? Probably not.

Issuing bonds in this manner resembles using a defibrillator on a heart attack victim. The victim is shocked  back to life and then receives further treatment for his ailment.

Unfortunately for our roads, the Senate solution contains no further treatment.

There are three weeks left in the 2013 legislative session, so the House worked on getting some Senate legislation through for a vote and tying up loose ends.

The biggest issue we dealt with this week was how to prevent last year’s unprecedented data security breach at the Department of Revenue. House Ways and Means Committee debated legislation this week that would enhance cyber security across all state agencies.

Last fall, international computer hackers broke into the computers at the Department of Revenue and stole personal information – including Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, and credit card numbers – for more than 3.6 million people. This hacking included taxpayers, dependents, and minor children. The hacking also included hundreds of thousands of business Federal Tax ID numbers for small businesses.

This was far and away South Carolina’s biggest and most serious cyber theft of private data, but not the only one. The House approved $20 million in money to provide credit monitoring and credit insurance for people who had their identity stolen. Experts told a House committee late last year that a pre-emptive fix would have cost $25,000.

Since the hacking incident became public last October, it has obviously been a major issue with our constituents across the state. Improving data security and implementing procedures to keep this from happening again was a top Republican agenda item for 2013. The people of our state have no choice but to offer up this personal information when filing taxes with the Department of Revenue, so it is the government’s responsibility to protect that information adequately.

A House amendment debated this week provides more years of credit protection for the public, or provides a tax deduction for people who choose not to participate in whichever plan the state chooses and does not sunset.

We also will consolidate information technology and security for state government under one entity – so security measures for critical information are uniformly strong across agencies.

One last item of note. A House Judiciary subcommittee approved legislation to allow concealed weapons permit holders to carry their weapons in restaurants and bars that serve alcohol. The NRA praised the subcommittee’s action in removing “arbitrary restrictions” that were imposed by the Senate.

The purpose of the bill is simple: It allows responsible gun owners to carry guns into restaurants instead of being forced to leave their weapons in their vehicles. Gun owners would not be able to consume alcohol while carrying their weapon, and the law allows business owners to post signs banning guns.

Note to reader - This article is about a bill that failed to advance out of k-12 sub-committee this week. Though the bill was tabled, the problems it attempted to address remain with us.

H3435 proposed to change how students are taught “reproductive health education” in our public schools. It was debated in the K-12 sub-committee meeting on Wednesday April 17, 2013 where debate was adjourned effectively stopping the bill  for this session.

H3435 strikes the current law prohibiting instruction concerning “sexual practices outside of marriage or practices unrelated to reproduction” and replaces it with “instruction must be medically accurate and factual that is age-appropriate and includes education on abstinence, contraception and methods of disease prevention to prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including, but not limited to, HIV/AIDS.” The bill leaves in the statement declaring that “abstinence and the risks associated with sexual activity outside of marriage must be strongly emphasized.”  To read the entire bill, please refer to H3435.

The logic driving the bill can be found in our current birth and risk behavior statistics.  According to the Center for Disease Control, 47.6% of children born in South Carolina during 2010 were born to unmarried mothers. The national average was 40.8%. Compare this to the 1960 national average of 5%. We should also look at the CDC 2011 Youth Risk Surveyto see that 47% of high school students have had sexual intercourse.

Clearly, the cornerstones of our society – family, church, and government – have not responded adequately to curtail the effects of the sexual revolution.

The current law attempts to teach our students the relationship between sexual activity and marriage based on a traditional understanding of morality – without teaching where the moral authority is derived. Though well intentioned, the statistics show that our current approach without the outside support of parents or church to reinforce traditional values does little to influence behavior.

The new law presumes that the moral decline cannot be reversed and proposes that since students are having sex, we should educate them on how to engage in that activity in a safe manner.

Ultimately, this bill failed in committee because it attempted to treat the symptoms of our declining morality, not offer a cure.