Beach Seeks Path to Fund Roads, Cut Waste in State Budget
Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer
The freshman lawmaker from Anderson County still talks about his first year in office by listing the things that never happened. In Columbia’s marble halls, where his party holds a supermajority, S.C. Rep. Thomas Beach of District 10 has built an identity around being the man who quietly says no.
He said a major focus for the year ahead is finding a path to fund the state’s roads.
Rep. Beach said he and other conservative lawmakers have studied how other states manage road funding, pointing to Minnesota’s merit-based transportation leadership and focus on preservation as a model for South Carolina to follow. He said the group has discussed creating elected regional road commissioners responsible for maintenance in specific areas, rather than relying solely on appointees in Columbia.
Beach is critical of talk at the Statehouse on raising the gas tax to address road needs, arguing instead that existing spending should be cut and reprioritized. He claimed to have identified $1 billion in potential cuts in last year’s $42 billion state budget, including what he called $400 million in “absolute waste.”
As examples, he cited long-vacant state agency positions that remain funded, climate change research and funding for a Rainbow Gay Men’s Choir, saying that money could be redirected to infrastructure without raising taxes.
“Their solution in Columbia is you’ve got a bucket full of water with holes, and their solution is to add more water,” said Beach. “I say no, let’s plug those little holes up and the money’s there to fix our roads.”
He said conservatives gained more seats in the recent legislative elections, signaling broader support for fiscal responsibility across the state. He encouraged more candidates to run for State House seats to help cut spending and prioritize taxpayer money on core needs like education, law enforcement and roads.
Beach criticized state funding for what he called non-essentials, such as BMX bike trails, climate change research and $150 million in university tuition mitigation to avoid hikes. He questioned support for classes like “Taylor Swift Studies,” saying South Carolina families work too hard to subsidize such programs.
On education policy, Beach voiced support for school choice, including vouchers for private schools, so “the tax dollar follows the child.” He argued competition among schools would drive innovation and improve quality.
Beach sits on the Medical Municipalities and a Military Committee which impacts the medical industry and health care issues.
“It’s been busy as always,” said Beach. “Tuesday, we have some major policy decisions to try to get Ivermectin over the counter, for example, is one of those committees’ decisions.”
The drug that became a totem of pandemic‑era mistrust—embraced by some as a symbol of medical autonomy and derided by others as a dangerous distraction—has now landed on his docket as a routine matter of state regulation.
But Beach’s attention lingers on a different item of business. “Another decision we’re voting on is the doctors that are trying to start their own practice,” he explains. “They have an agreement with the hospitals where patients are and it’s a non-compete clause. We want to get rid of uh those non-competes because I firmly believe in the pursuit of happiness, the ability to chase those dreams that provide for you and your family,” said Beach. “And so, I think those non-compete clauses are bad business for people who just want to be free and chase those dreams.”
Beach is also keen on those things that were not passed by the S.C. House in 2025.
“I would say that what I feel good about are things that we did not accomplish,” said Beach, who is primarily referencing the absence of a tax increase for the citizens of South Carolina.
“There was a tax hike that would have affected about 70 percent of South Carolinians that the super majority of Republicans were pushing,” said Beach. In a House where Republicans can, in theory, pass nearly anything, Beach wants to be remembered as part of the faction that refused to let this one through.
What emerges over the course of the interview is less a catalogue of legislative victories than a portrait of a lawmaker who sees himself as a brake.
It is an almost paradoxical posture for a member of a dominant party: to be part of the apparatus that governs, and also to insist on being the one who withholds consent. In Beach’s idiom, the work of governing is not only about adding programs or rewriting codes, but about stopping the wrong kind of movement—holding the line against non‑competes that restrain “people who just want to be free,” or a tax change that might land hardest on those who populate his district’s cul‑de‑sacs and strip malls.
Beach discussed this and more in his recent interview with The Anderson Observer.
