My apologies to Joe Erwin. Oh, I still think the S.C. Democratic Party chairman was wrong to say the governor’s vetoes threatened to turn us into a third-world country, a separate proposal of the governor’s almost, but not quite, fits that description.
In my reaction to Mr. Erwin’s Thursday press release, I said it’s more accurate to say that in some ways South Carolina is a third-world country, and that the governor doesn’t understand the need to do something about it.
Well, it’s worse than that. The governor is fixated on the idea of not letting the state budget grow any more than the rate of inflation, or some such arbitrary formula. He explains this with Ross Perot-style charts, and clothes it all in populist rhetoric (which is odd, because the wonkish 
Mr. Sanford is a most unlikely populist) about not letting government grow faster than family incomes.
He completely disregards a couple of important points. First, we’re just coming off several years in which a number of agencies took drastic, double-digit cuts in money needed for essential services. (And while the governor is obsessed — and I think rightly so — with restoring the trust funds raided during hard times, he has only passing interest in restoring operating funds for critical agencies.)
Secondly, if we’re going to increase the rate of growth in family incomes — which the governor constantly touts as a top goal — we’re going to have to invest in some basic wealth-producing infrastructure, such as, say, our shamefully neglected rural schools. The governor still thinks the solution to educating the rural poor is to offer tax credits that they’re not eligible for (because their income’s too low) for attending private schools that they either can’t get to for lack of transportation, or which won’t accept them, or both.
In short, the governor proposes not merely to be passive on the subject of our third-world status. His arbitrary spending cap would be an active measure to prevent our ever getting out of that situation. Put another way, he proposes that government never do any more than it does right now — not only to educate the state’s children, but to keep our roads and prisons safe, and our critically mentally ill off the streets of our cities (and out of jails and emergency rooms).
That is a formula for perpetual mediocrity, or worse.
The governor would call this "big government" talk. No, I just want our state leaders to do what they should have done a long, long time ago: Start out by pretending we don’t have a government. Then look at the state’s needs, and figure out which ones government needs to address. Then figure out the best way to get the job done, in terms of organizational structure and resources. Then blow up the current structure and replace it with the logical one. And, now that you have a price tag, design a fair, consistent and economically sound tax system (something we definitely don’t have today) to pay for it.
That’s what we call "comprehensive tax reform." And it should be the Legislature’s top priority when it comes back in January (just as it should have been this year, and last year, etc.).
Using uncharacteristically demagogic language, the governor says he and the Legislature stand on opposite sides of a "legitimate, real divide on taxpayer issues versus spending." The true divide is between a Legislature that despite its many flaws — and they are legion, and often appalling — is actually trying to deal with the real world (however ineffectively) and a governor who sits around and spins libertarian theories and never looks up to see the reality around him.
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Bravo, Mr. Warthen. I can only hope that your insight is contagious.
I love this blog idea. Always felt I wanted to reply and, when trying the e-mail address at the end, got “this page has expired” note.
Anyway, you mention our inequitable tax system in SC. Now I am much more familiar with the federal tax mess and the fact that I now find it difficult to stay on top of all I must to use it, but I don’t pay much attention to the state system.
Tell me why it is inequitable and what the legislature could do to correct it? I just think of it as 6% income tax, 6% sales tax (was easier figuring 5%)and property tax and personal property tax. Tell me why it is inequitable so I can understand it. Thanks! Like many citizens I sort of feel I can do nothing about taxes.
Mr. Warthen, You always seem to have a level head when it comes to sizing up an issue. I have created a shortcut to your blog, as I think it will be good reading in the future. I just have a comment about the deplorable conditions of the I 95 corridor schools. Why don’t we create a toll road situation along I 95 to generate monies for these schools? The travelers who frequent I 95 on their way from NY to Fla could part with $.50 on their trip down and $.50 on the return trip. Then richer districts (like Richland 2) could maintain programs for their children without taxpayers having to take on more debt for failing schools. I don’t think most folks going on vacation would miss that dollar.
Governor Sanford has all the idiosyncracies of someone we all enjoyed a few election cycles ago, you know, the guy with the big ears and wait for it, CHARTS!!!!! Even the hand motions and pointy headed talk.. And that is just what this man is all talk – and no action. He could not get build consensus to get himself out of a wet paper sack!
Furthermore, He is also an egg headed Libertarian and he allows these pointy headed ideas to over rule common sense. This is not pork! This is about helping people to help themselves. But Mark cannot understand that, after all this is the same Mark Sanford who tells poor black children in Allendale County that they can have better schools if they just study harder, and their parents pay more taxes, and get local business to pay for school related expenses. Sure Governor, and I have lake front property for sale at a real deal in the center of the desert in Saudi Arabia!
Governor Sanford has all the idiosyncrasies of someone we all enjoyed a few election cycles ago, you know, the guy with the big ears and wait for it, CHARTS!!!!! Even the hand motions and pointy headed talk… And that is just what this man is all talk – and no action. He could not get build consensus to get himself out of a wet paper sack!
Furthermore, He is also an egg headed Libertarian and he allows these pointy headed ideas to over rule common sense. This is not pork! This is about helping people to help themselves. But Mark cannot understand that, after all this is the same Mark Sanford who tells poor black children in Allendale County that they can have better schools if they just study harder, and their parents pay more taxes, and get local business to pay for school related expenses. Sure Governor and I have lake front property for sale at a real deal in the center of the desert in Saudi Arabia!
See for your self, this Governor is really way out there. http://tinyurl.com/bxj3n
Nothing Sanford is doing now is at odds with the libertarian stances he’s taken consistantly since he was in the U.S. House. And you endorsed him for SC governor in The State’s editorial pages.
What on earth did you expect?
Goodness, what a seriously bad post with a ton of strawmen and species arguments. It’s hardly worth my time to knock all the arguments off their high horse here. I’ll stick to just one:
“No, I just want our state leaders to do what they should have done a long, long time ago: Start out by pretending we don’t have a government. Then look at the state’s needs, and figure out which ones government needs to address. Then figure out the best way to get the job done, in terms of organizational structure and resources.”
Goodness, are you a Sanford supporter or not? THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT he is trying to do. The AAA bond rating is the only thing that keeps the state’s finances having any sort of worthy mention at all. Sanford is attempting to reorganize state government drastically. Personally, I would love to detonate the Tillman constitution – with all its good ol’boy provisions, take a few serious cracks at the state legal code and begin again.
SC is operating on government that was designed to keep the darkies down, the Feds. out, and keep the populist leaders in power. Total government restructuring is what is needed and only one politician is proposing that, and that’s Sanford.
SC is not a third world state, at least where I sit in the Upstate. The economy is humming along. Perhaps if the rest of the state had economic and political structures like the Upstate, the State wouldn’t have to endorse Sanford for governor and then spend the next 3 years tearing down the proposals he said he would do 3 years ago.
Jason, a couple of points:
We endorsed the governor on the basis of his ambitious government restructuring proposal, which was more or less the exact same agenda that has been a top priority for this newspaper for the past 14 years. He was kind a new convert to the cause, but he seemed enthusiastic about it.
He didn’t make nearly as big a deal of his two main libertarian proposals (his ANTI-government proposals, as opposed to his GOOD government proposals), and when he did talk about them during the campaign, they were in a less objectionable form (he wanted to offset his income tax cut with a gas tax increase, and instead of using tax policy to induce people to abandon the public schools, he proposed a fairly limited voucher program). Still, we made it VERY clear that we opposed those proposals at the time, even though they seemed relatively minor parts of his platform.
Only after his election did it become clear that he would spend the lion’s share of his political capital on those proposals, while being far too quick to accept defeat on restructuring.
In other words, his agenda in office has been upside-down, in terms of priorities, from what he had hoped for, and thought we had reason to expect, during the campaign.
I hope that helps explain our position a little better.
— Brad Warthen
Brad-
I’m glad you’ve got your own blog, regardless of whether you know how to run it or not. It’s a good place to praise you and a good place to whack you, depending on which is deserved.
Years ago, a nationwide organization formulated a motto that rings with wisdom: “Less government, more personal responsibility, and with God’s help, a better world.” I subscribe to the general idea. It is sound.
Governor Sanford, more so than any governor in the 21 years I’ve been a resident here, seems to get it. He realizes that, in many respects, government is a FAILURE at doing what it claims to set out to do.
The solution, therefore, is to dismantle it, and, where necessary, erect NOTHING in its place.
Since a popular notion is that government is a place where you simply make a law to legalize stealing from someone else, it naturally is hard to reign in because there are vested interests in maintaining that “status quo.” Liberals will not give up the milk bottle without a fight. We conservatives acknowledge that.
A prime example is the government school lobby. A lot of people making a lot of money stand to lose if Sanford’s ideas on education get traction. That’s where the opposition really emanates.
It has nothing to do with education, because if it did, only a fool would continue to maintain that government education is worth the money spent on it.
That’s what Sanford faces. That’s what all of us who are true conservatives face.
Liberalism is like cancer. It is difficult to root out once it gets started. It is difficult to treat, difficult to eliminate, and difficult to stop it from metastisizing. It burrows in and lodges with claws. It spreads and causes destruction everywhere. It is opportunistic. It feeds upon the host and perverts its energy. Yes, liberalism is like cancer.
Even in a “conservative” state like South Carolina, we have massive pockets of that cancer.
The RINOS (Republicans in name only) are still in power, unfortunately. They have no real intention of removing the cancer, they just feed on the bottle from the opposite side of the aisle. With no effective philosophy to build on, they make the same mistakes as Democrats, only not so flagrant. Look at the behavior of these classless fools. It’s no wonder we have problems governing this state.
We continue to hope that, over time, people will get a better sense of what works and we’ll decide that liberty is better than government milk. In my opinion, less is more. And much less is much more.
You want to “restructure” state government? Fine. REMOVE as much as possible and the cancer patient has a greater chance of recovery.