You know, I’m not even going to comment on this; I’m going to let y’all read it and tell me what YOU make of it…
Related Posts
See if you can make sense out of Sanford’s letter
bradwarthen.com
All The News That Gives You Fits
You know, I’m not even going to comment on this; I’m going to let y’all read it and tell me what YOU make of it…
Maybe I haven’t followed my home town’s news closely enough…
maybe I just don’t understand what in Hell that means in English…
but “let me be clear that in no way does this letter represent an application for state fiscal stabilization funds” looks like a pretty puerile PR attempt to paper over the fact that Sanford has decided to cave to save his skin.
He has done what he said he would do. I am still a little confused about the way that the legislation works. Is the following correct: The law addresses several chunks of money for the states including a total of about $2.8bn. for SC; this letter above was required to receive any of that money; $700m. of the money, earmarked by the legislation for specific purposes requires specific gubernatorial requests which the Gov says he will only make if the G.A. agrees corresponding expenditures to reduce debt; at the present time neither side has blinked?
He had to put in a request by today to start the next clock ticking to actually transfer the funds to South Carolina. I believe that can be as long as 75 more days. He’s got two more months to keep making Leatherman and Harrell look foolish.
What he should have written was:
“I’ll come back for the actual dollars when I am convinced the South Carolina state legislature is done with its phony scare tactic budgets and is ready to serve the people of South Carolina instead of their own personal interests.”
I believe that there is some chance that the Obama Administration and Congress will amend the stimulus act to place those all or part of those funds outside the Governor’s reach by issuing them to alternate grantor agencies. This may delay their arrival, but will somewhat insulate the citizens here from the results of the Governor’s refusal to implement the law as written.
Government language is so bizarre. We have way too many lawyers as elected officials. Doug’s explaination sounds correct. We need recall legislation to get rid of idiots like Sanford. What a joke.
Bud,
Actually today’s paper says that Sanford has until 2010 to take the money.
Why don’t we have a public review of the Legislature’s budget and then decide who’s telling the truth?
I’d like to see Mr. Leatherman stand in front of the people of South Carolina and say not a single dime of tax dollars will go to things like the Hundley Museum, the Okra Strut, PASS testing, etc. before they will even consider cutting education funding. And he could also explain why we need 85 school districts. And so many education boards.
The money needed for education is all there now. Too many of you are too lazy to realize how much you’ve been ripped off for decades.
Didn’t our legislature learn from the previous federal administration how to make spendig palatable. Mr. Bush wanted war in Iraq. He did not want to be seen as overspending. So he just didn’t put the bill for the war in the budget. He got away with this for several years. Surely, as heavily republican as our legislature is, they can figure out a way to ‘copycat’ this technique, thereby making the spending more palatable to Gov. Sanford. BTW, if Gov. Sanford is so concerned about deficits, why doesn’t he suspend some of his tax cuts until we have enough to run this state, to keep those criminals who need to be in jail locked up, to provide the children of this state with quality schooling, and to keep our poorest from starving, or adding to our homeless population? He keeps saying to cut government. I’m all in favor of doing away with public financing for the Hunley, or the Okra Strut, but those don’t seem to be the things that are going, but we’ve turned our safety net into a few dangling stringa, and we’re rapidly turning our state into a feudal system where only the very, very few have access to education and health care while the rest of the population is stuck in ignorance and subsistance living.
Typically low-class Sanford sewage. Blink, cave, and spin.
There was absolutely no reason to openly snipe at the state legislature in this letter.
Yet, here is our esteemed governor, hanging SC’s soiled bloomers on the White House lawn. Does he really want to elevate Hugh Leatherman to national prominence?
Mark’s ideological regurgitations long ago became petty and tiresome. The young people of South Carolina need a better executive role model than this. What we are witnessing right now is GUBERNATORIAL CHILD ABUSE.
Interesting. Maybe it’s just me, but the third paragraph of the letter seems to be Sanford reiterating that any education is good as long as it’s not public education.
I’m not quite sure how Doug keeps arriving at the idea that there is simply plenty of money to go around if only the legislature would buckle up and tighten its belt. I don’t like the idea of more money going into the blackhole of the Hunley museum, but like the argument over earmarks on the Federal level, it ignores the fact that the percentage of the budget made up of these kind of pork projects is relatively small. We’re not going to find 700 million in pork barrel projects in the state budget.
And its hard to imagine how much more “targeted” the cuts can get on some of the big spending programs. Everything is pretty much as cut to the bone as it can be. DDSN is cutting back many of its “nicer” features such as summer camps in order to preserve other day to day essentials like housing assistance. Mental Health, which must meet regulatory laws on staffing levels and other healthcare requirements, has asked for as many furloughs as it possibly can. Same across many other agencies. The money is not there. You can’t possibly expect the severity of cuts that have occurred and expect services to stay the same.
Sean,
700 million represents 3% of the total budget (21 billion). I’m fairly certain a 3% difference could be made up pretty easily if the public was allowed to see just where our money is being spent.
And remember, Senator Leatherman’s budget left out $580 million of stimulus dollars (ooops). So now we’re talking about 0.5% difference. Seems kind of hard to talk about the end of the world coming because of 0.5%.
There are several thousand employees in this state making 150K or more per year. How many of those will be cut compared to people making $50K?
Basically, what the governor is saying in his letter is that he doesn’t want any money designated for public education to go to public education.
I gotta tell you, Doug, your defense of Gov Sanford in this matter rings of counter to your usual tack that elected officials are empowered to fulfill their lawful function. Aside from the fact that you almost always side with Sanford on positions, you are ignoring that he is the elected administrative head of state government, not the policy or legislative head. He may propose policy – budgets, etc., but may not dictate them to the legislature. His attemts to bully them into his budget priorities by withholding access to funds provided by another legislative body is wholly improper. He often reminds me of our old friend Barney Fife of Mayberry – full of rigid, good-sounding ideas, but he keeps running into reality. He just can’t keep that one bullet in his pocket, even when it can do real harm to citizens of his community. His record as Governor seems to parallel that of Barney also – an ineffective idealogue who usually squanders opportunities to serve or lead. In this case, again he is trying to “nip it” with regard to a program he simply doesn’t understand because of his isolation and his supply-side, starve- government orientation.
Since the current budget of the legislature contains millions of dollars of INCREASED spending for education, it would be foolish to borrow more money from the federal government and blow it just because it is being made available. We have to pay it back – at least, taxpayers do.
Jim Rex is just stirring up a phony issue by threatening the teachers and blaming Sanford. Rex wants to run for governor in 2010, and he is not going to have the resume to run against anyone in the GOP, so he plans to run against Sanford.
Some folks are just confused or trying to mislead. The stimulus money is not borrowed from the Feds. It is a grant. The feds are borrowing it, but the state government doesn’t have to pay it back. It is borrowed. It will be paid back (I hope) with Federal revenues.
Another point of confusion seems to be equating state funding with all funding for schools. If state per pupil funding plus special program funding from the state were equal to 2 years ago (it’s less after mid year cutbacks), that would still leave a hole caused by drops in local effort (property tax) and other sources. Is it also legitimate to ignore the inflation in medical insurance costs, energy costs, fuel and other cost increases? I’m beginning to think that Governor Sanford and his apologists are trying to mislead.
Some of the stimulus money to the states is a loan.
Other stimulus money has to be matched by new state appropriations.
All the stimulus money created by federal borrowing has to be repaid by the future taxpayers.
Most of Obama’s supporters don’t pay any income taxes, so they don’t care about this reckless spending. They hope to just get, and get, and get, and not return a thing to society.
Lee, none of the money in dispute is a loan. I’m glad you know most of Obama’s supporters well enough to know their tax status. I’m beginning to suspect you don’t really know all that you know. You know?