Yearly Archives: 2009

The Sanford-Leatherman meeting, according to Leatherman

By the way, after the rally, I heard a rumor that some sort of compromise on the stimulus was in the works between the governor and lawmakers.

I asked the first lawmaker I ran into, my homeboy Doug Jennings, and he said he hadn’t heard about any such, although he had heard Sen. Hugh Leatherman had met with the governor and the governor had gotten in the senator’s face on the subject. Treating that as another rumor, I went into the State House and asked Sen. Leatherman about it.

He said he had met with the gov, all right, at 4:15 at the governor’s request. And they spoke about the stimulus. His version of the meeting: The gov told the senator that he (the senator) had the power to bring the $700 million to SC. Leatherman said, essentially, How do you figure? He said all he had to do was pay down debt with $700 million from other sources (the bizarre “compromise” you heard about yesterday).

Leatherman was agog. He said he had no such power, that it would take a majority of the Legislature to agree to such a deal, and he assured the governor that there was NO interest in the Senate in such a “deal.”

The senator said the governor then leaned toward him and said he knew that Leatherman never wanted to pay debt down; that he was only interested in “growing government.” The senator said the governor actually lost his cool a little, which is a phenomenon I’ve heard about but never witnessed.

Anyway, the senator says he told the governor it seemed passing strange to him that the governor should be telling the senator what the senator thinks.

That seems to be about where they left it. So no, there was no meeting of the minds.

The senator said someone told him that the governor had been on TV in Charleston at 5 p.m. saying that the impasse was Sen. Leatherman’s fault. The senator wondered how the governor had done that so fast…

And no, I haven’t talked to the gov about it. This being after 7 p.m., and me not getting paid to run down a story or anything, I went home. I thought y’all would be interested in the part I DID hear, though.

Video from the rally (I hope)

This is a blog experiment, ladies and gentlemen. I’m trying to see whether I can get video from my Blackberry, shot at the pro-stimulus rally at the State House this evening, to post on the blog. I’ve never tried this before, so stand back, and remember, don’t try this at home. I’m sort of doing it blind, because the file would not play on my computer at all. So I e-mailed it to myself, then loaded it directly onto YouTube. What you should see and hear is the crowd singing this familiar song (which some of you will remember from Steve Miller’s “Your Saving Grace” album)…

Well dont you let nobody turn you round Turn you round, turn you round Well dont you let nobody turn you round You got to keep on walkin, keep on talkin Marchin to the freedom land

… only with “Mark Sanford” substituted for “nobody.” It was that kind of rally. And I’d tell you more about it, except that I’m really tired, so I’m just going to post this experiment for now. Let me know how it works.

Halevi on chance to work with Israel

This morning, I read with particular interest the piece in the WSJ headlined, “Bibi and Barack Can Unite on Iran.” That’s because it was written by Yossi Klein Halevi, who made an impression on me when he was here to deliver the Solomon-Tenenbaum Lecture in Jewish Studies in 2002.

Here’s the main thing I remember about him: He said that he had always voted for the winner in Israeli elections. When he was feeling a little Likud, the conservative party won. When he was in more of a lefty mood, Labor won. Therefore, whatever Mr. Halevi is thinking, it’s going to come pretty close to expressing the Israeli mainstream at a given moment. I don’t know whether he voted Likud this time or not, but he speaks like a guy who still believes he has his thumb on his nation’s pulse when he writes:

The Israeli Jewish public that voted overwhelmingly for right-wing parties did so primarily for security reasons. The Israeli right of 2009 is a mood, not an ideology. And Mr. Netanyahu understands the expectations of his voters. During the election campaign, he spoke incessantly about stopping a nuclear Iran and the jihadist threat generally — not about settlement growth. However grudgingly, Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners will likely accept some limitation on settlement building. And the presence of the Labor Party in the coalition will ensure moderation on the settlement issue. Indeed, the small National Union party is the only right-wing party that places massive settlement building at the top of its agenda, and it will not be part of this coalition.

For all their differences over the nature of a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians, Mr. Netanyahu and Labor leader Ehud Barak have set those aside to focus on the most urgent issue facing the Middle East in the coming months: preventing the emergence of a nuclear Iran and the imposition of an irreversible blackmail on the region. Dealing with that threat will define this Likud-Labor coalition.

Mr. Halevi’s point is that Palestinian statehood and settlements aside, Israel and U.S. need to concentrate on the main strategic issue of the moment — preventing the emergence of a nuclear Iran. He sees the opportunity of working with Egypt and the Saudis, who don’t want Tehran to have that kind of clout, either. He also sees the chance to isolate Iran’s surrogates in the region by building up the economy and “civil society” in the West Bank, which “would present the Palestinians with a stark choice between their two territories: the beginnings of prosperity in a peaceful West Bank, or devastation in a jihadist Gaza.” Which makes sense.

Anyway, I recommend the piece.

McMaster confirms the worst

… or, at least, does so to the extent that a mere Attorney General’s opinion can do. Basically, Henry says the Clyburn amendment can’t bypass Gov. Sanford, on account of the 10th amendment.

There also seems to be some separation of powers stuff going on. Here’s a copy of Henry’s letter, which says “the General Assembly itself may not coerce the executive branch to act in accordance with the legislative will.

James Clyburn, meanwhile, is ticked:

ECONOMIC RECOVERY DEBATE: CLYBURN STATEMENT ON McMASTER OPINION
WASHINGTON, DC—House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn today responded to an opinion released by South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster about the interpretation of the so-called “Clyburn workaround amendment,” Section 1607 in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

“Today the State of South Carolina added another chapter in its ongoing effort to maintain a standard of minimally adequate education.  For over 100 years, the last 20 in state courts, leaders in our state have fought to uphold that standard.  Over the last several weeks and without even going to court—the proper venue to determine constitutionality of federal laws—Attorney General McMaster, Governor Sanford and Senator Graham have gone out of their way to ensure that South Carolina continues its long history of providing a minimally adequate education.

“Rather than renewing the age old debate over States’ Rights and the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution our leadership should be seeking common ground to provide our schools the funds they need to retain teachers and maintain healthy, safe buildings in which our students can learn.

“What makes ‘state stabilization’ funding different from the funding Governor Sanford has authorized to rebuild highways or increase unemployment checks?  Why aren’t Attorney General McMaster and Senator Graham calling on Governor Sanford to use the very same pen to accept the state stabilization money—which our taxpayers are providing—to retain teachers and give our state’s schools the opportunity to move beyond their minimally adequate legacy?”

-30-

If you ask me, there’s a lot more going on here than some sort of Democrat-vs.-Republican tug of wills over “minimally adequate” schools. But then, Rep. Clyburn didn’t ask me.

Neither, obviously, did the governor. So what do we do now? I don’t know. Maybe y’all have some ideas.

Drowning time for state government

Maybe y’all can explain this to me, since I have no morning editorial board meeting at which I would ask Cindi and Warren to answer this question: “In what sense is this alleged ‘deal’ Mark Sanford is offering on the stimulus a compromise?”

Let’s see — he doesn’t want the $700 million spent to “grow government,” which is the phrase used on his home planet for what English speakers call “restoring some of the cuts to essential services.” He wants to devote the money instead to “paying down debt,” which means many things in Sanfordese, including paying “debt” that won’t even be incurred for a generation — anything, absolutely anything, other than spending the money on immediate needs.

And the Obama administration said no, then when he absurdly asked the same question again (the governor is not bothered by repeating himself; he doesn’t get bored), it said hell no with added language to the effect of, “what part of ‘stimulus’ don’t you understand?”

So now he’s offering a “deal” whereby the Legislature spends that money, but sets aside an equal amount from other sources — which means money that we taxpayers paid for state services we expect — to “pay down debt.” So he gets, let’s see, everything that he wants, and the state doesn’t get anything it needs from that part of the stimulus.

Oh, and by they way, you have to go ahead and make every cut in spending that HE wants, and you can take your deliberative process and stuff it down the oubliette.

That’s my understanding, anyway.

By the way, for those of you who don’t understand the governor’s thinking on all this, let me explain it to you. You’ve no doubt heard that the governor’s ideological ally Grover Norquist wants to shrink government “to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” (Oh, and if you follow that link and think, “Mother Jones! What do expect from a left-wing rag?”, allow me to explain that when Grover came to visit with our editorial board a few years back, he brought at copy of that article with him to make sure we’d seen it. He’s proud of what they wrote about him.)

The recent drastic cuts to state agencies are just catnip to the governor and Grover and their ilk. Once you get government down to where services suffer, they can point to it and say, “See how ineffective government is! What did I tell you?” That gives support to their argument that we “waste” even less money on gummint, thereby making it even less effective… and pretty soon, it’s drowning time.

Our governor isn’t about to let some meddling Obama administration drain the tub right when state government is going down for the third time. This is the moment he’s been waiting for.

How much is this foolishness costing us?

Just a quick reaction to this message received this afternoon:

Members of the Press – we just had a very important Senate Finance Committee meeting regarding the state budget and the federal stimulus money.

In an initial Finance Committee budget meeting today Chairman Hugh Leatherman instructed subcommittee chairmen to work into the night creating a budget without federal stimulus funds. He has instructed the chairmen to cut $370 from the House budget, including $161 Million from K-12 education and $44 Million from higher education.

The Finance Committee will reconvene tomorrow at 9:00 am to review the proposed cuts in Gressette Rm 105.

Please email me with any questions.

– Wesley Donehue
SC Senate Republican Caucus

I wonder how much this insanity of Sanford forcing the Legislature to do TWO budgets is costing us, in staff time and such? Drafting the budget each year is the biggest, hairiest lifting the General Assembly does. And they’re having to do it TWICE, because of the bizarre whims of one man?

Do you know what your sin is?

Yes, that’s a quote from “Serenity” — the Operative, in point of fact. Do you know, I once took a quiz online to find out “which “Firefly” character are you?,” and it said I was the Operative. Some of my libertarian friends out there will get a chuckle out of that, but I didn’t like it a bit. Then I took it several more times — going the other way on questions that had been close calls — and each time I was somebody else. Never did get to be Jayne, though, which was disappointing. I didn’t even get to be Mal (I was stuck with the doctor — my least favorite character — and Shepherd Book).

But that’s not the point of this post. The point is that I did the first reading in Mass today, which is a rare privilege. I much prefer doing the 1st reading (Old Testament, usually), but I almost always get scheduled to do the 2nd (usually Paul’s epistles). I really get into the Old Testament readings — they tell stories; they take you somewhere — while Paul is usually too dry and abstract to mean as much to me as it should.

So it fell to me today to do the 1st reading, and this was it, from Jeremiah 31:

The days are coming, says the LORD,
when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and the house of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers
the day I took them by the hand
to lead them forth from the land of Egypt;
for they broke my covenant,
and I had to show myself their master, says the LORD.
But this is the covenant that I will make
with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD.
I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts;
I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
No longer will they have need to teach their friends and relatives
how to know the LORD.
All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the LORD,
for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.

One of the ways that my faith manifests itself is that I see meaning in my being chosen to read this to the people. And this reading seems particularly pregnant with meaning for me.

You see, I’m going through a rough patch in my professional life at the moment — what with being laid off and all. And it reminds me of when I went through a much worse one, almost exactly 22 years ago. And God delivered me and my house from that. I’ll tell you the story of it in greater detail another time, but suffice it to say that the four seemingly interminable days it took my wife and me to drive our two cars and (then) four young children out of the Western wilderness to the East Coast caused the 40 years of wandering in the desert to be much more immediate and real for me. And I have always thanked God for leading us out of there, to the land of my fathers, where we have been blessed.

So that part of the reading, about the earlier covenant when God took the people by the hand and led them out of Kansas — I mean, Egypt — is a reference I personally find applicable.

But God says through Jeremiah that that deal is now off, just as my time of being blessed in my job at The State is over.

So that leaves me with two questions:

  1. What was my sin, if indeed sin there was? Maybe there wasn’t one in particular, since I don’t feel all that much of a sense of loss. But if there was one, I should know what it was.
  2. What’s the new deal?

Mostly lately, my mind has been focused on the new deal, the new covenant that lies before me. As it has begun to take shape — just bits of it so far — I’ve gotten pretty excited about it. And the mind naturally turns to “What’s next?”

But this reading causes me to wonder: Is there a lesson yet to be learned from where I was? If so, I need to figure that out. I’m planning on going to the Lenten Reconciliation Service at St. Peter’s Monday night. So I’m reflecting upon this…

Too heavy for you? Well, then go to the mall, as Jack Black’s character said in “High Fidelity,” just to bring us back to the realm of pop culture, for those who are more comfortable there.

Higher education funding in S.C., by the numbers

xxx
By BRAD WARTHEN
[email protected]


For once, let’s start off with some numbers and dates:

· 17 percent – the amount of the University of South Carolina’s funding that now comes from state appropriations. Our state’s major research universities now get less than a fifth of their funding from state appropriations. In recent years, those in the know have stopped calling them “state institutions” and started calling them “state-assisted.” We’ve now reached the point at which even that seems like an overstatement.

· 1st – South Carolina’s ranking in percentage of higher education funding cut last year. South Carolina, before the December and March reductions, had cut 17.7 percent from higher education budgets. (After those cuts, it has slashed higher ed budgets 24 percent.) The second worst state was Alabama, at 10.5 percent.

· 38th – Our state’s ranking for higher ed funding before the past year’s nation-leading cuts.

· 1995 – The last year that state appropriations, as a dollar amount, equaled the current level, before adjusting for inflation.

· 1973 – The year that matches the current level of funding, once you adjust for inflation. (Think for a moment what North Carolina and Georgia have done in higher education since 1973, pulling light years ahead of South Carolina.)

· $29 million – The value of one grant (from the National Institutes of Health) brought in by a single one of the 13 endowed chair holders at the Medical University of South Carolina.

· 25 – New technology companies started by USC faculty in the years since the endowed chairs program started, which places the university 19th among public institutions in the nation in number of start-ups.

· 50,000 – S.C. jobs provided directly or indirectly by USC.

· 11 percent – South Carolina unemployment rate in February.

· 43rd – South Carolina’s national ranking for percentage of adult population with college educations.

Those are a few of the figures I picked up from the presentations that Clemson President James Barker, Medical University of South Carolina President Ray Greenberg and USC President Harris Pastides (joined by Garrison Walters, executive director of the state Commission on Higher Education) made to a joint meeting Wednesday of two Senate panels that deal with higher education funding, such as it is.

They were there to try to stop the bleeding, and to send the message that dealing a further blow to these institutions’ already last-in-the-nation funding by not accepting federal stimulus funds would be beyond insane (my wording, I hope you’ll note, not theirs).

In some cases, they had requests that bore specifically upon their respective institutions. For instance, Dr. Greenberg’s wish listed included a request that if tuition is capped, graduate and professional programs will be exempted. But in keeping with the extraordinary collaboration that has marked the interaction of the three presidents in recent years (which is no less than miraculous, given the petty, wasteful, tit-for-tat competition that characterized the decades that went before), he also cited priorities shared by all: Regulatory relief (which President Barker has explained as minimizing cost by requiring the schools to jump through two or three hoops instead of six every time they make a move); a state bond bill for capital needs; and passing the cigarette tax increase, with a major portion of the revenue going to Medicaid. OK, so maybe that last one has the most immediate effect on the medical university, but its benefits to the entire state are so obvious as to absolve it of parochialism.

And they had a sympathetic audience. “You’re number one in the country,” in budget cuts, Sen. Nikki Setzler noted. “If that isn’t a challenge to this committee to carry forward to the full General Assembly, then shame on us.”

Of course, Sen. Setzler is a Democrat, but that doesn’t count for as much of a difference in the S.C. Senate as it does in some venues. And when it comes to the federal stimulus upon which the GOP leadership is completely dependent for keeping essential state services running, there are only two sides – on one is Gov. Mark Sanford and a few allies to whom ideology is the only reality; on the other the vast majority of lawmakers.

Republicans don’t come more conventionally conservative than Senate Education Chairman John Courson, to whom Ronald Reagan was a demigod. And here’s what he had to say about the stimulus: “If we don’t accept that money, it does not go back to the Treasury; it goes to other states.” Which is just common sense, of course – nothing ideological about it. But this is a moment in South Carolina history when commonsense statements are in pathetically short supply, so every one uttered takes on added value. In an interview later, Sen. Courson explained the rationale adopted by most Republicans whose top priority is not posturing for national media: He opposed the stimulus bill when it was being debated in Washington. There’s a lot in it he doesn’t like; if he had been a member of Congress he would have voted against it. But that’s all over now. It’s a fact, and South Carolinians are going to be paying for it along with everyone else. Therefore, not taking the money makes no sense at all.

Tuition cost was on the senators’ minds, and well it should be, now that the bulk of higher education costs is on students and their families rather than state taxpayers. “I am pledging to keep any tuition increase for next year to a minimum,” said Dr. Pastides. “I’m keenly aware of the burden that a tuition increase would put on students and their families.”

But what happens with tuition depends upon the General Assembly’s actions – and the governor’s. “Will tuition and fees increase next year?” President Barker asked rhetorically. “The answer is: Almost certainly, but the level of increase is very dependent on what happens with state funding. Tuition is Clemson’s last-resort response….”

Mr. Barker pointed out that the effect of stimulus money on tuition is not direct, since he, like the other presidents, would use stimulus money for one-time, not recurring, expenses. But when asked by Sen. Harvey Peeler the expected effect upon the institutions of not accepting the stimulus money, the Clemson president said it “would be devastating.”

Other senators, seizing upon that word, asked other witnesses whether they agreed with it, prompting Dr. Pastides to oblige them by saying for the record, “It will be devastating, and it will have an effect on tuition” if the stimulus is blocked.

Normally, I’m not what you’d call a numbers guy; words are my thing. So I appreciate that the senators were groping for just the right word to describe the situation. But in this case, for once, the numbers impress me more. We are so far behind in our state. And if our governor has his way, we’ll take an additional giant leap backward.

This is my first weekly online-only column after leaving The State. Watch for more here on bradwarthen.com.

Background materials for tomorrow’s column

Being a creature of habit, I’ve written a column for tomorrow. It won’t be in The State, but it will appear here at bradwarthen.com (I hope that makes y’all feel special).

It’s based on the joint meeting of the S.C. Senate Education Committee and the Senate Finance Committee Higher Education Subcommittee on Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. The heads of the state’s three research universities and of the CHE testified regarding budget matters.

One of the cool things about being unemployed is that I actually have time to go out and do legwork, which I haven’t been able to do for years. I hadn’t even set foot in the Statehouse complex this year before Wednesday. And it’s been many years (perhaps going back to my reporting days in the late 70s) since I was able to sit all the way through a two-hour public hearing.

It was nice to be able to get that sort of perspective for a change. Anyway, I thought I’d provide y’all with some background material for the column. I don’t have electronic copies of CHE head Garrison Walters’ presentation, because it didn’t occur to me to request it, since I had a hard copy from the meeting. Likewise with MUSC President Ray Greenberg’s remarks, since he gave me his personal copy afterwards. But I did ask for USC President Harris Pastides’ and Clemson President James Barkers’ via e-mail, and here they are:

Let me know if you have any trouble opening those.

Is anyone looking into impeaching Sanford?

At the Verizon Wireless career fair.

At the Verizon Wireless career fair. (credit: [email protected])

Just wondering. It’s not that I’m advocating it or anything. Yet.

It just occurs to me to ask whether, once lawmakers have asked him to reconsider and he’s brushed that off (as you know he will), they have a backup plan for making sure South Carolina gets the stimulus that we’re going to be paying for anyway.

The stakes are huge, and they’re way more important than Sanford or whether he continues to hold office. For years, we’ve held our breath at the notion of Andre Bauer becoming governor, but at least he would accept the funding that is essential to continuing such critical services as, say, keeping prisoners locked up or teachers in the classroom.

Did you see the piece in today’s paper about our 11 percent unemployment rate in February, and the projection that it’s going to be a long time before things get better? (By the way, I borrowed the above image from thestate.com. If that’s not OK, somebody tell me.) An excerpt:

More than 900 people showed up this week at a Verizon Wireless career fair in Forest Acres for 120 call-center jobs with $27,000-a-year starting salaries and full benefits.

Though not required, many applicants had college degrees —desperate for work in a state with an unemployment rate that rose to 11 percent in February.

South Carolina continues to have the nation’s second-highest jobless rate, as 241,000 people last month hunted for work, the S.C. Employment Security Commission reported Friday.

Yep, we have the second-highest unemployment rate, and a couldn’t-give-less-of-a-damn governor.

The problem with the Clyburn bypass on stimulus funds is that it might involve a 10th amendment violation, what with the federal government telling a state what it has to do. But the bizarre situation we find ourselves in is that we have a governor who couldn’t care less about our actual state or its needs, but whose every decision is guided by his own desire to strut upon the national stage.

So, this raises the question: Is anyone at the State House looking into what it would take for South Carolinians to seize control of their own fate, which could involve taking control back from this ideological dilettante?

I have no idea what the legal possibilities are. But surely someone does. And surely someone is considering this contingency.

Blogging is harder when you’re unemployed

You know, I thought I’d be posting more than ever once I wasn’t working. I was really wrong.

When I was working, I was at a computer all day, and could post while I was doing other things. Run across something interesting in e-mail? Post it. Waiting for somebody’s column to come in? Write that post you’ve had at the back of your mind all day.

By contrast, this week I’ve found myself running around town meeting with various people — working on getting employed again — and once I stop for a minute and find myself at a machine, I’m too tired to blog.

I seem to hit a wall about 4 p.m. each day — total exhaustion. Maybe it’s psychosomatic, but I don’t know. I mean, I was just as stressed those last two weeks of work, but I never felt tired. I’d work until 8 or so without batting an eye. Remember, I wrote three columns in three days, there at the end, and energy was never in short supply.

Now, suddenly, when I don’t have to put in the long hours at the office — I’m worn out at the time that I normally think of as midafternoon. I’m fine in the morning — full of pep, ideas and so forth. But by 4, I want to lie down.

Presumably I’ll adjust and stop doing that, I guess, but in the meantime I’m getting up earlier to make my productive time a little longer — which makes me even more tired when I hit the wall, but whatever.

Anyway, I was going to write a “column” — a column-length post that would go up on Sunday — about the Senate hearing I attended Wednesday at which the presidents of USC, Clemson and MUSC made their budget pitches. That is, I was going to write it today. But I’ve spent the afternoon babysitting the twins instead (which is more fun). Looks like I’ll have to write that tomorrow.

Sorensen on my last column

Former USC President Andrew Sorensen had the following to say about my last column in The State:

Dear Brad:

As one who has just embarked on a marked change in professional responsibilities, I wish you well in the next stage of your career, whatever that may be.

Thanks very much for your stimulating op-ed piece of March 22nd.  Although I was tempted to respond to each paragraph as well as the concluding suggestions, in the interest of brevity I’ll comment only on (1) “Improve our schools” and (2) “Let our colleges and universities drive our economy.”

(1)I couldn’t agree more with your recommendation that we “stop talking about nonsensical distraction, and fix the schools.”  We South Carolinians ought to be profoundly embarrassed by the quality of schools in our economically depressed communities.  It is imperative that all South Carolinians have an opportunity for the quality of education afforded at the many first-rate schools throughout our state.  Your suggestions for restructuring, if implemented, would do much to correct our current imbalance in facilities and human resources.

(2)During the past several years, the presidents of USC, MUSC and Clemson have made extraordinary progress in collaborating on the “cutting edge of wealth-creating innovation.” During this period of profound fiscal crisis the temptation is great to hunker down and look upon investment in this area as one of high risk that will yield principally future benefit, and is unlikely to be manifest in the next few weeks or months.  That admission will cause detractors to argue that investing in these programs in the midst of economic stringency is counterintuitive.  But the economic future of our state is heavily dependent on the highly skilled and scientifically sophisticated youth of today who will become the leaders of our state’s economy tomorrow.

All the best to you.

Sincerely,

Andrew A. Sorensen

Leatherman’s letter to Sanford

Folks, here’s a copy of the letter that Hugh Leatherman wrote to Sanford about the stimulus. Don’t know what to add except that his point, that South Carolinians will pay for this stimulus whether we get the money or not, is one that I heard Republican senators making yesterday at the State House.

Hardly seems worth mentioning because it’s so painfully obvious. To everyone but Sanford. Did you read the short item in the paper today about what Bobby Harrell had to say?

COLUMBIA, S.C. — House Speaker Bobby Harrell said Wednesday South Carolina lawmakers should prepare a budget without using federal stimulus cash unless Gov. Mark Sanford reverses himself and decides to seek the money.

“We’re probably not going to have that money with the governor not requesting it,” Harrell, R-Charleston, said. “It is time to write a budget that does not include that money.”

But Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said it is time for legislators to sit down with the governor and come up with a budget plan that uses $700 million stimulus cash the governor will control during the next two years to pay down state debt or forgoes the federal cash altogether through budget cuts. “So far, they’ve not indicated a willingness to do so.”…

That comment from Joel really gets me. He might as well say, “The governor has invited lawmakers to poke every citizen of South Carolina in the eye with a sharp stick, but so far, they’ve not indicated a willingness to do so…”

Why didn’t I think of this?

Did you hear about the French 3M employees who took their boss hostage to try to get a better severance deal? (Apparently, they let him go last night.)

Now, why didn’t I think of that?

I’ll tell you why — I’m civilized, that’s why. Sure, I just got laid off, but I just can’t begin to identify with the kind of proletarian rage — or Gallic sense of entitlement, or whatever is being expressed here — that leads to this kind of lawlessness.

It wouldn’t even occur to me to resort to harsh words, much less violence. Not that this is violence, we’re told. Here’s an excerpt from a story during the standoff:

The stand-off, which isn’t violent, started on Tuesday when workers refused to allow plant director Luc Rousselet leave his office unless 3M sweetened severance packages being negotiated for the fired workers. Negotiations between the two sides are supposed to re-start late on Wednesday to try to find a solution.

Right. Maybe holding another person, physically, against his will isn’t technically violence, but it seems a prosecutor could make a good case for kidnapping, which in this country (to use a great Jack Nicholson line) is considered a more serious offense (I think; you lawyers correct me if I’m wrong) than simple assault. In fact, in some jurisdictions, doesn’t holding someone against his will constitute grounds for a lynching charge?

Apparently, after the workers let the boss go, negotiations on the severance were to continue. Seriously. Instead of everyone involved being hauled in and put under the jail, negotiations are to resume. What a country.

Meanwhile, workers are busting windows in Edinburgh to express their rage at a bank exec’s sweet retirement deal, so worker lawlessness is not restricted to France.

Of course, I will say that civil behavior cuts both ways. I’m parting with my newspaper amicably, and the paper is as responsible for that as I am. Robert and I received some nice tributes in the paper, and we were able to clean out our offices without armed guards standing over us. Robert tells me that another cartoonist laid off last week was told one day that he would lose his job the next, then when he came in the next morning to clean out his office, he was locked out.

As David Brent says, “Professionalism is… and that’s what I want.” Either you understand how to behave in a professional, civilized manner, or you don’t. Some companies, and some workers, don’t. Some do.

Asking Sanford to reconsider

So here is what we’re reduced to, after Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman raised the alarm that the Clyburn amendment notwithstanding, the Legislature might not be able to bypass him to get the stimulus funds: Asking Mark Sanford to reconsider.

Which, I’ve got to say, is not much of a plan.

The senator said, in the story in The State this morning, that he plans to ask the governor to reconsider his quixotic stand against common sense. And at a Senate Finance subcommittee hearing that I attended this morning (to hear the three research university presidents make their budget pitches — more about that later) several other senators urged the presidents, and their trustees, and students, and the small army of alumni attending Carolina Day at the State House, to make their concerns known to “the man downstairs,” as Sen. Darrell Jackson referred to him, even though he was speaking in the Gressette Building rather than the State House proper (and maybe he was talking about some “man downstairs” in the basement of Gressette, but I doubt it).

And what do you think the chances are that the governor will be moved by any of this? Essentially, zero. You have to understand that real-world consequences mean nothing to this governor, whose only reality is his ideological constructs. Especially when the consequences are felt by people other than Mark Sanford.

Maybe you can think of an argument that will cause him to see how nuts it is to refuse money that South Carolinians will have to foot the bill for later anyway. But I’m fresh out.

I’ll take the public sector queue, please

When I told my little tale of minor annoyance about having to get a new Social Security card a couple of weeks back (35 years I went without one, and the first time anyone asks me for it is when I find myself unemployed), some of my libertarian friends out there predictably pointed to it as a sign of the inefficiency and unaccountability of gummint. Which I expected, having handed you such a beautiful opportunity. (Don’t say I never gave you anything.)

But here’s the thing about that — it really didn’t take very long, and aside from the hassles from security guards, it all went pretty smoothly. My new SS card arrived in the mail sooner than expected. I gave it to Mamanem to put in a safe place.

Contrast that to my experience at my wireless phone provider, where I went to get my Blackberry wiped clean of stuff from the corporate server (how’s that for a band name: Corporate Server), and set up my new e-mail and such. An hour and a half. The young man who helped me couldn’t have been nicer (which is why I removed the actual name of my wireless provider, because I don’t want to get him in any trouble with his boss), and admittedly the transaction was somewhat complex. But what gets me is the wait before someone starts helping you. When I asked about whether there was a time I could come back and not find such a crowd, I was told there wasn’t. One employee mentioned that his wife calls the place “the DMV of wireless.” Which is a good joke, except for the fact that the DMV has figured out how to provide its services without making people wait forever. Maybe the cell phone companies should ask the DMV how they did it.

Finally, they took my red cells

The last couple of times I’ve tried to do the Alyx system at the Red Cross — it’s this deal where they take out a couple of pints of your blood, remove the red cells, then pump it back into you with a little saline — it didn’t work out. Once my iron was too low, the next time it was too late in the day or something. I gave whole blood instead both times, but it was a letdown, because Alyx is pretty cool (literally, since the stuff they pump back into you isn’t quite as warm as what they took out, which might be more than you want to know).

But today, I scored a 13.6 on the iron measurement, which requires a 13.3 before you can do this (the standard for giving whole blood is lower). So I feel a sense of accomplishment.

For months, I had been putting them off, because I just didn’t feel well, starting with that crud I got before Christmas. But I’m pretty healthy now, and I certainly have time on my hands. So I finally got it done.

You should, too. We need the blood here in the Midlands, where we almost never have enough for the community’s needs, and have to import from elsewhere. I mean, you don’t want me lording it over you with how good and fine and generous I am, and you not giving — do you? Because you know, I will do that — unless you stop me by donating.

I’ve given two-and-a-half gallons over the years, by the way.

By the book: Apparently, I’m doing everything right

You will not be surprised to learn that I took a particular interest in a book review, in the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal this morning, of Martha I. Finney’s Rebound: A Proven Plan for Starting Over After Job Loss.

And I was reassured that I seem to be doing the right things, just by instinct:

  • I didn’t blow my stack over losing my job. In fact, beyond some peevish moments while dealing with paperwork — y’all know how I hate forms and such — I haven’t actually felt anything like anger, much less acted out. That’s good, because according to the review, the book says “Throwing a tantrum is out. Not only can it get you an unwelcome reputation as a hothead, it could lose you what little you can hope to take away in benefits.”
  • I still get up at the usual time, shave, get dressed and go to the usual place for breakfast, thereby staying in sync with this advice: “Ms. Finney presents some basic strategies for depression- avoidance, including such simple tactics as getting out of bed and getting dressed as if for work.”
  • The reviewer disagrees with the book one on point, and so do I: “And downright unhelpful is Ms. Finney’s suggestion that one abjure such ‘stress hormone-inducing substances’ as coffee. The last thing an unemployed java junkie needs is to go job-hunting sluggish and glassy-eyed from caffeine deprivation.” Amen to that. I’m trying not to overdo the coffee, because it can cause anxiety (even in the best of times) — but I’m not about to go cold-turkey.
  • The reviewer also objects to the author’s advice that the job-seeker call attention to himself by starting a blog. “Exactly how many employers will be eager to grant you an interview if they think that it might become material for your blog?” wonders the reviewer. That might be a good point for someone who wants a job in banking. But this is what I do, folks. This is my way of staying in shape for work.

The very best thing about this review is that I don’t feel compelled to read the book itself. That’s good, because being unemployed is hard, tiring work, and it takes all your energy and time. I say that based on one day. But at least I can say that every day I’ve been unemployed so far, I’ve received a standing ovation. Here’s hoping the second day is that good.

Tell me which way you want the comments

After several days of getting confused, I realized that the comments were displaying with the most recent at the top, oldest at the bottom — which is the opposite of the way I was used to on the old blog.

So I switched it, to where the newest is at the bottom (at least, I think that’s what I did; I’m not fully at home with WordPress yet).

Please tell me which way y’all prefer it. I can adjust.