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Political Hay
Mark Sanford Bails Out
Last November, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal in an effort to publicly repudiate the ongoing talk about states increasing personal and national debt by accepting multi-billion dollar bailouts from Washington.
In an op-ed titled "Don't Bail Out My State," Sanford wrote:
I find myself in a lonely position. While many states and local governments are lining up for a bailout from Congress, I went to Washington recently to oppose such bailouts. I may be the only governor to do so.
But I suspect I'm not entirely alone, as there are a lot of taxpayers who aren't pleased with Christmas coming early for politicians. And I hope these taxpayers make their voices heard before Democrats load up the next bailout train for states with budget deficits.
Though only written three months ago, the dollar amounts Sanford mentioned in his op-ed ("Washington...will borrow every dime of the $150 billion to $300 billion for the 'stimulus' bill now being worked on") seem like a quaint reminder of a pre-porkulus time long past. 'You have to admit, $150 billion sounds like a drop in the bucket only days after all but seven House Democrats, and every Senate Democrat plus Republicans Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe, voted for a $787 billion stimulus package that not one of them had read.
In part because of Sanford's vocal opposition to accepting bailout money from a federal government that simply borrowed the funds for the loan in the first place, Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) inserted a clause in the "stimulus" bill that allows state legislatures, through passage of a concurrent resolution, to override Governors who refuse to accept bailout cash, and take the money anyway. Clyburn couldn't be expected to allow even a portion of his state to get cut out of the free trip to the candy jar, you see, so he needed to make sure an actual fiscally-responsible executive like Sanford couldn't put an ix-nay on the andout-hay for the Palmetto State.
According to the Hill newspaper, in an early January meeting between Congressional Democrats and then-President-elect Barack Obama, "Clyburn complained to Obama that Sanford's stance would hurt his rural, majority-black district that is suffering from high-unemployment."
"If it were left up to [Sanford] we would get nothing," Clyburn told Obama at the time.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has requested that the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) look into the constitutionality of the bill's provision. Even if the so-called "Clyburn clause" (also known in legislative circles as the "Punish Mark Sanford provision") remains in place, though, the South Carolina Democrat's effort to ensure his district didn't "get nothing" out of a bill that disburses borrowed funds by the billions to states and Democratic supporters to no clear purpose will have provided Sanford with the best of both worlds politically.
Without the Clyburn clause, the passage of the "stimulus" package - which was signed by President Obama on Tuesday -- would have put Sanford into the unenviable position of being caught between the Scylla of remaining principled by refusing billions in federal dollars earmarked for infrastructure, public works, and other (far less worthwhile) projects -- and facing the political fallout that could have resulted from denying struggling portions of his state the "free" aid they think they need -- and the Charybdis of abandoning that principled position and attempting to direct the torrents of borrowed cash flowing south from Washington to projects that would actually do some good for underfunded and underperforming areas of the state while attempting to publicly rationalize the decision to ditch his oft-repeated opposition to accepting bailouts funded by increasing debt.
Thanks to Clyburn, though, Sanford has been transported from a vulnerable position on the "stimulus" package to sole occupancy of the catbird's seat -- without having to change his stance one iota or take any action that would increase his political vulnerability. The Clyburn clause enables Sanford, secure in the knowledge that the Palmetto state's legislature will almost certainly vote to overrule his decision, to refuse the nearly $10 billion available to South Carolina under the "stimulus" package.
Once he is overridden, Sanford will be in a position to make every effort to ensure those funds are used as responsibly as possible. Further, he will have been inoculated from the fallout that would have resulted from a decision either to abandon his principled stance and accept the funds himself or to deny his state the "free money" altogether -- something that would have created a sizable backlash regardless of the ultimately unstimulative effect of the borrowed cash infusion.
If his state override provision remains intact, Clyburn will have won a small victory, as his state and district will not have been prevented from getting a piece of the borrow-and-spend "stimulus" pie. However, the winner of the war will be Mark Sanford -- and he will have Clyburn to thank for providing him the ammunition, and the immunity, with which to achieve that.
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Pingback| 2.19.09 @ 8:04AM
http://jeffemanuel.net/2009/02/south-carolinas-fiscally-responsible-governor-is-unwittingly-bailed-out-on-the-bailout-by-a-political-foe/ links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 2.19.09 @ 8:35AM
President Obama » Mark Sanford Bails Out links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Ron| 2.19.09 @ 11:45AM
It’s Not Our National Debt!
Join the Washington National Debt Revolt - Washington has bailed out the banks, Wall Street & their Washington special interests and much of the cost is added to the national debt to by paid by this and future generations while real estate and investments continue to fall. The Campaign to Cancel the Washington National Debt By Constitutional Amendment is starting now in the U.S. See: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=67594690498&ref=ts
Pingback| 2.19.09 @ 12:43PM
Mark Sanford Bails Out « Depravity links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
dcd| 2.19.09 @ 1:23PM
If Sanford is not taking muc of a principled stand if it has no consequences. He might be talking a good game, but that's easy if you know there is nothing that will be lost.
2 Guns| 2.19.09 @ 1:49PM
dcd,
When he took the stand, there were consequences. That's point of the article, Clyborn(D), through his amendment, basically removed any consequences for Sanford's stand.
Interloper| 2.19.09 @ 3:52PM
Frankly, to anyone other than Right Wing extremists, Sanford looks like what he is, a hypocrite. He never had any real intention of rejecting stimulus package funds. Indeed, South Carolina is among the mainly red states that always get more funding from the federal government than they pay in taxes. It also is near the bottom in education, health care and wages. Like the other 'big mouth' governors, Palin and Barbour, Sanford is no more going to turn down federal funds than he is going to sprout wings and fly.
Emanuel's Sanford 'showed the black guy' chortling is particularly silly, and, so, so typical of the increasingly Southern regional party known as the GOP.
Most of the mopes who write for this site treat readers as if they are stupid. This piece is a glaring example of that tendency.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 2.19.09 @ 4:01PM
As a Communist I like to see the government seize personal assets and soon all will be broke like me. In the meantime, without taking sides, I simply point out that he would be a fool not to take it back. That's right, take it back, since it was taken from his 5 million citizens to begin with. What do you think spending is? It's certainly not stimulus.
Roy| 2.19.09 @ 4:07PM
I truthfully think the whole dustup is just so much blather. Of course I am against the government throwing money out of a helicopter, but if it does I'm going to put my shovel out. That does not make me a "hypocrite", just somebody who wants to get some of the money back that the government is stealing from him.
Truth to Power| 2.19.09 @ 4:22PM
The Interloper knows stupid when he sees it, mostly when staring vainly into a mirror.
Louis Jenkins| 2.19.09 @ 4:59PM
Free money!! It's all free. Make up any story, find victims (there's one on every corner), and speak in abstract terms when it comes to financing government spending. Wake up America. It's our government, our money, and our future that's being spent (for several senate, congressional, and presidential terms by the way). Some say we're hypocritical, some say we're stupid for even reading the tripe on this website, or just plain stupid low brows, as we're just barely able to read and write. That's exactly how the media, our elected officials, local, state, and federal, think of us. Left wing, right wing, it's the power that they crave, the control, the ability to say "jump" and we ask "how high?" Bend over and grab the ankles while all that pie in the sky is raining down on you, and, as there is nothing sane that can be done, enjoy the debauchery at your and your children's expense!!
scott| 2.19.09 @ 5:55PM
If Gov. Sandford was going to "accept" the money no matter what, then Rep. Clyburn would not have had the clause inserted because the clause is problematic.
That clause is in direct conflict with the 10th Ammendment. Congress does not have the authority to dictate to the states the mechanizm they use to decide if they want to receive or decline federal funds.
You can think Sandford is wrong for not accepting the money, that is your perogative, but you are wrong to make such slanderous statements as to call him a hypocrite.
DaveS| 2.19.09 @ 6:31PM
Hit your nerve, Interloper, did he? The governor of SC?
Bert| 2.19.09 @ 6:54PM
Uh, Mr. Emmanuel, do you really think that what matters is whether a GOP politician looks good or bad while spending made-up pork money? Isn't the point that there shouldn't be any pork money? Isn't the other point that the "Clyburn clause" makes a mockery of the entire federal system as enshrined in the Constitution? Isn't the last point that Sanford took an oath to defend the Constitution, and therefore he should be the plaintiff in a suit to invalidate the Clyburn override if it occurs?
If Sanford spends the money just because he can look good doing so, he's no better than the Democrats who are trying to look good by appropriating it in the first instance.
Interloper| 2.19.09 @ 7:10PM
The Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause supports legislation such as Rep. Clyburn's. It prevents states from discriminating against parts of their populations, including in allocation of funding. For example, if S.C. were to refuse federal funds and close public schools as a result, that would violate the Fourteenth Amendment because poor students, and black students, particularly, would be discriminated against. (The example is something Virginia counties actually did to avoid school desegregation, claiming the Tenth Amendment allowed it.)
It is not accidental that this kind of thing arises in Southern states with large black populations. Sanford knows he can curry favor with most white S.C. voters by falsely representing the stimulus package as 'welfare' and by annoying Rep. Clyburn, the highest ranking African-American legislator in the country.
However, I doubt Sanford will reject the money. He has already gotten the attention he sought without doing so.
pete the mediocre| 2.19.09 @ 7:39PM
Interloper,
Not everyone out there is as crass and shallow as you and your liberal heroes.
Osamas Pajamas| 2.19.09 @ 9:12PM
You can lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig. The Emergency Pork Bill has provided us with plenty of ammo in the opening days of the Peoples' Republic of OhBummerLand. Republicans should be at least as ruthless in pursuit of the market-economy agenda as the Demos are in pursuit of the statist agenda.
JLW| 2.19.09 @ 9:22PM
"The Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause supports legislation such as Rep. Clyburn's. It prevents states from discriminating against parts of their populations, including in allocation of funding. For example, if S.C. were to refuse federal funds and close public schools as a result, that would violate the Fourteenth Amendment because poor students, and black students, particularly, would be discriminated against."
Interloper,
The federal government has no business giving money to states in the first place. The states have their own ability to tax and issue debt.
George| 2.19.09 @ 11:57PM
When will you clowns ever learn. Everyone is conservative in name only. Americans want all the goodies but dont want to pay for it. That is why household debt and credit card debt are at an all time high. Now if Obama had increased taxes to pay for this, GOP would get some traction. But, he is doing the bidding of the American public....wanting all the goodies but refusing to pay for it! That is how Reagan won in 1984 by running up the national debt, and Obama is doing exactly as the Great Communicator did, at least as long as running up the debt is concerned! So get over it! The US public essentially voted for this.
George| 2.20.09 @ 12:02AM
"Indeed, South Carolina is among the mainly red states that always get more funding from the federal government than they pay in taxes."
White and black southerners get more funding from the federal government than they pay in taxes. ..basically living off the welfare of other states. In Virginia, basically the multicultural northern Virginia pays taxes to subsidize the real Virginia..Southern Virgina. Far southern counties of Virginia such as Wise and Scott get more than twice the amount of money they pay in taxes while multicultural Arlington and Fairfax which were referred to as commies by McCain's brother gets only fifty cents for every one dollar they pay in taxes. Guess who is the commie on welfare here?
Doug N| 2.20.09 @ 12:29AM
Geez, George, the "commies on welfare" ARE those multicultie, do-nothing bureaucrats who infest greater D.C. like cockroaches! C'mon, George, think before you comment!
Bill R| 2.20.09 @ 12:39AM
I agree with Roy, Scott and others in that Sanford is perfectly justified in spending the federal money. I think it's a b.s. argument to say that since he was against the stimulus that he should let the rest of the country spend it and exclude S.C.
Firstly it's not the federal gov's money. I'd indeed say keep it if South Carolinians were exempted from paying for it in taxes now or in the future. I'd say keep it if when the bad effects become apparent they then get reduced taxes and removal of unfunded mandates from the fed gov't to compensate SC for its politically driven and wrong approach. In those cases I would indeed tell them to keep "their" money.
Since that's not the case it's only fair to say take the money. Otherwise maybe we should let just the Left apportion the tax funds to their friends and have the rest of the country pay for it.
Interloper| 2.20.09 @ 11:04AM
Sanford's sideshow appears to be over. He will be slurping up the stimulus just like most of us knew he would. Expect the same from Palin, Barbour and the other tag-a-longs. Sanford is said to have delusions that he can be elected President - reminiscent of George Allen's departures from reality. But, though antics like this get him attention, I don't think they will prove helpful to his ambitions.
anonymous| 2.21.09 @ 7:50PM
LAWMAKERS WANT TO AUDIT GOVERNOR MARK SANFORD
A South Carolina lawmaker responsible for writing and overseeing Gov. Mark Sanford’s office budget has called for a state audit of those operations to explain what happened with thousands of dollars he wanted used for a veterans cemetery project.
State Rep. Brian White said he has tried for weeks to figure out what happened to more than $250,000 he said was supposed to be transferred to the Governor’s Office of Veterans Affairs from the State Budget and Control Board. White said he had notified the Republican governor’s staff that the money was to be spent to help build a facility.
“We want to find out where the money went,” White, R-Anderson, said this week.
Four other legislators, state Reps. Mike Pitts, Jeff Duncan, Liston Barfield and Dwight Loftis, joined White in making the Feb. 11 audit request in a letter to Philip Laughbridge, the chairman of the Legislative Audit Council.
Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said he’ll welcome an audit and says White can’t document any of the money was intended for the veterans facility. Rather, he said, the money was in an uncommitted fund that was used in part to pay the governor’s security detail bills.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE $250,000.00? Where's the money Sanfraud?
http://www.thestate.com/local-metro/story/690488.html
Pingback| 3.13.09 @ 3:41PM
Another Republican Hypocrite - US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 7.27.09 @ 4:52PM
Another Republican Hypocrite - Page 2 - US Message Board - Political Discussion Foru links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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