Governor Sanford on Stimulus Spending: Stop Digging
Posted March 11th, 2009 at 11:17am in Ongoing Priorities 
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Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) has written a letter to the South Carolina state legislature explaining his decision to ask President Obama for a waiver allowing him to use federal stimulus money to pay down state debt. From the letter:
The reason we think it is not in our best interest to spend these monies lies in the fact that when one is in a hole the first order of business is to stop digging.
Spending that which is contemplated in the stimulus bill moves our state to an extremely dangerous tipping point with regard to annualization in our state’s budget … The proposed stimulus dollars would annualize over $1.2 billion in the next two years – approximately 10% of our state’s budget. This level of new annualized spending would be the largest recorded level of annualizations in the state history, and dwarfs last year’s annualization by nearly three times.
As a believer in federalism, I find it appalling that Washington would seek to effectively remake the entire budget process of the states.
…
Should the President grant our waiver request, we will accept the federal monies and apply them to our state debts and contingent liabilities, thereby strengthening both our short and long-term economic climate as a state. In the unfortunate case that the President would deny our request, I will not seek the funds, as I believe doing so would not help our current economic problems and would do real harm to our future financial picture.
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5 Responses to “Governor Sanford on Stimulus Spending: Stop Digging”
Ozzy6900, CT on March 11th, 2009 at 11:17am said:
Gov. Mark Sanford obviously doesn’t understand President Obama’s Urban Economics, “When in debt, keep spending until either the debt goes away or they give up trying to catch you!”.
ishke, Al on March 11th, 2009 at 11:17am said:
SC, I can only hope the governor of my own state is as wise and brave. I do not want a few extra dollars in my pocket today and pay for them forever in higher taxes when the stimulus runs out. That just makes no sense at all. I will keep an eye on Gov Sanford, I do believe he would have my vote in 2012 if he should choose to run.
Spiritof76, New Hampshire on March 11th, 2009 at 11:17am said:
Thank you, Governor Sanford. Let this be the first shot at the Federal financial Ft. Sumter. We have to get rid of socialistic cancer eating our vitals and return our country to our Constitution.
Shane, SC on March 11th, 2009 at 11:17am said:
I live in SC and for Sanford to say he is going to turn down the money is unbelievable. Unemployment has reached 10.4%, some of our schools are so run down that a video was made called the “corridor of shame” (you might have seen the little girl from one of the schools when the President addressed Congress, roads and bridges are old and need to be repaired. If we don’t need the money then what is his plan to help with the current fix we are in and if he has a plan why hasn’t he done something before know because the school and road issues are not new.
Barb -mn on March 11th, 2009 at 11:17am said:
Why doesn’t any person, in any government, of any state in this country see what this man is doing? Whatever state takes that money is a state Obama owns. Every state government will be replaced. Especially if Obama is intimidated by them! He already has people infiltrated into every government of every state. That is why the states are collapsing. Check out his community organizing policies (of indoctrination) and see if they are legit or crooked. See how far spread they are around the country. See how much money and for what exactly, it goes to in the community organizing industry. What message does this send about the people that live there to need a COMMUNITY ORGANIZER?!
but anyway…