Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Merry Christmas from the Governor

Posted by Will Moredock on Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 12:30 PM

Rest assured -- Gov. Mark Sanford's Christmas was merry, his turkey was fat, his gravey was rich. This multi-multi-multi-millionaire had nothing to fear in this season of awe and wonder. The state had an 8.4 percent unemployment rate -- the third highest in the nation -- and it is headed well into double digits, according to some economists.But the Guv polished off his Christmas pudding with gusto and slept well on Christmas night.

Yet even as he slept, the state unemployment benefits were running out for tens of thousands of South Carolinians and Sanford said he would not accept a federal loan to provide further benefits.

His fellow Republicans had a few words for him: "It is inconceivable that Governor Sanford hasn't already made this request of the federal government and it would be tragic if he allows jobless benefits to run out, particularly at this time of year," House Speak Bobby Harrell wrote last week in a statement which included criticism from Senate President Pro-Tem Glenn McConnell. "Make no mistake," Harrell wrote, "this is totally his decision."

"I have been in the Senate 28 years," said Sen. Hugh Leatherman, chairman of the Senate finance committee. "Never have I seen a more heartless and cruel act by a governor. ... I call upon him to end this reign of emotional trauma and request the loans."

Without the federal loan, benefits to 77,000 residents will run out at on December 31. But Sanford says he has his reasons for not accepting the federal money. Being a conservative, he does not want to accept the federal loan and incur the debt, which must be repaid to the U.S. Labor Department.

Of course, that's all well and good for Sanford. His life is not hanging in limbo with the thousands of jobless people in this state. What is hanging in the balance is Sanford's White House ambitions. What he is doing now is nothing but a ploy to burnish his conservative credentials for 2012. At the next Republican convention, you can be sure that no one will remember or care how many South Carolinians went hungry or lost their homes in 2009. All they will know is the Sanford didn't take the federal money and they will know it because he will be there crowing it from the rafters.

This is a perfect case of ideology trumping common sense and decency. Isn't that what George W. Bush was all about?

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"Being a conservative, he does not want to accept the federal loan and incur the debt, which must be repaid to the U.S. Labor Department." Have you been following the news AT ALL? You've completely missed the point- the governor is fighting for more oversight and reforms at an Employment Security Commission (ESC). Millions of taxpayer dollars are being wasted each year on a bureaucracy that doesn’t accurately measure the number of unemployed South Carolinians, refuses to share the limited information it does gather and can't manage its money, deliver benefits in a timely fashion and crack down on rampant fraud and abuse. The ESC’s poor financial management was highlighted in an audit two years ago, in which it was revealed that the fund’s annual revenue rose by 32% between 2002 and 2006, and yet its trust fund was reduced by half over that time period despite declining unemployment claims. Isn't bureaucracy great? How is Sanford wrong in calling for these reforms? The three crooks you mention, Harrell, McConnell and Leatherman, have driven South Carolina straight into the ground with their good ol-boy, back slapping leadership- what's happening is really no surprise with a former legislator (at $109,000 a year) in control at the ESC. When Sanford's gone in 2011, things will return to business as usual...and what will you write about then?

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Posted by SeaFarer on December 30, 2008 at 10:20 PM

To Seafarer: As a matter of fact, I have been following the news AT ALL! The Guv is on record as saying he does not want to incur the debt and that is his reason -- at least one reason -- for not taking the money. I say Sanford is full of crap. He is pulling the Sarah Palin stunt ("Thanks, but no thanks"), and like Sarah he eventually took the money. He tried to act chaste in the face of the federal ogre and its federal dollars, but in the end he succumbed "for the good of the people." Ah, a martyred virgin for the Republican Convention to sanctify in 2012. As for all this griping and whining about "waste, fraud and abuse," this is the modern equivalent of the communist scare of the 1940s and 1950s. You point a finger and accuse someone of something, sometime, somewhere and insist that it justifies grinding the entire government to a halt to identify and punish any and all the malefactors, all the while letting the worst elements in society seize control of our government -- as they have for the past eight years. Mark Sanford is a cynical, manipulative bastard, and if he had come along a little earlier, he might have had a chance of winning the White House. But his whole philosophy/game plan/charade has been exploded and exposed as fraud over the past year. People need protection from corporate greed, fraud and malfeasance. They have finally figured out that they are not going to get it from god or the GOP. They are going to have to get it from government. And to do that, they will need to monitor government and demand more of it than government has demanded of corporate America in the past eight years.

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Posted by Will Moredock on January 2, 2009 at 10:51 PM
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