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Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Boomer with Attitude / News S.C. Gov. Sanford couldn't care less
Posted By John Grooms on Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 2:17 PM
My home state of South Carolina — aka The World's Largest Plantation — has a long history of electing governors who are ornery, mean-spirited, backward or just plain stupid (anyone remember David Beasley?).
S.C.'s current gubernatorial train wreck, Mark Sanford, is living up to that proud tradition. He recently made news by opposing the federal stimulus, and hinting that he might turn down the money. Now Sanford has found a way to take the federal money and yet not use it to help anyone who might need it, which, by my reckoning, makes him one of the truly classic South Carolina chief executives.
Sanford now says he'll take $700 million in federal stimulus money, but rather than see it as a tool to help his state's unemployed and hungry, he'll use it to pay down the state's debt. South Carolina has the second highest unemployment rate in the United States — 9.5 percent — but not too many of the jobless there are white and rich, so Sanford's not too concerned.
Luckily, the way Congress wrote the stimulus bill, the state legislatures actually control most of the money (due to a clause inserted by S.C. Congressman Jim Clyburn, who knows Sanford all too well), so probably close to $2 billion will eventually make its way to S.C.'s needy. Oh well, at least Sanford continues the S.C. tradition of heartless, aloof jerks in the Governor's Mansion.
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