Sanford pushes reform during Seneca visit

Gov. Mark Sanford, Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom and S.C. Policy Council President Ashley Landess huddled together inside Kroeger’s Marine Construction in Seneca on Wednesday while Eckstrom and Sanford painted a bleak picture.

“It’s very appropriate that we’re at Kroeger Marine Construction,” Eckstrom said. “Because the ship of state in Columbia is fixing to sail into a treacherous sea of red ink.”

So went the rest of the presentation, as Sanford, Eckstrom, Landess and Rep. Nathan Ballentine warned of the dire consequences of what they’ve labeled runaway spending and lack of government transparency.

Sanford’s stop in Seneca was one of many in a tour to push for four conservative reforms ahead of the General Assembly’s next legislative session in January. First, Sanford continued his longstanding fight against spending — this time by calling for legislation introducing spending limits restricting spending in proportion to population growth plus inflation. Sanford referenced the budget cuts scheduled to be vetted next week as an example of the consequences of out of control spending.

“The carnage we’re going to go through at the state government budget level is self-induced,” Sanford said. “It is exacerbated and elongated based on what is happening at the national level, but it is originally caused by self-inflicted injury.”

Sanford said the last four years have seen 40-percent growth in government spending in the state.

He also pushed for government restructuring, calling for the passage of a bill to create a Department of Administration, which would perform administrative functions currently handled by the state Budget and Control Board. According to Sanford, South Carolina’s “unusual” government structuring costs the state 138 percent of the average annual cost of other state’s operations.

Landess spoke regarding ethics laws and stricter government transparency. Ballentine has introduced a bill requiring full disclosure of campaign contributions within 48 hours of receiving them in the two weeks prior to an election, while Sanford called for creating a campaign finance enforcement entity for the House and the Senate. Ballentine spoke directly to the concept of transparency, voicing his support for a bill calling for on-the-record voting in the General Assembly, as well as supporting a call for earmark disclosure, so taxpayers can see how their elected officials are voting spending.

“Many of y’all may say ‘Nathan that seems like a no-brainer. I’m all for that,’” Ballentine said. “Unfortunately we’re running into some resistance.”

Ballentine said many votes in the legislature are simple voice votes.

“Under that structure how do you hold your individual representative or senator accountable,” he asked.

While Sen. Thomas Alexander and Rep. Bill Whitmire said they supported spending limits and on-the-record voting, they did disagree with Sanford’s assessment that the upcoming budget crunch was solely the legislature’s fault.

“I’ll take some blame for that, but that isn’t the whole issue,” Whitmire said. “You see what’s going on in the country. One of our big money makers is tourism coming from other states. That’s down. Last year, we took away the tax on groceries. We just don’t have as much money coming in.”

Alexander also said he agreed with the reforms, but said calling the budget problems “self-induced” was not entirely accurate.

“Well, I think the economic situation we find ourselves in today is not unique to South Carolina,” Alexander said. “It’s more of a reflection on the national economy.”

Sanford, when questioned further, did not back down, calling the situation inevitable due to the legislature’s pork-barrel spending.

“I’ve always believed in calling an ace an ace,” Sanford said. “You can dance around it if you want, but the bottom line is we’ve had a six-year tug of war on spending. The reality is, you cannot grow governments at these rates and have anything but this happen. It will be exacerbated by what’s going on at the national level, but this was guaranteed to happen.”

By Andrew Moore
Upstate Today
October 16, 2008

Comments