Harry Moroz
The Quijote of the South: The Importance of Mark Sanford’s Battle Against the Stimulus
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s crusade to reject $700 million of federal stimulus funds is about to come to a close. The South Carolina Supreme Court is likely to rule tomorrow that the governor must spend the money, which is earmarked to prevent cuts to state education services.
The dispute involves the typical players of ideology, politics, and power. On one hand, Sanford is a committed proponent of fiscal austerity and opposed TARP, the auto bailout, and, of course, the stimulus package. He worries that excessive government spending now, which will increase government debt, will force future generations to spend an excessive proportion of GDP paying interest on government debt.
Sanford is also a 2012 (or – depending on how effective the stimulus is… – a 2016) presidential contender, along with Governors Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal, who also kind of, sort of, but not really, rejected stimulus funds designated for Alaska and Louisiana, respectively. Opposing the stimulus allows Sanford and the other GOP “renegades” to distinguish themselves as the remaining adherents to true GOP principles, while “RINOs” like Schwarzenegger and Florida’s Governor Crist are “bought off” by Obama’s stimulus bribe.
The role of ideology and politics in Sanford’s crusade against stimulus funding is less interesting. His ideological position is weak: government spending now is vital to ensure that future generations are actually capable of paying off future interest on debt accrued at present, not to mention that spending now will make future generations better off by investing in a new economy of energy efficiency, solid infrastructure, and green jobs. That this ideological positioning fits perfectly with Sanford’s need to distinguish himself as a presidential contender certainly does not bolster his argument for rejecting the funds.
More interesting, however, is the power dispute at the center of Sanford’s quest. Just yesterday, a federal court ruled that the South Carolina Supreme Court will make the final determination of whether Sanford or the state legislature, which has already authorized the use of the $700 million of education funds over Sanford’s veto, is the final arbiter of this portion of the stimulus money. This type of power struggle is perhaps inevitable, as the executive and the legislative branches duel for control of a sizeable chunk of money (and for political capital).
But most observers have now forgotten that the federal government earmarked South Carolina’s $700 million under the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, which was designed specifically to prevent cuts in education services. Indeed, the school system of South Carolina, which already has the third highest unemployment rate in the nation, is in disarray as “Districts have eliminated positions because of budget cuts brought on by a national recession.” Compounding these eliminations is “Uncertainty over whether local schools will get federal stimulus cash…Schools are hoping for the money but preparing as if they will not get the cash infusion.” As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported last week, states which have accepted the State Fiscal Stabilization Funds immediately have already avoided significant cuts to education services. Virginia, for example, used the stimulus to avoid the elimination of 13,000 non-teaching school personnel and $296 million in cuts for state colleges and universities.
In other words, the pitched power struggle between Sanford and the South Carolina state legislature is really a proxy battle for a federally funded mandate to prevent education cuts. The unfunded federal mandates of the Bush years, so typical of criticism of the No Child Left Behind Act, have been left behind. Now, the debate moves to how far the federal government can go to force recalcitrant governors to spend money that has actually been provided.
The federal government must be more vocal in tying the expenditure of funds in South Carolina and other states to the success of the stimulus as a whole. Indeed, in the stimulus package, the federal government used state and local governments as conduits of stimulus funding to speed expenditure of the funds. This is a trend that will continue, as the White House focuses more energy on metropolitan areas and cities. But in order for this approach to be successful, the federal government must be certain that even renegade governors can be counted on (or forced) to use federal funds as intended. Otherwise, the stimulus will be ineffective and economic recovery will be shallow.
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Posted at 12:12 PM, Jun 02, 2009 in
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