FITSNews Exclusive - Another Key Sanford “Ally” Is Backing His Arch-Nemesis
PORTS AUTHORITY CHAIRMAN SERVED AS FUNDRAISING “CAPTAIN” FOR SENATOR HUGH LEATHERMAN
FITSNews - June 21, 2007 - We always wondered why Bill Stern - who currently serves as Gov. Mark Sanford’s State Ports Authority chairman - was so adamently opposed to his boss’s publicly-stated position in support of free market port expansion. Well, it looks like we have our answer. Turns out Stern is a fundraising captain and contributor to the biggest little communist in all of state government, Senate Finance Chairman Hugh “I’ve Never Seen The Benefit Of Tax Cuts” Leatherman.
We reported earlier this month on several key Sanford allies who had each contributed the maximum amount to Sen. Leatherman’s ongoing campaign to eradicate capitalism in the Palmetto State. Today, according to advance copies of Leatherman’s Senate Ethics disclosure forms obtained exclusively by FITSNews, we learn that the governor’s ports chairman also contributed the maximum amount to Leatherman’s campaign. Additionally, accompanying fundraising materials show that Stern served as one of Leatherman’s fundraising captains, agreeing to raise the Senator upwards of $10,000 at a recent event.
The cost of Stern and Leatherman’s anti-capitalist zeal has turned into a tremendous drain on our state in terms of wasted tax dollars and lost economic growth. For example, South Carolina taxpayers are shelling out $167 million for a port access road in the current state budget - with hundreds of millions of dollars yet to be spent - all because Stern’s Ports Authority refuses to accept private investment to expand infrastructure like they do in practically every other American port. As a result, the Port of Charleston has slipped from No. 4 to No. 7 nationally in terms of container traffic, and is decades behind our competitors in terms of adding long-overdue capacity. And what has South Carolina’s so-called “run it like a business” governor done about one of the few problems in state government he actually has the power to fix? Yeah, absolutely nothing. That’s because Stern also padded the governor’s campaign account to the tune of roughly $250,000.
Fortunately, the bi-state port agreement inked between South Carolina and Georgia in March for the purpose of building a maritime terminal in job-starved Jasper County, S.C. (a project Stern’s Ports Authority has fought tooth and nail at every step of the way) insists upon private investment as a condition of the agreement.
So at least one of our ports will actually operate on the principles of the American free market as opposed to the Soviet-style command economy.
Comments
By The Trawlerman on June 23rd, 2007 at 8:42 am
This is just the latest in a long line of Stern financial panderings — Beasley, Hodges, Sanford, Staton, Leatherman, etc. A desire to suckle at the power teat, not ideology or principle, is the common denominator here. Despicable, yet utterly predictable.