By fitsnews – November 28, 2007
GOVERNOR HAS DRAGGED HIS FEET ON FREE MARKET EXPANSION
FITSNews – November 28, 2007 – Proving once again that it doesn’t know its ass from its elbow when it comes to pretty much everything, La Socialista’s editorial board heaped a ton of praise on S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford over the weekend in this editorial about the Jasper County port project. From the excessive fawning:
Now, thanks to leadership from two governors, (the Jasper Port looks) hopeful. Gov. Mark Sanford and Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue agreed to launch a six-person panel to thrash out how the states could get the ball rolling, instead of fighting. Their plan, announced Nov. 9, spells out the way forward. A Joint Project Office will oversee the project’s progress, eventually a joint ports authority will own the port, and the two states will stop squabbling in court over the land and instead pursue the necessary permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH. Make no mistake this bi-state compact is a great deal for South Carolina because it limits the involvement of our ass-backward State Ports Authority, which has been getting its ass kicked by the competition for years thanks to its strict adherance to the communist business model.
Meaning something will actually get built, for a change.
But Gov. Sanford, who appoints the Ports Authority board members, could have exercised his authority and turned this joke of an organization around years ago, thus paving the way for a free market Jasper Port deal as well as free market expansion at the foundering Port of Charleston, where a capacity upgrade is decades overdue. Unfortunately, he did not lead, and as a result, idiots like Ports Authority Chairman Bill Stern have continued to run our most valuable economic development asset into the ground by insisting on an outdated “total state control” model. And because of their failure to engage meaningful public-private partnerships, taxpayers were forced to pick up a $160 million tab in this year’s budget to pay for the first phase of road construction at the Charleston expansion site – with more taxpayer tabs likely to come.
We’re glad the governor has finally seen the light when it comes to implementing free market port expansion, but to paint him as a “leader” on this issue is laughable, particularly with pseudo-socialists like Stern, Tumpy Campbell and Harry Butler still sitting on the Ports Authority board that he controls.
