Big Bobby, Budget & Bidness
It’s no secret that S.C. House Speaker Bobby Harrell loves him some big government. That’s why he and Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman are planning to shove a socialist “jobs” program down the throats of S.C. lawmakers this year – one of many reasons they want to keep a lid on what goes on over at the State House.
Yet just as Bobby can’t seem to control his appetite for shoveling pork to our research universities (once going so far as to take it directly from S.C. entrepreneurs), it would appear that’s not all he can’t control.
Specifically, we’re talking about his regular appetite … you know, the one for shoveling food into his belly.
Now Harrell’s no Chip Limehouse or anything, but somebody forwarded us this picture and we couldn’t help but notice what a “fatty fatois” Mr. Big Government, The Mayor of Importantville, Petty (Big) Hate Machine has become.
In fact, he may even be a late entry into this year’s Man Cleavage Olympics over at the State House …
GOVERNOR TO RELEASE BUDGET TOMORROW
S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford will roll out his 2009-10 Executive Budget at a press availability in the Governor’s Conference Room of the Wade Hampton Building tomorrow morning at 10:30 a.m.
Which sucks, because that room is a friggin’ sardine box, people. And there’s usually a bunch of sweaty, over-eager bureaucrats crowded in there an hour ahead of time because God knows they’ve got absolutely nothing else to do.
We tried to get the goods ahead of time but Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer wasn’t giving. Not even when we called him a “little bitch.”
“There were a lot of painful choices made,” Sawyer said.
Uh-huh.
Anyway, for those of you with an aversion to sardine boxes and sweaty bureaucrats, the budget will also be available in .pdf format on Sanford’s website, SCGovernor.com, beginning at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow.
For those of you unfamiliar with Executive Budgets, Sanford revolutionized the process in 2003 by becoming the first governor to actually present a concrete spending proposal that could be used to run the state, rather than a bunch of cost estimates of pet projects – which is what previous governors submitted.
Needless to say, lawmakers viewed this as an assault on their turf – and have showed Sanford their disdain ever since by completely ignoring the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cost-saving ideas that he has presented them with over the last six years.
Of course, the governor’s legislative hand is much stronger this year, which leads us to the $6.4 billion question – how many votes do Marky Mark and his funky bunch have in the Senate?
If Team Sanford can carve out enough votes to be “veto-proof” in that chamber, then all of a sudden his previously Quixotic cost-saving recommendations might actually have some teeth to them moving forward.
“BIDNESS” TO SPEAK … EXCEPT NOT REALLY
We’ve already weighed in with our thoughts on the S.C. Chamber of Commerce’s “competitiveness agenda,” but in case you didn’t get the memo, with a few exceptions it’s a bunch of big government crap.
Well, the Chamber and their good friends at the American Petroleum Institute will be sponsoring a circle jerk of all these old ideas this coming Wednesday night (January 14) at the Marriott Hotel in Columbia.
Except they’re not calling it a “circle jerk of old ideas,” they’re calling it …
… an annual gathering of over 300 of South Carolina’s leading business people, constitutional officers and members of the General Assembly. This year’s Business Speaks town meeting will be a special opportunity for business leaders to hear from legislative leadership on issues that will be addressed during the legislative session.
Senate and House members will participate in an open panel discussion where important business issues such as tax reform, healthcare, energy, the state budget, economic development incentives and workforce development needs will be discussed.
Hmmmm … a “special opportunity” to hear from geniuses like Bobby Harrell and Kenny Bingham? Really?
Forgive us for calling it like it is, but doesn’t everybody in this room already know how to suck bureaucratic cock pretty well? (Editor’s Note: Sssssssssss, i.e. sizzling sound).
Look … here’s all this meeting is going to accomplish, people. Bobby Harrell’s Pyramid Schemers will play footsie under the table with Darla Moore’s Communist Carolina Collaborative.
When they’re done doing that, they’ll use words like “pipelines,” and “pillars,” and “synergies” and “level-setting” to gloss over how they’re dramatically expanding government’s reach into your home and your wallet.
Oh, not to mention how they want to blatantly violate the state constitution by picking winners and losers in the marketplace – with no accountability to keep them from “picking” businesses owned by their friends. Or lovers. Or law partners. Or brothers. Or brother’s law partner’s. Or brother’s law partner’s lovers. Or brother’s law partner’s lover’s friend.
You get the point.
And bear in mind while these people lather each other up with ivory tower talk that South Carolina already spends nearly 18% of its budget on higher ed – compared to 10% for the average state. And that we’ve got no real oversight of the system and way too many damn schools and campuses for a population our size.
In fact, our higher ed system is one of the few fiefdoms in government that isn’t being cut right now – and giving them more money while they’re jacking tuition on parents across the state is criminal no matter how you try to spin it.
So yeah. “Level-set” that, bitches.
Viva La Murrell Smith loco on that.
Comments
By frank on January 8th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Bobby is just doing his best to look and act as much like as BIG HEADED Jakie Knotts. When you support pork projects you begin to look like pork.
By StupidShouldHurtMore (SSHM) on January 8th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Go figure.
Reps Haley and Ballentine are anything but “transparent and open” about what they do. Do you see anything about that ANYWHERE on this site?
Let me help you with that … ummm … NO, you don’t.
What you see here is yet ANOTHER hit piece on the Speaker of the House. A hit piece that has sunk so low as to take shots at the weight and health of one Rep Harrell. That’s pathetic.
Speaking of pathetic, I’m surprised that no one else has noticed this. Take a SC History Class, Will (and the FITSNews staff for that matter)! Be certain to take copious notes when you get to the parts pertaining to “Solomon Blatt.”
Got it? GOOD.
Now go write your five-paragraph essay comparing and contrasting Harrell to Blatt, m’kay? Maybe then you’ll figure it out.
- SSHM
By Some one who used to know.... on January 8th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Worthless!! Simple worthless.
If we’re going to discuss physical attributes put a picture of yourself up and invite comment….
This “hit and run” on the Speaker is tired. Of all the things that he could be called out on, you pick the few that don’t matter or are irrelevant. By the way, last time I laid eyes on you in the Publick House you were grabbing wings to go and didn’t look too thin yourself!!!
By fitsnews on January 8th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
#2 & #3,
May the New Year bring you both – and Bobby – a Mama Cass ham sandwich moment.
-FITS
By frank on January 8th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
As we sit here Jakie Knotts and Bobby Harrell are racing to see which one will get the last pork sandwich. PORK PORK PORK PORK!!!!!
By BIN News on January 8th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Wow! Is sic(k) willie about to burst a blood vessel and stroke out on us? Such petty name calling has not been seen on this little porn site since yesterday.
By StupidShouldHurtMore (SSHM) on January 8th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
#4,
Your credibility sinks with each passing post. Nothing quite like responding with a urban legend to “validate” your response. Mamma Cass (aka Cass Elliot) died of a heart attack in her sleep, not from choking on a ham sandwich.
The point at the end of the day is this: Your champions of “transparency in government” were called on the carpet for being the frauds they are by Fogle. You can’t STAND the fact that the Speaker is doing his job – and doing it well. Proof positive public policy does not rise and set by Governor Moonbeam and his support network of cronies (SC [Libertarian] Policy Council, et al).
Sol Blatt, Will … Sol Blatt … is it really that tough to understand?
- SSHM
By Spank Big Bobby on January 8th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Sic Willie-
Keep after Harrell – his fear of recording all the votes is unacceptable.
Big Bobby must be trying to be the poster boy for bloated government.
By Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain on January 8th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
I cannot stand this guy, or his political positions, or his spawn, and for reasons unrelated to the article.
His Royalty,
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain
By BIN News Editorial Staff on January 9th, 2009 at 12:01 am
The BIN News Editorial Staff will meet tomorrow in executive session to discuss awarding SSHM the Order of the Ham Sandwich. Great job, SSHM, you deserve the honor. sic(k) willie has never been known for much more than scams and frauds.
BIN News Editorial Staff
Flair and Balance
By fitsnews on January 9th, 2009 at 12:13 am
SSHM (et. BIN, other haters)-
Our religiousness got questioned earlier today, so perhaps that’s why we’re in such a preachy mood. Oh well … your loss … so pull up a chair and hear the word:
Somebody once told us the best way to keep a political office was to not care about losing it.
Perhaps a corollary is that the best way to keep credibility in the marketplace of ideas is to not worry about ever having had it in the first place.
Seriously, does not our founding editor “beat the sh*t out of women on a daily basis” as you all like to remind everybody of (ad hominem)?
Now … assuming a reasonable percentage of your audience (well, you’re really just borrowing our audience) believes that to be the case, then do you honestly think there’s anything you can say that’s going to adversely affect his “credibility?”
If there is, then by all means let’s hear it.
It’s sad, really.
Some of the people involved in this fight want so desperately to see the forest for the trees. But they can’t, nor will they ever. They tinker around the edges of something so devoid of truth that even their well-intentioned pruning only makes things worse.
So we came … to burn down the f*cking forest.
And to start planting new seeds.
Four years ago, when former Rep. Dan Tripp was the lone vote against Bobby Harrell’s election as Speaker, he remarked that he had “cast a principled vote against an unprincipled leader.”
We laughed at him. We thought he was crazy.
Of course it turns out he wasn’t crazy … he was prophetic.
Harrell is not doing his job well, which is why he won’t have it for as long as he might think.
He’s “turned a couple coats” to start this session, to be sure, but in the war between your leader’s corrupt, chronic failure and the common sense ideas that will finally lift this state out of its centuries-old morass, the tide has turned – in the halls of power, in the fields, in the press.
It’s like this – we wax, you wane.
And it’s inevitable – there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop it.
As for us here at FITS, we are smarter than you, we work harder than you, and the truth is on our side, not yours. That’s why we get death threats while you get an extra hour of sleep on the taxpayer’s dime.
Martin Luther King once said that “the moral arm of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
Check it out.
You tell us to read Sol Blatt? Go read King. And then Kant. And then Rand. And Sun Tzu. Read Dante and Friedman and Matthew 5-7, too.
Then read us … and weep. And keep listening to your chamber music while we fuel our souls with Rage Against The Machine.
Our credibility “sinks with each passing post?” Please. A million hits in the last three months – during the holidays, no less – would seem to say otherwise.
The moral arm of this corner of the universe is bending, friend. To justice. And there’s not a damn thing Speaker Harrell or any of his sycophants can do about it.
-FITS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-58-36lSqG4
By Cadie on January 9th, 2009 at 12:20 am
Back at it again on Harrell. Will, you are so one issue focused, your obsession is bizarre. Does it have to do with your affair with Nikki? Something is behind it. And by the way, the reference to “Directly from SC entreprenuers,” notice how you ended it? “Stay tuned for more information as this story develops” from October 1. Where is the update? Never follow through…just throw out your lies with a “stay tuned” that doesn’t end up panning out.
And as far as weight comments, watch your glass house. Harrell isn’t overweight, nor is he balding and wearing ghetto jersey’s every day.
By fitsnews on January 9th, 2009 at 12:31 am
Jeez. Perhaps instead of such a marvelous “comment sermon” we should have just proposed Bobby v. Sic in a “Biggest Loser – SC Politics Edition”
You up, Mr. Speaker?
By Todd on January 9th, 2009 at 12:45 am
SSHM and BIN:
You left out Edgar Brown, Marion Gressette and Rembert Dennis. Also, check out that Jean Toal humble disciple Alex Sanders in his interview by Brad Warthan when he said the better system of selecting judges was in the back rooms by the aforementioned icons. The State, Warthan blog, April, 2007. What an idiot. But, then, Queen Jean saved his law school. Go on, Willie. Transparency is the only way to bring honesty to these hacks and Blarr wannabes. I’ll go toe to toe with you, SSHM and BIN, on SC political history on this subject. Let’s bring in – discuss – Jimmy Byrnes with his Baruch connections. I’ll even spot you Walter Edgar. Honesty is going to win eventually, clowns.
By BIN News Editorial Staff on January 9th, 2009 at 1:03 am
sic(k) willie, we never knew you cared so much about BIN News!
After reading your latest rant the only thing that comes to mine is that you seriously need a colonoscopy or at least a good very warm saltwater enema.
Seriously dude. You are full of yourself. You need to get cleaned out and get on a healthy diet. Get more sleep. Cut back on the bad stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonoscopy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enema
BIN News Editorial Staff
Flair and Balance
P.S. BIN News has never threatened. Our staff cannot be responsible for your paranoia. Look elsewhere for those who make threats. We just out your scams.
By Carl on January 9th, 2009 at 1:18 am
Hmmmm, that makes two midlands debates, Sic Willie and the Dutch Fork Civics Class. How much are tickets????
By Cockfighter on January 9th, 2009 at 1:21 am
Go#D*@%, amazing what pork can do to you!
GO COCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By StupidShouldHurtMore (SSHM) on January 9th, 2009 at 2:49 am
Todd,
I left out the other memebers of the “Barnwell Ring” as it was not required to draw the needed parallel. Quite frankly, it isn’t the legislature that needs reform – it is the electorate that continues to send these folks back to Columbia year in and year out. If you were a student of history, you would know this. You would know that in 1949, V.O. Key spelled out what the “Barnwell Ring” was. In addition, V.O. Key also asserted that South Carolinians were reluctant to concede power to be properly governed (i.e., opposed to a strong and centralized executive). Key also noted, that if South Carolinians were to be a tad more “adventuresome” with their government, South Carolina could develop a responsible form of cabinet government.
V.O. Key put these thoughts together in a book entitled: Southern Politics in State and Nation. The year of publication: 1949. When did South Carolina see it’s first stabs at cabinet-style government: Early 1990s.
You can run around and stomp your feet and scream “transparent and open government” at the top of your lungs, but it won’t make a bit of difference. History is on our side in this matter.
You can’t reform the electors as they were charged with a duty from the electorate. By virtue of the fact that many, if not ALL of the electors return, year in and year out, might I suggest you take your LBJ-esque “War For Transparent and Open Government” elsewhere?
- SSHM
PS – I’ll take you to task on Southern Politics any day of the week.
By Todd on January 9th, 2009 at 11:02 am
SSHM: You and I should join forces, actually. This is fun. I am glad there are other real historians out there.
By BIN News Editorial Staff on January 9th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
SSHM,
Congratulations! You are a Great American!
You are hereby awarded The Order of the Ham Sandwich! As the first recipient of this prestigious award BIN News Editorial Staff will pay off the mortgage on your home, pay the college tuition of your children (as long as they go to SC schools), buy you 2 new BMWs as long as they are made in SC and ask sic(k) willie to get you a date with his heartthrob, Ms. Payne. No idea if she will accept, but the way sic(k) willie has been pimping her, you may have a shot. Sorry, Ms. Payne. You asked for it by appearing on this pathetic porn site.
BIN News Editorial Staff
Flair and Balanced
By Ron on January 15th, 2009 at 5:47 am
Will,
Great job! Please “keep the heat on”. Heck “turn it up”! We know that “the truth hurts”. The oinkers posting here are beginning to squeel like the porkers they really are. So Will, TURN UP THE HEAT! These jokers(porkers) in the people’s house (Harrell’s House) won’t all of a sudden become a transparent body w/predominantly on the record voting unless we the people strongly demand it. TURN IT UP, WILL! lol
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