Fearful

We may have said this before, but South Carolina’s two most powerful budget writers couldn’t be any more full of it if they tried.

And “desperate times” apparently call more of the same misleading rhetoric that accompanied the astronomical revenue increases of recent years.

They’re trying to frame the debate – through fear.

In anticipation of the brewing battle over the Palmetto State’s $21.2 billion budget, Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman and House Ways & Means Chairman Dan Cooper are up to their old tricks again – pretending to be concerned about the taxpayer while protecting their personal pork and throwing teachers and prison guards on the chopping block.

It’s nothing new … of course there was a rare moment of acknowledgment from one of these taxpayer plunderers.

“I’m fearful (the budget) going to help us dig our state in a hole that’s going to be tough to get out of in two years when that money’s shut off,” Leatherman told the AP’s Jim Davenport last week.

No sh*t, Sherlock.

Of course Leatherman also told Davenport “I’m going to push to get every stimulus dollar I can get.”

Which figures.

Like a true addict, Leatherman sees the hangover coming – but he still can’t put down the bottle.

Cooper’s contribution to the public debate?

It’s flat out fear-mongering

He tells Davenport that “if we just went with 7 percent across the board and tried not to use the stimulus money, there’d be about 4,000 teachers laid off, Corrections says they would have to close four or five prisons and release 3,400 inmates early.”

Hold up … thousands of teacher layoffs and inmates running wild in the streets, you say?

God! That would be horrible.

But wait a second … isn’t that what these clowns are conditioned to say whenever government growth falls below double-digits?

In fact, don’t they specifically target their budget “cuts” in precisely these areas – where the public will feel them the most?

Speaking of which, let’s plug Cooper’s quote into our handy-dandy bureaucratic translator … which takes what politicians say and translates it into what they actually mean.

Biddy-biddy-biddy … and here it is:

“If we were to responsibly trim a budget that has grown by record levels in recent years, we would have to cut out our personal pork, ignore the special interests that fund our PACs and campaigns, and worst of all – give Governor Sanford a political victory. Obviously, we’re not going to do that. So, instead, we’re going to tell people that their children won’t have teachers and that crazed inmates will be lurking right outside their windows if we don’t spend all this money.”

Ahh … thank you, handy-dandy bureaucratic translator.

The truth is nice, isn’t it?

And the truth is there are literally hundreds of millions of dollars that could be cut from South Carolina’s $21.2 billion budget without a single hair on a teacher or prison guard’s head being touched.

Clemson PSA, for example, and USC-Salkahatchie and USC-Union … all three should be cut without breaking a sweat.

And never brought back.

Tens of millions more a year could be saved on restructuring, specifically in the delivery of our health care services. And hundreds of millions could be saved by reforming our antiquated and fraud-ridden Medicaid eligibility system.

And then there’s school choice – which would dramatically increase per-pupil funding in South Carolina while cutting the overall taxpayer burden (not to mention creating smaller class sizes).

Why state leaders aren’t all over that deal baffles us …

Perhaps it’s because implementing any of these ideas would require government to assume (gasp) a more limited role in our state – and citizens to be empowered with choices, not confined by inefficient monopolies.

We’ll have more on the state budget – and particularly those programs that should be “zeroed out” – in future posts.

In the meantime, we could take a big step toward on the budget if lawmakers would simply spend taxpayer money based on what they’re supposed to be accomplishing for the citizens of this state, not just automatically increasing funding to the same programs every year.

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