What Will Sanford Do On Budget?

S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford will announce his “veto decision” on South Carolina’s $20.7 billion state budget at a press conference this afternoon at 3:00 p.m.

Wait, his “veto decision?” Can that be right?

Doesn’t the Governor’s Office mean that Sanford will announce his “budget vetoes?” As in “plural?”

Maybe not.

In previous years Sanford has gone both ways – he’s vetoed the entire budget before (in 2006), but he’s also gone line by line and vetoed literally hundreds of individual spending items.

Either way, he’s been blasted by lawmakers.

In 2005, for example, Sanford issued 163 vetoes. The year before, he issued 106 of them – all but one of which was overridden “lickety split” by the General Assembly, prompting the governor to famously bring two squealing little piglets into the S.C. State House.

So what will Sanford do this year?

Technically, he’s got three options – let the budget stand, veto the whole thing or take out his pen and cut the sections he doesn’t like.

Of course this year’s budget picture has been clouded by the infusion of billions of dollars in federal “stimulus” money, roughly $700 million of which Sanford is refusing to accept.

Will the governor target his vetoes to reach this specific amount? Or will he simply reject that money in one stroke of the pen?

His office isn’t talking, but one popular theory circulating around the State House is that Sanford will find a way to revert back to an alternative budget proposed by conservative lawmakers that was shot down last month.

It’s unclear whether or not a simple “strike and insert” could accomplish that – i.e. a single veto that scraps the whole budget and inserts in its place a separate spending plan.

We’ll find out later this afternoon …

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