“Under Duress,” Sanford Applies For Stimulus Funds

As ordered by the S.C. Supreme Court, Gov. Mark Sanford today submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Education for $700 million in controversial federal “stimulus” funds – marking the end of a months-long political battle that exacerbated intra-party divisions and effectively ground the legislative process in the Palmetto State to a screeching halt.

The money – which amounts to less than a tenth of the total “stimulus” funds being dropped into Palmetto State bureaucracies – will comprise approximately 1.6% of this year’s $20.7 billion budget.

Some of our state’s cash-strapped schools have already said they don’t need it.

In fact, at least one S.C. public school district already fattened with federal funds from other “stimulus” disbursements has signaled that it will dump its cut of this new money into its already-bloated reserve account.

Having lost the fight, though, all that was left was for Sanford to do was reiterate his objections “one last time” to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

“It’s important to state one last time for the record what a monumentally terrible idea I believe the entire so-called stimulus act is, and why in particular using this money as our General Assembly has done is ultimately going to cause more harm than good,” Sanford wrote Duncan.

Equating the notion of future taxpayers being saddled with current obligations as “taxation without representation,” Sanford also got in a pop at Duncan’s boss, President Barack Obama.

“The Obama Administration’s financially reckless advocacy of borrowing nearly fifty percent of every dollar being spent in Washington is being exported to states like South Carolina,” Sanford wrote.

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