South Carolina government agencies have received over $600 million in federal stimulus money already this fiscal year, according to data released Wednesday by S.C. Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom. Obviously, all of that money was spent long before it arrived, as the S.C. General Assembly appropriated it months ago in the state’s $20.7 billion budget.
Here’s the real question, though … just how much of the cash is going toward “stimulating” anything? From the looks of it, most of it is going toward shoring up government bureaucracies that refuse to live within their means during one of the worst economic downturns in our nation’s history.
In the case of the state’s primary stimulus”beneficiary, for example, almost every penny of the “new” money is going toward maintaining current levels of spending.
The lion’s share of the stimulus funding so far – $372.5 million – has gone toward the S.C. Department of Health and Human Services, which is basically using it to plug holes in its budget.
“This is obviously money that goes toward maintaining government services,” Health and Human Services spokesman Jeff Stensland told FITS.
Stensland said the agency had implemented only one new government program in the new fiscal year, a new health information project.
Anyway, here’s the “stimulus” breakdown:
Dept. of Health and Human Services, $372.5 million
Employment Security Commission, $93.0 million
Dept. of Social Services, $66.6 million
Dept. of Public Safety, $23.2 million
Dept. of Education, $18.8 million
Governor’s Office, $13.9 million
Dept. of Commerce, $7.3 million
Dept. of Health and Environmental Control, $3.2 million
Dept. of Transportation, $1.0 million
Lt. Governor’s Office, $419,000
Vocational Rehabilitation, $194,000
Budget and Control Board, $19,000
“What’s clear to me is that the economic downturn was used as an excuse to spend borrowed money on things that don’t help the economy,” Eckstrom said in releasing the data. “Too much is going toward expanding government, and too little is going toward things like roads and bridges and putting people back to work.”
Damn straight. This so-called “stimulus” was a “bureaucratic bailout” from the beginning, which is why we constantly referred to it that way. Anybody who thought that propping up government bureaucracies was going to save a single non-bureaucratic South Carolina job needs to have their head examined.
Eckstrom also bemoaned the cost of the non-job producing stimulus on future generations.
“Unfortunately, we’re not even the ones who’ll be repaying the debt from this spending; the federal government structured that debt for our kids and grandkids to repay,” Eckstrom said. “It’s for that reason we have a special obligation to follow these stimulus dollars to ensure they’re spent with transparency and accountability, and to guard against fraud or mismanagement. We owe it to future generations. We’re eating their seed corn.”
Gross. Seed corn sounds disgusting.
Anyway, South Carolina is one of just three states in the nation to post stimulus expenditures on the Web, according to Eckstrom.
To view the “cash flow” for yourselves, click on the link below …
WEB EXTRA
By Jonny D September 23, 2009 at 11:24 am
I gots to Luvvvvvvv the Luv Guv, but why in the name of sweet Maria is the Governor’s Office receiving any stimulus money?
But heck, it’s all about Bruce today baby, Happy 60th you fantastic old bastard!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf61K6ZKu_4
By HammerheadSC September 23, 2009 at 12:02 pm
I think most of it is being used in irmo to redo every street in site. what a freaking mess over here
By cfd007 September 23, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Is some one having a barbecue? I can smell the pork from here.
By dirtbogger September 23, 2009 at 1:55 pm
don’t worry about paying it back we should just take it and say the hell with paying it back after the Fed is audited the currency will implode like building 7. Its just papper they print up more any time they want to. So can somebody just tell me why we pay taxes if they can just print money? Why does it have to be paid back if they can just print it?
By EDiehl September 23, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Thought you might find it interesting, as a single mother of three with a college degree who works very long and very hard to support her children without any “government benefits,” I was really excited to see so many ads about Obama helping Moms go back to school. After meeting with a counselor at a university here in Sc about possibly pursuing a more marketable degree, I found out that that program is pretty much a farce. BECAUSE I AM EMPLOYED, I am ineligible for “Obama Bucks.” Now if I were sitting on my ass collecting foodstamps and living in section 8, I’d be the ideal candidate. Once again, a nice slap in the face for the working poor. And we wonder why so many single moms and their kids are on government assistance…
By Laura Campbell September 23, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Believe me, those of us sitting back and collecting food stamps and benefits would LOVE to have a job. Even my ex-husband doesn’t want VA benefits for service in Desert Storm, he wants a job. VA benefits are not enough anyway, that is until a veteran is almost dead and they then receive 100% on the benefits scale. Millions for ACORN and how much for Veterans?
Were Chesterfield County what it used to be, we could get a manufacturing job. Practically none are left, and people who had been with these businesses for 30+ years are now unemployed. Their self-esteem is shot. They are angry. And they hate the time they have on their hands.
Apparently, our government doesn’t even want us to farm. They’d rather run factory farms, like those in Mexico where perhaps the Swine Flu started, ones so filthy and full of horrors that even hogs don’t deserve.
A big THANK YOU to all politicos who sold out this country and sent jobs overseas. Just remember, when the common man has no money to pay you and there’s no one to tax, or millions more are sitting in prison, you’ll be sitting on your a##es just like many are now. There won’t be money to fund your perpetual field days and your lives will be as boring and stressful and tedious as ours.
Perhaps we’ll use that extra time to figure out a sure-fire way to get you out of office, since the peaceful ones we’re using now aren’t working. Our government has apparently decided to declare war on its own citizens, or at the very least, to take away citizen’s TRUE freedom, which is the right to do what one is supposed to do. As in work or protest or question government activity. Just saying perhaps we should return the favor.
Once again, most of us don’t want benefits. We want a job. We want TRUE freedom, not the false kind being offered, in which people can run amuck and do as they please. We want a country as defined in the Constitution. We want a country based on the ideals that so many have suffered and died for.
By political hack September 23, 2009 at 6:33 pm
dirtbogger, I agree with your angle, and the fact of the matter is, taxes are all garbage. The name of the game is bailout. Once one of the pyramid scheming banks goes down, its up to the government, who also gives this pyramid scheme legal protection, to help save their asses. We as taxpayers are taxed again by the wonderful essence of modern feudalism called inflation and the corporations are portrayed as the ones to blame for raising prices. There is no partisan politics anymore, everyone is too progressive and thinks they know better than the average joe who is out there working his ass off just to let the kids in the candy store play around with their egos and their political power. There needs to be term limits for these clowns so they don’t have an unlimited access to free money, and they can’t get reelected by only catering to their consituents or claiming a superior service record. The only way to keep this ponzi scheme running is for Congress to remain enept and have the gangsters running the Fed figure out all the angles to keep their exclusive right to print all the money for the USA and charging us for it. Interestingly Michael Moore in his new movie I believe tries to create the angle that politicians work for corporations. If he dug a little more into the obvious and was able to see that the Federal Reserve is also a corporation, with secret bank holding companies as the shareholders that have more money than the average man can fathom, and its the piggy bank for the government, so long as they mandate it. The more interest payments we as a country make to the Fed, the happier they are. Social Justice, Welfare, no wards of the state, War? Congress just needs to spend to keep those interest payments flowing. This is where the power is, when you can beat a nation down by perpetual debt and pull the strings of governments. Like I said earlier, we ARE in modern fuedalism, might as well call your Congressman a lord.
By Laura Campbell September 23, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Political Hack:
Great insight. What do we do about it? Protesting seems to be a waste of time, and who can afford, or desires, to go to jail? Our government owns everything, the press, corporations, the banks. To worsen things, there seems to be a bigger, more corrupt force backing them or using them as puppets to promote their agenda.
Throughout history, the best the common man, or honest politician, has been able to do is shift power and keep things from getting worse, regardless of how much bloodletting occurs or what sacrifices are made.
The bottom line is apparently there are a handful of people on the planet who are willing to do anything to maintain power and control. Hoping not to sound like a madwoman, but that includes torture, muder, rape, lying, stealing, cheating, you name it. This is not to mention the horrors which occur daily in military and medical labs. I would die of my own hand before I even considered doing for 1 second what many do in the name of power every hour of every day.
Do we rebel, Patrick Henry style, as crazy Rev. Manning says? Do we let them carry on with the status quo or risk all that we have that makes life worth living?
No person, or group of people, has been able to defeat the mentality which drives the likes of Hitler, Hussein, the Bush Dynasty, and thousands of others.
And it’s always a case of “new boss same as the old boss”. Obama, meet Bush.
I’m sure I’m not the 1st to ask, but what do we do about this ageless issue of a handful of people labeling themselves “government” while simultaneously destroying who and what they govern? The fact that, in the end, they suffer and die like everyone else does little, if anything, to sway them. They learn nothing from history. Religion is most often a tool for them. Those they govern are so willing to be divided on race, religion, culture, gender, and social stratification. The common man is far too often lured from his beliefs with an offer of a slice of the proverbial pie.
Really, what to do?
By political hack September 24, 2009 at 5:36 am
dirtbogger, I agree with your angle, and the fact of the matter is, taxes are all garbage. The name of the game is bailout. Once one of the pyramid scheming banks goes down, its up to the government, who also gives this pyramid scheme legal protection, to help save their asses. We as taxpayers are taxed again by the wonderful essence of modern feudalism called inflation and the corporations are portrayed as the ones to blame for raising prices. There is no partisan politics anymore, everyone is too progressive and thinks they know better than the average joe who is out there working his ass off just to let the kids in the candy store play around with their egos and their political power. There needs to be term limits for these clowns so they don’t have an unlimited access to free money, and they can’t get reelected by only catering to their consituents or claiming a superior service record. The only way to keep this ponzi scheme running is for Congress to remain enept and have the gangsters running the Fed figure out all the angles to keep their exclusive right to print all the money for the USA and charging us for it. Interestingly Michael Moore in his new movie I believe tries to create the angle that politicians work for corporations. If he dug a little more into the obvious and was able to see that the Federal Reserve is also a corporation, with secret bank holding companies as the shareholders that have more money than the average man can fathom, and its the piggy bank for the government, so long as they mandate it. The more interest payments we as a country make to the Fed, the happier they are. Social Justice, Welfare, no wards of the state, War? Congress just needs to spend to keep those interest payments flowing. This is where the power is, when you can beat a nation down by perpetual debt and pull the strings of governments. Like I said earlier, we ARE in modern fuedalism, might as well call your Congressman a lord.
P.S. – Sorry, forgot to tell you great post!
By dirtbogger September 24, 2009 at 10:47 am
Calm down Laura, right now we are in the midst of an information revolution, so we are fighting right now to win the harts and minds of people. Use your energy to wake people up. Just in the last year people like us have increased 10 fold. It may not seem like it in Chesterfield County, I realize that, but we are winning now. It will get worse before it gets better, and it may be our children who benifit not us.
Political Hack you are spot on, but I would just like to add that Michael Moore is working for the Oligarchy, he wants government running everything and taking care of (inslaving) people from cradel to grave.
By dirtbogger September 24, 2009 at 10:51 am
Political Hack, no man, your post rocked!