When is a budget cut not really a budget cut? When it’s proposed by S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley …
Sources tell FITS that the Tea Party darling has been working behind the scenes with several prominent “Republicans In Name Only” to ensure that S.C. Educational Television (SCETV) and the S.C. Arts Commission remain funded – despite the fact that she has repeatedly called for both agencies to be cut from the state budget.
This backroom budget duplicity – par for the course in the decidedly “anti-transparency” Haley administration – was recently rebuked by a bipartisan coalition in the State Senate. In the process, these lawmakers exposed how Haley and her RINO allies in the legislature were quietly attempting to route this money through other state agencies – including one of her cabinet agencies – in an effort to fool the public into thinking that SCETV and the Arts Commission were actually being cut.
In reality, neither of these agencies will lose a dime – the only question is whether Haley will still get to take credit for her “cuts.”
Haley offered very few proposed spending reductions in her 2011 State of the State address, but she did recommend doing away with both of these agencies – moves she claimed would save taxpayers $12 million a year. Obviously, that amount represents a drop in the bucket of what is currently a $21.8 billion spending plan – but such is life under the Haley regime, which has apparently taken a limited view of “limited government.”
“We will not please everyone with the decisions we make but we must make decisions that do the least amount of harm and have the best long-term effect,” Haley said in her State of the State speech. “And the reality is the role of South Carolina’s government in the year 2011 can no longer be to fund an Arts Commission that costs us $2.5 million. It cannot be one that funds ETV, costing taxpayers $9.5 million.”
As recently as last week Haley was reiterating these positions in a letter to State Senators, urging them to come up with a “fee for service” model for SCETV while gutting the Arts Commission entirely.
“I restate my desire to take this organization off the general fund line,” Haley wrote of the Arts Commission, saying that it needed to find “private sector funding for its activities.”
Of course while Haley was publicly defending her recommendation to eliminate this agency, she was conspiring behind-the-scenes to route its funding into her own cabinet.
In a closed door meeting with Sen. Larry Martin last week, Haley told the RINO lawmaker that she would be forced to veto a direct appropriation for the S.C. Arts Commission – but that she would leave the agency’s funding alone if it was routed through her cabinet. In fact, according to sources who spoke with Martin following the meeting, Haley specifically instructed him to draft an amendment that would move the money into the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism (PRT).
That’s exactly what Martin did – although his amendment was shot down when Haley’s 2010 gubernatorial opponent, S.C. Senator Vincent Sheheen, exposed this attempted slight of hand.
Sheheen also led the fight to move SCETV’s funding back into the sunlight after the S.C. House spending plan used one of those secretive provisos (which Haley has criticized) to spread the money across multiple state agencies – including the S.C. Department of Education and S.C. Budget and Control Board (B&CB).
Sources familiar with the drafting of the House budget all point to Haley’s administration as being responsible for the covert SCETV spending plan. In fact, one lawmaker told us that Haley’s administration approached several House budget writers shortly after her State of the State speech to find out how SCETV and the Arts Commission could continue being funded – while maintaining the public illusion that these agencies were being cut.
“She wants to be seen as cutting government without actually cutting it,” said the lawmaker, who spoke with FITS on condition of anonymity. “Look at the amendments – they are copying and pasting funding amounts from one agency line to the next. Nothing is being cut.”
And while it appears as though Haley will be forced to veto the Arts Commission funding, she could wind up pulling off her SCETV “cut” without a veto – and without anyone in the general public realizing that the agency is still being funded.
That’s because S.C. Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman – who has emerged as an invaluable Haley ally – plans to stack the committee responsible for ironing out the final version of the budget with Senators who will approve the secretive deal that Haley struck with the House regarding SCETV.
So much for budget transparency, right?
While we’re used to deception from Haley (more so than most people, in fact), this latest duplicity is particularly disappointing because it shows that she simply isn’t committed to pushing for even the slightest cuts to state government.
Seriously … $12 million out of $21.8 billion?
What is Haley committed to? Perception over reality … or in other words the same old budgetary smoke and mirrors that she campaigned against.
SCETV BUDGET PROVISO
LARRY MARTIN ARTS COMMISSION AMENDMENT
VINCENT SHEHEEN SCETV AMENDMENT
***
By Fred May 2, 2011 at 8:39 pm
Look, Nukki Haley and Hugh Leatherman are one in the same. She talks the tea party trash while he spends like the RINO rash…uncontrollably!
I voted for Haley but no I see she is either whacko or evil, either way she cannot tell the truth. This is a real problem!!!
By stimulus May 2, 2011 at 8:49 pm
she is a stupid ugly bitch!
By baker May 2, 2011 at 11:05 pm
Seems to me that the real problem here is that Nikki Haley and other Republicans have gotten themselves in a quandary.
They talk up the Tea Party game, arch-GOP thing, of cutting everything in sight. ETV seems like an obvious choice, right?
But….there are real people with jobs in places like ETV. And ETV provides content that public schools (and, I would guess, private schools, too) use. And maybe ETV has a real cultural and economic impact in our state. And some of the straight-up Republicans who donated to Haley’s campaign may also be supporters of ETV….and maybe they don’t want their burden to increase via a shift from public money to greater reliance on private donations.
So, politicians like Haley have to figure out a way to keep up appearances with the Tea Party folks while not slashing an entity that really does have a legitimate public role.
I guess it’s problematic.
By Roger da Wabbit May 2, 2011 at 11:18 pm
what would the Tom Davis’s of the world think?
By Simple May 3, 2011 at 5:50 am
Do not listen to what she says. Just watch what she does. She is a big old RINO wrapped in right wing rhetoric, bathed in the ego. Lots and lots of ego.
By Cancerman May 3, 2011 at 7:37 am
Haley is a bitch.
By fitsnews May 3, 2011 at 7:49 am
Roger-
Davis voted in favor of the Sheheen amendment and against the Martin amendment (i.e. he voted for the pro-transparency position in both cases).
-FITS
By Eastbound and Down May 3, 2011 at 7:53 am
Nikki Haley is commited to Nikki Haley. She is a CINO. Conservative in name only. She used the buzz words to get elected and now she is just showing all of us who she really is.
By Wicked May 3, 2011 at 8:21 am
Unlike the OWB, Nikki is a PSWOB………..
By Wicked May 3, 2011 at 8:21 am
Or WOB for short
By Huhhh??? May 3, 2011 at 8:51 am
You people who voted for Haley have bad judgement. You didn’t learn a thing about your bad judgement after you voted for Mark Sanford. Twice.
You have bad judgment. Start paying attention to what their lives and careers tell you, not just the words that come out of their mouths. Or, stop voting. Or, if you think this one is the one you want to vote for, vote for their opponent. You know you can’t trust your judgement.
By sick of your sikh denial May 3, 2011 at 9:35 am
While she and her dad are being investigated by the feds, will they be allowed to travel to India for her autumn trip? If they are allowed, will it be a one-way flight?
By SCSPAN May 3, 2011 at 9:59 am
I like CINO, EB&D! Republican has meant varying things at varying times, from Goldwater to Rockefeller and everything in between. South Carolina has become a one-party state again, with basically all of the decisions being made by the Republican majority that consists of the same types who occupied the Democratic party in this state when it ran the show for most of the past century. The real issue is conservatism vs. liberalism. Haley is a faux conservative who uses conservative sound bites and themes to promote herself because those are the sound bites and themes that win elections in this state. But her actions don’t match her words because she’s ultimately willing to sell-out the government to maintain her status and continue the self-promotions. How does she handle inconsistencies between her words and actions? By calling opponents haters and using other such smokescreens, not to mention bold-faced lies.
By jim lewis May 3, 2011 at 10:54 am
LOS ANGELES — Yvette Vickers, an actress best known as the femme fatale in two late 1950s cult horror films, “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman” and “Attack of the Giant Leeches,” was found dead Wednesday at her Los Angeles home. She was 82.
The body’s mummified state suggests that she could have been dead for close to a year, police said.
Hell, I went to see those movies over and over just to see the big, big leeches.
Now before you peckerheads get started with what’s the deal, this ain’t got nothing to do with ETV, Leatherman and the Queen. I contend that old Leatherdick has been in a mummified state for at least the last ten years and nobody has reported his death, not even willie.
By sick of your sikh denial May 3, 2011 at 11:44 am
Embezzlement, all the way.