Nikki Haley Vetoes Next-To-Nothing … Again

GOVERNOR PROPOSES CUTTING BARELY ONE-TENTH OF ONE PERCENT OF STATE BUDGET

|| By FITSNEWS || For the fifth year in a row, a governor elected on the strength of the Tea Party movement gave big government a big fat kiss on the lips …

S.C. governor Nikki Haley broke out her veto pen this week, although once again there’s no danger of her running out of ink …

Haley vetoed a measly $30.2 million of the state’s secretly approved $26.5 billion budget.  For those of you keeping score at home, that’s 0.11 percent of state spending that Haley found objectionable.

Roughly one-tenth of one percent …

Unreal …

Amazingly, this year’s vetoes are actually bolder than last year’s suggested cuts.

In 2014, Haley vetoed a minuscule $18.5 million out of the state’s $25.1 billion budget – or 0.07 percent of the spending plan.  In fact she went so far as to join liberal “Republicans” in the South Carolina Senate in approving a $26 million appropriation for U.S. President Barack Obama’s signature education initiative – an expansion of the state’s failed government-run early childhood education programs.

The year before that Haley vetoed barely $100 million out of a $22.7 billion budget (.44 percent).

In 2012, Haley vetoed $60 million – or one quarter of one percent of a $23 billion budget.  Her most “aggressive” efforts to rein in spending took place during her first year in office, when she cut $213 million (or .96 percent) from a $22.1 billion spending plan.

So yeah … in five years during which time South Carolina spent $119.4 billion on government, Haley has only vetoed $421 million.

While South Carolina lawmakers will gather soon to address Haley’s vetoes, we’re going to spare you the suspense.

Seriously … there’s no point even debating what amounts to a rounding error.

What makes Haley’s anemic veto pen even more disappointing is it represents one of the few areas where she – an executive in a legislatively dominated state – has the potential to actually limit government growth.  For every spending item Haley crosses out, state lawmakers must muster a two-thirds majority in both the S.C. House and the State Senate.

Haley has shown no reticence when it comes to using her bully pulpit (albeit hypocritically) … so why isn’t she using it in support of real cuts to government?

Easy … she hasn’t proposed any.

You can’t hold lawmakers accountable for their failure to rein in excess government if you don’t think there’s any excess government there.

So yeah … remember this the next time Nikki Haley refers to herself as a “fiscal conservative.”

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