The VUI Response to the State of the State and the Democratic Response

Wednesday night, Governor Mark Sanford spoke the General Assembly and the Supreme Court of South Carolina to deliver the 2009 State of the State Address. As he has for most of his six years in office, Governor Sanford offered up a warmed over leftover of the Club for Growth after dinner speech he has been giving for years. As has been the case over the past six years, there are some things the Governor proposes that are sensible, there are some things that just will not happen, and there are some things that show the Governor to be narrow and rather self centered in his vision.

First, the issue of transparency in government will be addressed. Both the South Carolina Senate and the South Carolina House made recent rule changes to allow for more recorded votes. However, Sanford calls for the rules changes to be codified.

Sanford does not realize that he and his allies actually won on the issue. Codification could create some problems. The House can not tell the Senate how to operate and vice versa. Thus, legislation that was passed by both houses about the operation of one another might not hold up. Further, rarely do legislative bodies engage in legislation that deals with minutia of legislative process. That is was the rules of legislative bodies are for. The independence of the rules of those bodies is at the heart of the ideal of checks and balances that form the notion of republican form of government. The other legislative entity in a bicameral system and the executive have no business telling an entity how to run its process.

Sanford’s ideas about openness in legislative income and in disclosure by political groups have appeal. However, Governor Sanford has credibility problems on the issues.

First, lets look at public officials benefiting for their service and the things that they get done in government. Sanford all but accused those against worker’s compensation reform of being against such reform because they made more money outside the General Assembly under the old system. Fair enough. However, Sanford’s private school tuition tax credit serves him. A $3000 per student tax credit will not make private school an option for the lower middle class or the poor as Governor Sanford alluded to by talking about families who could not afford to live in good public school districts. Most private school tuitions are at least twice that amount per child, some four or five times. A family barely making ends meet can not come up the additional thousands of dollars needed to put their kids in private school. However, someone like the Governor, who can afford private school, will get a big tax decrease. In the Governor’s case, it would be around $12,000 this year if it were in place. Thus the Governor has a credibility issue on his notion of stands on public policy being self serving.

Second, let’s look at the openness the Governor calls for in contributions. The various groups that support the Governor’s causes and his pet candidates do not have to wait on the legislature to act. The Governor does not have to wait either. He simply can call on those groups to release their donor lists and show who gave to them and in what amount. Again, the Governor’s actions speak louder than his words.

There are more agreeable things to be found in the Governor’s ideas when it comes to the economy. The Governor is right on legislative spending caps, not funding recurring expenses with one time money, and on starting to deal with the looming state retirement program problems. On the latter, there is an economic train wreck coming in about five to ten years. The Governor is correct to call for action now.

The Governor’s idea to raise the tobacco tax is solid. However, instead of having the money pay for the Governor’s alternative minimum income tax proposal, the money would be better spent to deal with soaring health care costs as South Carolina deals with an increasingly aging population. Though VUI is usually opposed to any tax increases whatsoever, if a tax must be raised, the tobacco tax is the best one to be raised. Further the Governor’s notion that an alternative minimum state income tax would raise incomes and bring in more retirees to South Carolina is doubtful. If there is a large influx of retirees into South Carolina, that presents local government funding issues in that local governments will have to provide more services but be limited by the Homestead Exemption Act on property taxes. Further, it is doubtful that the vast majority of retirees in South Carolina pay income tax.

The Governor’s notion of paying for an elimination of the corporate income tax by eliminating economic development tax break and incentives is also questionable. Given the ability to pay for it, both measures would be preferred in these times. Perhaps suspending corporate income taxes for small or new businesses for a limited amount of time would be a better way to go.

As usual, the Governor went to his old lines about the need to restructure government and eliminate many of the elected constitutional offices and put them under the Governor. The Governor is correct about the need to eliminate the Budget and Control Board. The basic administrative functions of state government should be under the executive, not under a hybrid board.

However, again the Governor has a credibility issue on whether or not a Governor can run the constitutional offices better than an elected official. The Governor already has a cabinet with various agency heads. On that, his record is mixed. Six departments stand out. The Department of Social Services is South Carolina’s dirty secret in that no one talks about it, but the DSS is at times inept and that ineptness has an impact on the lives of those who often have no voice of advocacy in Columbia. The Department of Commerce did do well in working on the Jasper port deal, but by and large it does not work with or communicate well with the local economic development efforts around the state. The Department of Insurance has saw health insurance companies charge higher rates and fight most folks for every dollar paid out in claims under Sanford. The Department of Corrections is managed by a good man in Jon Ozmint who is given little attention and even less money to protect the state from the worst among us. The Department of Transportation looks over some of the most dangerous roads in the United States. The Department of Public Safety endured the recent South Carolina Highway Patrol scandals on Sanford’s watch.

Those departments are not mentioned to criticize them directly or those who work within them. They are used as examples to show the Governor has not done with the power he does have the things to right the course of so many things as he asks for a Governor to have more power. The Governor would have more credibility he had done things he could do well, instead of dwelling on what he could not do.

There are some more points the Governor is correct on. Charter schools should have equity in local public school funding. Funding of public schools should be more equitable. People should be allowed to buy health insurances policies that are limited if they so choose.

Overall, it was the same ole Sanford in a different year. His delivery was inappropriately informal for such an occasion. Sanford’s animosity for the legislature showed as he twice compared the General Assembly to children, in comparing the lack of transparency to his children not having their mother check their home work and asking the legislature to come together as the kids did in the movie “Remember the Titans.” Further, Sanford showed a lack of depth into the impact of the national and international recession on South Carolina, (you can not blame the state constitution of 1896 for the failures on Wall Street.)


As for the Democratic response, my fellow Republicans had better watch out for Vincent Sheheen. I knew him personally in law school. He was the smartest guy in the room and among the best liked as well.

Sheheen is no Tommy Moore. If Sheheen runs and he appears to be the smartest and hardest working Democrat to appear on the statewide scene in years it will be because he is. Sheheen’s response was not a statement of where Democrats stand in 2009 as much as it was where he will stand in 2010. Sheheen’s points about the eccentricities of Governor Sanford and the battle between the Governor and his fellow Republicans might play well to the public in 2010. The so called big three Republican contenders for Governor in 2010 need to take note that with Sanford looking to 2012 and with the General Assembly worried about itself, Vincent Sheheen could become very dangerous to their gubernatorial ambitions.