The Gospel According To Mark Sanford

By Number Six

Sunday, March 15, 2009 at 09:45 AM

Or if one prefers, chapter whatever of The Village Idiot Strikes Again.

Is he pushing for Limbaugh's job?

Yep, here we go again: Our beloved gubnur, Mark Sanford, is at it again:

First up, cute item from The Greenville Online:

The Democratic National Committee is preparing to air a TV ad criticizing Gov. Mark Sanford for wanting to use $700 million in federal stimulus money to pay down the state's debt rather than for funding education, public safety and other government services.

Sanford has said that if President Barack Obama denies his request for a waiver, he will turn down the money, which amounts to about a quarter of the $2.8 billion in stimulus money available to the state.

Uh-huh. Here we go again. Always putting the party politic over the needs of the people, true? True to form, yes.

Joel Sawyer, the governor's spokesman, said in a prepared response to the ad that Sanford "continues to believe that problems created by too much debt will never be solved by more debt."

The stimulus, he said in the statement, "represents a federal predatory loan, the cost of which will be borne by future generations who will never have a chance to vote from office the very people who are saddling them with unprecedented spending and guaranteed future tax increases."

In a follow-up interview, Sawyer said, "Our point is that we see this (recession) as a multi-year problem that we think tough choices need to be made now and that the money that is made available needs to be used to pay down debt, period."

Okay, cool. I can buy that. Now, as my father always said, what do you idiots propose to do to fix the state's problems???

A fact, that those in Columbia do not like, but it's still a fact: We, South Carolina, is zeroing in on California's current lead in both unemployment and cash flow. We just scooted into a depressing 2nd place in unemployment, with our numbers now at Depression-level-double-digits.

And lo, from Gervais St, what do we hear to fix this problem?

(Insert sound clip of crickets in the distance across the Pee Dee..)

We can use the cash. Sad, but we can.

SC's biggest industry? Tourism. Meaning, like Hawaii, we depend on others from the other states to come down and visit, spend money, then git.

A project that's been in place for years now, but not funded: The finish of I-73, from below Rockingham, NC, down to the 501 by-pass. The idea? Make it easier to drag...um..allow...customers to get to Myrtle Beach without winding their way through already-congested two-lane traffic.

Cost of this project? Worse case scenario...2 bill. Job creation? Not much at first, but as the old gag goes, where there's an interstate, there are overpasses, which come with burger shops, gas stations, souvenir stands and you get the idea, don't you? Shopping centers. Malls. Money.

But, sad to say, we also need cash to repair the existing roads, bridges and other things. Not to mention that many local school boards are about running on the 'E' setting on their financial gas tanks. That means teachers will be fired. What then, happens to the classes they used to teach?

I remind others from around this nation: Don't listen to the idiot seditionists who want SC to pull away from the US. Instantly, we'd be declared a third-world nation with a dictator running things. Yes, we'd qualify for foreign aide...the very first week. This state is broke. Period.

So, that said, what does Sanford and his elitist Charleston-Horry-Lexington buddies think would fix things? Why, of course, another dose of Reagonomics, more tax cuts for the wealthy, a shade more lousy-fair economics...right?

We tried that. It explains the many closed down mills that dot this state from Greenville to Marion to Mullins to Hemingway to Johnsonville to Darlington to Spartanburg, and I'm just warming up. What happened to these places? Reagonomics! Cheaper to head to Jamaica, China, India, Central America. Whose idea? Republicans, natch.

So, what we have is an idiot in charge of our state, one who prefers to stick to the old GOP message...that didn't work...and is now, as some say, grooming hisself to be the Republican candidate for president next time around.

I rather like that idea. The PR would be like setting off a 50-megaton warhead in a cardboard box.....

"Sanford was governor of a state rated 49th in SAT scores, with a lackluster economy comparable to a third-world nation, and turned his nose up to the needs of teachers....and the citizens...of South Carolina...."

I rather like that idea. A 49-state landslide for Mr. Obama. Maybe 50, if he asks another certain governor to be his running mate. (Guess!)

Oh, and to my friends over at DU: Not I nor the other progressives in the Palmetto State voted for Sanford.

We're not that stupid, thank you.