S.C. GOPer On Sanford’s Stimulus Denial: “I’m Asking You To Pray For Us”
And now for a bit of late afternoon comic relief.
The antics are getting pretty crazy today in South Carolina, where GOP Governor Mark Sanford, a steadfast stimulus opponent, has come up with a new way to refuse his state’s stimulus cash on the eve of tomorrow’s deadline: Say that tomorrow isn’t a deadline at all.
Sanford’s claim is so startling that the Republican Speaker of the House blasted his “nonsense,” and another local Republican official asked folks to “pray” for South Carolina as the loss of the much-needed money looms.
Virtually every legal analysis — including one done by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service — has concluded that Sanford’s deadline to accept his state’s $700 million in stim money is tomorrow. But Sanford — an apparent contender for the 2012 GOP primary — held a press conference today in his office, where he announced that the deadline was, in fact, bogus.
The local Post and Courier has all the action and an explanation.
It’s hard to overstate how flabbergasted this latest maneuver has left even some Republicans. “We are at the 11th hour of this debate,” said Republican speaker Bobby Harrell, a conservative Republican, in a statement sent over by his office. “It’s time for the nonsense to stop.”
According to the Post and Courier, another local official, also Republican, actually said: “I’m asking you to pray for us, because that’s about all we have left.”
Come to think of it, maybe this isn’t so funny. It’s sad.
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Is this true. This isn’t a late April Fool’s joke?
Where were all these supposed fiscal conservatives when George Bush ran up $1.4 trillion of debt? At least with the stimulus bill the states are getting a share of the debt, with Bush the states got nothing. If I was going to oppose something and was a state governor, I’d oppose spending trillions of dollars and giving none of it back to the tax payers and the domestic front. And not the actual concept that tax payer money is returning back to the states.
Chris, I’d say Sanford is dead serious here…
Sandford did the same thing last year with their unemployment funds. I predict he will do the same thing tomorrow that he did then, accept the stimulus funds but frame it like he had no choice and that he won some kind of moral victory by waiting for the last possible moment. The guy is mental.
It depends on which $1.4tn of Dubya’s $5tn debt hike you’re talking about.
So can I declare that the April 15 deadline to pay my taxes is “no longer relevant”? Or do I need to have a chief of staff to do it for me?
“Other monies”. Typical Republican free-ponies budgeting — “we’re not gonna take this money; since the government has lots of money, you should get the it from somewhere else in the government, which won’t involve cutting anything important.”
jzap, very true. Nevertheless they never opposed spending that absolutely did not go back to the tax payers (i.e., back to the states). What they are doing now is opposing tax money being spent on tax payers. But they cheer on tax money that is spent on Glorious War and making the rich richer.
redshit, good to see you back. You know I’m almost always in agreement with you.