Gov. Sanford Undecided About Requesting Stimulus Money

The U.S. Senate could vote as early as Monday on the federal economic stimulus bill, after it passed the House Wednesday night. South Carolina would get $3.2 billion under the current plan. But Gov. Mark Sanford says he’ll have to decide whether he’ll request the money.

Republicans in the House voted unanimously against the bill, saying it would spend too much and cut taxes too little. Fellow Republican Sanford says the plan would increase the federal debt too much, threatening the value of the dollar and saddling our children and grandchildren with crushing debt.

Sanford says job one for him is to do everything he can to slow or stop what he thinks would be a huge mistake. But if that doesn’t work, will he request the money? “If it still passes, job two will be dealing with what monies should or shouldn’t be received here in South Carolina. And we’ll get to it when we get to it,“ he says.

As much as he’s against the bill, he says he would have to consider the fact that the money would be sent to another state if it doesn’t come to South Carolina, meaning our children and grandchildren would be paying back money they never got.

Even if Gov. Sanford doesn’t request the money, it’s likely that South Carolina would still get its share. South Carolina 6th District Congressman James Clyburn, who’s the House Majority Whip, added to the stimulus bill a provision that would allow the state legislature to request the money if the governor refuses to.

According to Rep. Clyburn’s office, here’s a breakdown of where South Carolina’s $3.2 billion would go:

—$905.09 million to offset the state budget deficit
—$389.2 million for Food Stamps
—$479.86 million to repair roads and bridges
—$34.19 million for public-transit systems
—$59.47 million for water-treatment plants and sewers

About one-third of the money would go to education, specifically:
—$208.72 million for K-12 school construction and modernization
—$200.79 million to educate disabled students
—$191.31 million for poor school districts (Title 1)
—$13.82 million for education technology grants
—$9.92 million for the Head Start program
—$36.32 million for child-care development grants
—$82.7 million for college/university construction and modernization
—$349.59 million for Pell Grants for college students

Also in the bill is $65.98 million for employment services and job training.

Some of the jobs the bill would create would obviously be in construction, since millions would go to road and bridge construction, along with school construction and modernization. But Rep. Clyburn’s office says there would be a lot of other jobs created in engineering, technology, health and scientific research, since part of the stimulus plan is to upgrade the nation’s electrical grid.

But Gov. Sanford says jobseekers shouldn’t get their hopes up. “The Congressional Budget Office itself showed that only less than 50 percent of the money would even be spent in the next two years. You can’t have your cake and eat it too and say, ‘This is a disaster! We’ve got to do something now! But oh, by the way, the money we’re going to put in this bill, in fact, won’t be spent for another couple of years.‘“