Say Anything Blog

It’d be nice to see him reject all of the funds, but if all he ends up taking is some money for infrastructure while rejecting the money that’ll inflate entitlement spending in the state it’ll be a job well done.

WASHINGTON — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is expected Wednesday to become the first governor to formally reject some of the federal stimulus money earmarked by Congress for his state.

The move will cement Sanford’s growing reputation as a political powerhouse among Republican party stalwarts nationwide — though how much of the estimated $8 billion in stimulus funds destined for South Carolina will be affected is unclear. The law allows state legislative leaders to accept funds the governor rejects.

“Our objections to the so-called stimulus bill have been well-chronicled for the way it spends money that we don’t have and for the way this printing of money could ultimately devalue the American dollar,” Sanford said on Tuesday, even as he acknowledged that he’ll accept some.

“Those of us opposed to this package lost the debate on these merits, and I now think it is important we look for creative ways to apply and use these monies in accordance with the long-term interests of our state,” he said.

The bolded section could end up setting off a legal challenge to just how far the federal government can go in pushing money on the states.  I posted on the provision in the “stimulus” that essentially freezes the Governor out of the spending process if he/she rejects the funds over a month ago.

Frankly, I don’t see where the federal government has the power to push the governor out of the way.  The various states are supposed to be sovereign, and powers not expressly given to the federal government by the Constitution are to be reserved to the states per the 10th amendment.  That means, at least to my reading of the law, that the federal government can’t just push the Governor out of the way.

Nor should we want the federal government to be able to push the governor out of the way.  We elect governors to lead our various states.  If there is to be massive amounts of new spending in a given state, spending that will inflate state budgets and put additional tax burden on the citizens of the state once the “stimulus” funding dries up, then the leader of that state should have a say in whether or not the money comes into the state.  If the federal government is going to decide how the money will be spent, why do we even bother with governors?  Or state legislators for that matter?

If that’s the way it’s to be, why not just have a big central government in Washington DC to decide everything for us from a national level?

Our founding fathers recognized that wouldn’t work, because in a nation as big and diverse as America was even at the time of its founding no one-size-fits-all solutions from a central government were going to satisfy all the citizens.  Better a distributed democracy where most of the decisions can be made at the local level.

Of course, a distributed democracy doesn’t sit well with the power-hungry clowns in DC who want their fingers in anything, so I doubt that what the Constitution actually says on this matter will matter much to them.

But I would love to see Sanford challenge Obama/Congress in court should they try an end-run around his authority.