Stimulus Bill Has Provision To Bypass Any Governor Declining The Funds
The oh-so-wise Democrats in Washington DC have decided that your state will the stimulus, whether the Governor you voted for wants it or not.
Found buried in the “stimulus” spending spree:
SEC. 1607. (a) CERTIFICATION BY GOVERNOR — Not later than 45 days after the date of enactment of this Act, for funds provided to any State or agency thereof, the Governor of the State shall certify that: 1) the State request and use funds provided by this Act , and; 2) funds be used to create jobs and promote economic growth.
(b) ACCEPTANCE BY STATE LEGISLATURE — If funds provided to any State in any division of this Act are not accepted for use by the Governor, then acceptance by the State legislature, by means of the adoption of a concurrent resolution, shall be sufficient to provide funding to such State.
Clearly this is aimed at South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, probably the only governor in the country who understands that more federal spending at the state level isn’t going to fix anything.
But what I’m wondering is…is this even constitutional? Can the federal government just arbitrarily decide to freeze a Governor out of the budgeting process? What basis does the federal government have to do such a thing? Certainly nothing in the constitution.
