Politics Is Politics, But Money Is Money

April 10, 2009

The Facts

Mark Sanford, Republican governor of South Carolina, has been among the most vocal critics of President Obama’s stimulus package. In fact, he has been front and foremost in his criticism, and seized upon every opportunity to face the cameras with his “outrage” over the package. Sanford is one of about a half dozen Republican governors who initially said they would not accept any monies from the stimulus package, but eventually narrowed that to only unemployment benefits in mid-March of this year.

All the other Republican governors that stood on national television and decried the stimulus package as wasteful spending of taxpayer money had already swallowed their political pride and filled out the necessary paper work to get their share. Governor Sanford was the last hold-out. The New York Times recently published this article saying “South Carolina will apply for most of its stimulus money”, which is $2.8 billion.

My View

When it comes to free money, it appears politics has to take a back seat — but only after maximum political mileage is gained. On the other hand, political ideology is not to be sacrificed when it comes to helping the working class, free money or not. The only money Sanford and the other outspoken Republican governors are refusing to accept is the funds earmarked for unemployment benefits. In Sanford’s case, that’s $700 million.

Sure, they’ve allowed that by accepting the money the cost to the states would eventually increase. But that doesn’t seem to bother them on other issues. Even so, I seriously doubt it would eventually cost them more money — that’s just an excuse. A very simple “when the $700 million runs out, the additional benefits will run out” would have sufficed just fine. And any wording otherwise within the stimulus bill could have easily been defeated with the separation of states rights from the federal government. But that wouldn’t have served their purpose.

Sanford and the others have done nothing more than confirm their hypocrisy by accepting the stimulus money after their high profile attack on the program and their double standards when it comes to the working class. It seems where the commoners of this country are concerned, the Republicans willingly and anxiously lead the Democrats in picking up the baseball bats and axes. Anyone remember yesterday’s news when the Republicans insisted that Detroit break the union contracts before they, the Republicans, would be willing to grant bailout money to the automakers? But heaven forbid breaking the banker’s bonus contracts.