Posted on 02/06/2005 8:39:53 PM PST by pratherdc
Give us just a small clue here - what state would this be?
Sounds the right notes. Promise and potential.
I won't vote for another big-government big deficit spender.
Good luck to this guy.
O-Kay...I'd love to hear this in context because at first glance it doesn't strike the right chord.
Give us just a small clue here - what state would this be?
That would be the great state of South Carolina.
He appears to be pro-life. He has voted against partial birth abortion and voted in favor of parental consent laws. NRTL Committee gives him 92 out of a 100.
It's always hard to tell how a politician will actually behave on these issues. But what I see looks fairly encouraging.
I too am a bit put aback by his comment on Iraq. Yes, it has been expensive. But also necessary. We are stuck with the War against Islamic Terrorism, like it or not, and we can't afford to back off.
You can vote for me, or you can get five in the face!
Some context on Sanford's comments: http://www.scgovernor.com/interior.asp?SiteContentId=68&NavId=284&ParentId=74
"Lets first look at our economy, and I think if you look beyond our borders to the national and international landscape, there are substantial threats looming that necessitate change.
One, were at war.
I dont know how the situation in Iraq sorts itself out, but I do know the war spreads a gray cloud over what happens next in any economy until it is settled. Wars are expensive, both to the soldier and the taxpayer. On the taxpayer front, were now spending $6 billion per month in Iraq, this states budget for the entire year, and for the soldiers in the field, the costs are far greater. Twenty-nine South Carolinians have now been killed in the fighting overseas.
Ive asked Staff Sgt. Charles K. Boone to join us for the State of the State. He returned from Iraq in December and was awarded the Purple Heart for the injuries he sustained as he was fired upon while pulling fellow soldiers from a burning vehicle that had been hit in their convoy. I ask that he stand and be recognized for his valor and that you applaud his service, along with the service of every soldier, sailor, airman and marine.
Two, our federal government seems to have lost its ability to simply set priorities.
The federal deficit was $422 billion this year. Add to that, the United States current account deficit is on its way to more than $650 billion this year about six percent of the countrys GDP and thats relevant because a five percent reading for any third-world nation normally is enough to trigger an IMF intervention.
Our net international debt is approaching 300 percent of annual exports. Again relevant because countries like Brazil and Argentina saw their net indebtedness rise to only
slightly more, around 400 percent of their national exports, at the height of their financial crisis.
As a consequence of all of this, were seeing a dollar thats on increasingly shaky ground.
Those are just the current events facing our national economy. More disturbing, frankly, are the longer trends. Robert Samuelson of the Washington Post recently wrote a fascinating column talking about four long-term trends, all of which negatively impact the driver of our national economy, consumer spending. His points were the following:
One, the economy is bound to lose the stimulus of rising consumer debt.
Household debt, which ranges from home mortgages to credit cards, now totals about $10 trillion, or roughly 115 percent of personal income. In 1945, debt was about 20 percent of disposable income. For six decades consumer debt and spending have risen faster than income. Debt, as we all know, cant permanently rise faster than income, and given their age, baby boomers must at some point soon begin to repay mortgages and save for retirement, which will mean less consumer spending.
Second, the benefits of defeating double-digit inflation are fading.
In 1979, inflation peaked at 13 percent. Now its 1 to 3 percent, depending on the measure. The steep decline led to big drops in interest rates and big increases in stock prices. Stocks are now 12 times higher than their 1982 level, and with that some people felt wealthier and spent others were able to borrow and spend but mortgage rates cant fall again from 15 percent, which means once again, lower consumer spending.
Third, the welfare state, what I call government transfer payments, at the federal level is growing costlier. Its been covered in the past by defense shrinking as a share of the federal budget, but now as baby boomers retire and we look at higher defense spending based on global engagements, paying for future benefits will require higher taxes, bigger budget deficits or deeper cuts in other programs, all of which could hurt economic growth and consumer spending.
Four, the global trading system has become less cohesive, and, in many ways, more threatening.
Let me just make this point: the end of the Cold War and the addition of the former Soviet Union, India and China into the trading system has effectively doubled the global labor force from 1.5 billion to 3 billion. Ask any textile worker in the Upstate about this, and theyll tell you its not at all an abstract concept.
This is not a commentary on global trading, but it is a commentary on the fact that there are four major economic pressures, each of which will likely slow consumer spending in the future, and that could produce a dramatic drag on the states economy. All of these things point to the need to put our financial house in order rather than fall to the political temptation to spend every new dollar that comes into Columbia.
I cant emphasize enough how important I think it is we start paying back money borrowed from trust funds before we add new and additional spending. For this reason we proposed that new spending not increase at a faster rate than inflation and the growth of our population, and this allows us in our budget to pay back about $200 million of the $400 million owed to trust funds.
Id ask you do the same because it is a time for choosing, and if we dont choose to hold this line on spending our government in South Carolina will be growing faster than the people who pay for government."
Read the whole thing if you get a chance. I just bought the book "A Life Well Spent" Gov. Sanford mentions at the end of his speech and absolutely loved it. I would recommend it to anyone.
Best,
Stephen Prather
I worked in Washington for 4 years for some very conservative members of Congress, and I heard way too many horror stories about Newt to ever support him running for a president. I am also from Georgia, and I can say without hesitation, that Newt is the right man to run this country. Here is one of my favorite quotes from Gov. Sanford about Newt:
Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) said that had he known what was in the ethics committee's report, he would not have voted for Gingrich as speaker. "The gray got grayer when you read the report," he said. "When I think of my three boys and what kind of example I want to set for them for leadership in this country, gray is not the example."
For whole story, click here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/govt/leadership/stories/012297.htm
Mark Sanford for President
PING
Any comment on the Iraq comment?
Maybe the governor needs to read this short three page pdf document. Or, maybe he does understand comparative advantage and he's just pandering toward South Carolina's xenophobic-consevative crowd.
In my area of the state we're starting to become inundated with liberal yankees from the northeast. They're mostly just a bunch of old retired geezers. They inflate the real estate prices and vote for increases in public services, thereby increasing taxes.
Xenophobic? Maybe a little. Yankeephobic is more precise.
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