They're supposed to be the party's new leaders, but conservative governors are facing two very sticky issues.
1. Huge budget deficits. How do you raise revenue without raising taxes? How do you cut spending for vital services without facing the people's wrath?
So all that's well-known.
2. The trickier point comes here. Are you for the federal stimulus, or are you against it? Earlier today, we noted that Florida Gov. Charlie Crist favored the stimulus, despite not a single House Republican supporting it.
And why not? How can a governor turn down $ that can be used so deliciously to balance those budgets, and forestall the tough choices?
"Now, that's Charlie Crist", you might say. But consider Mark Sanford, opponent of the bailout before it was even born. Heck, he would have aborted the bailout.
WSPA:
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.
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.
Seriously. Which. Governor. Would. Turn. Down. Federal. Funds?
If not Sanford, then whom?
When 2011 rolls around, are you going to have Senators pimping their anti-stimulus votes, while governors pimp a record based on that stimulus (ahem, providing the stimulus works)?
2 comments:
The problem though I have is that governors that are relying upon the federal stimulus dollars to balance their budgets did not show prudence when creating their initial budgets and that should be held against them on fiscal conservatism grounds. I also have an issue with the amount of earmark requests that they submitted. There are different parts to the stimulus but some of them submitted requests for billions of dollars in earmark requests in addition to the dollars that they will be receiving in through the formula portion of the bill.
Yeah, Jindal was especially irrationally exuberant about the price of oil/barrel. Off-hand, I think Palin's number might have been more realistic, but don't quote me on that.
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