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It's time for state senators to draft a budget based on the money they know they have. Right now, that doesn't include the $350 million for education and law enforcement under Gov. Mark Sanford's control.
Sanford, for his part, has to accept that he can't use stimulus money intended to stabilize budgets to pay down debt.
This year's budget process is highly unusual because Sanford has a substantive role to play. The federal stimulus package has placed $700 million over the next two years under his control. He must apply for the grants, and he will determine how the money is allocated. Lawmakers used to making quick work of overturning Sanford's budget vetoes must face that fact. Legislation ordering him to appropriate the stimulus money only leads us to court, not to a fiscally sound budget.
State Sen. Tom Davis of Beaufort is pushing for everyone to do their jobs. Lawmakers should do the best they can writing a budget with the money they have. The budget shouldn't include laying off thousands of teachers to make political points, and it should include federal stimulus money we know we do have (about $578 million to date).
(It should be noted that nearly all of the $8 billion in stimulus money for South Carolina is coming. Only $700 million over the next two years is in doubt.)
But Sanford shouldn't leave that $700 million sitting on the table. He should figure out how to use the money, following federal requirements and his own political principles. Sanford lost on the question of using stimulus money to pay down the state's debt, but that doesn't mean he's wrong about the need to refrain from spending money today in a way that could add to that debt in the future.
If lawmakers have a hope of moving Sanford to use the $700 million, they will have to do their part by coming up with a budget that recognizes our economic realities. While many people don't want to see money intended for South Carolina -- money we will have to pay back -- go elsewhere, they also don't want to see state legislators spend one-time money as if it's always going to be there. That's a bad habit we've suffered from many times over.
Davis, Sanford's former chief of staff, has some advice his fellow lawmakers would do well to heed: "I may be a freshman senator, but I worked with this governor for six years, and I understand his common-sense approach to government. And if our senior legislators want to resolve their impasse with the governor over the $700 million, then my advice is that they take him up on his offer to help find ways to fund critical programs, cut lesser ones, address outstanding liabilities and reduce debt.
"If the legislature does that, then it could go to Gov. Sanford and say, 'We passed a budget that pays for recurring items with recurring revenues. We did not rely upon one-time budget stabilization funds. We made the cuts you suggested. We did what we could to pay down debt. We worked with you in good faith.'<2009>"
But there must be good faith, and that extends tford. He must hold up his end of the bargain and make good use of $700 million intended for the people of South Carolina. Continuing power plays between the two branches of government does none of us any good.
We don't pretend to know the line-item answers to this dilemma, but we do know whose job it is to figure it out.
To Sanford and lawmakers, we say: Accept the hands you've been dealt and get to work.
