South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's admission of an extramarital Argentinean affair will dominate headlines for the next several days.
I've been a rather avid Sanford-watcher for the past several months and have found quite a few opportunities to write about him. So while you soak up the sordid details of his trip, and marvel at the frankness of his press conference, here are a few things to keep in mind.
Governor Sanford refused federal stimulus funds for South Carolina until the state Supreme Court forced him to accept them:
The role of ideology and politics in Sanford's crusade against stimulus funding is less interesting. His ideological position is weak: government spending now is vital to ensure that future generations are actually capable of paying off future interest on debt accrued at present, not to mention that spending now will make future generations better off by investing in a new economy of energy efficiency, solid infrastructure, and green jobs. That this ideological positioning fits perfectly with Sanford's need to distinguish himself as a presidential contender certainly does not bolster his argument for rejecting the funds.
In the same vein, Sanford penned an op-ed arguing that his four sons would be worse off because of government spending during the economic downturn :
[T]he forgotten point of the stimulus debate [is that] running a high deficit can actually drive future economic success. Put simply, future generations - such as, for instance, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's four boys - would be worse off without the stimulus package, even if government debt balloons. Of course, the catch is that the government must spend on policies that provide a return to the future generations that will pay the future interest on current debt- the government must invest.
Sanford sent a letter to President Bush urging him not to use TARP funds to bail out the auto industry because TARP funds were intended to shore up the financial sector:
Sanford, an opponent of congressional auto industry bailout legislation as well as the TARP bailout plan, clearly hates federal spending of any sort more than he does violations of legislative intent. But his argument that the auto industry should be denied TARP funds because the American public was sold on EESA based on the universality of the banking industry is disingenuous (and probably gives too much credit to the bill's loose language).
[T]he purpose of EESA is "to immediately provide authority and facilities that the Secretary of the Treasury can use to restore liquidity and stability to the financial system of the United States..." But EESA also must use this authority to promote "jobs and economic growth". It doesn't require too much of a stretch to consider TARP loans to auto companies part of an effort to restore liquidity and stability to the financial system. After all, if the auto companies could get sufficient loans through normal financial channels they would be in less trouble and Chapter 11 bankruptcy might be an option. It is, however, a stretch to see how TARP loans have thus far promoted jobs and economic growth (let alone preserved homeownership).
Which purpose of TARP is really being undermined?
Finally, Sanford and Texas Governor Rick Perry wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal requesting that federal government not provide money to states with budget troubles:
Perry and Sanford call on the federal government "to stop believing it has all the answers." We have a system in which the federal government only steps in "for that which states cannot do themselves." Whether you believe that assertion or not, unfortunately, the "expansionist federal government" the governors criticize is the same one that has avoided doing what states cannot do for themselves (and the same one, in some important cases, that has prevented states from doing what they can do). One glaring example is President Bush's repeated veto of SCHIP. Indeed, in the same issue of the trusty Economist, the weekly writes an "e-mail" to Obama calling on him to "quickly increase the money given to states to pay for Medicaid and SCHIP (the scheme for children's health that W. hates so much). You can deflect skeptics by arguing that increased spending on health...will do more to stimulate the economy than issuing tax refunds..."
At the governors' meeting yesterday, Obama told the state executives: "one of the messages that Joe [Biden] and I want to continually send is that we are not going to be hampered by ideology in trying to get this country back on track."
Perry and Sanford, on the other hand, have maintained their ideological purity.
Ed. Note: The negligent and embarrassing misspellings of the Governor's name have been changed. Quijote, the Spanish, will remain Quijote.