The State O' My State

Just last week, Gov. Sanford gave his annual "State of the State" address, and today I was able to sit down and look through it. What follows is more or less my personal commentary on the speech, focusing mainly on his actual proposals instead of the other political B.S.

(Text of the speech linked here)

One of the top items on Sanford's agenda was improving the "soil conditions" for business. This is a continuation of one of the main themes from his first term in Columbia and one, on which, he has been fairly successful. What the Governor wants to do with this is, essentially, make South Carolina a more business friendly State, in order to create jobs and improve the overall economic atmosphere. The 3 main priorities are:

a)Reforming Workers' Comp
b)Cutting income taxes
c)Reforming small businesses' Health Care

Obviously, the cutting taxes part is great and the lowering of income taxes is another thing that Sanford did successfully in his last term. However, this new tax cut comes with a catch - Sanford wants to couple it with a slight increase in the taxes on Cigarettes. Obviously, smoking is an easy target for taxation; yet, a tax increase is still a tax increase. Despite the fact that I find smoking distasteful, I would much rather see Sanford propose decreases to both income and Cigarette taxes. (Hell, for that matter, just decrease every tax you can find.) As for the Workers Comp and Health Care reforms, from what I can tell, both seem to be reasonable pro-business solutions.

Another plank of Sanford's tenure in Columbia has been the downsizing of the State government - and it is, fortunately, something he plans on continuing to do in his second term. The South Carolina State government is on pace to have grown some 38% since 2004 - a growth rate which is nearly twice the average of other Southeastern States. In order to prevent this excessive growth, Sanford plans some "mid-year level budget cuts" as well as cuts "into the bone [of] agencies [currently being] adequately funded." I must admit, I particularly liked how he pointed out that such cuts would be "bad for anyone relying on government" - which is exactly how it should be!! It's a very simple cause and effect equation, really. When people rely on government, the government responds by growing and providing more and more for them. This continued growth makes the government inefficient, encroaches on the rights and liberties of citizens, and generally decreases the standard of living for all people under that particular government. In any case, during his first term, Sanford managed to noticeably reduce the size of S.C bureaucracies; and keeping up these reforms is clearly one of his priorities.

Furthermore, Sanford again brought up the idea of 'school choice' in public education reform. This brilliant idea manifested itself during his last term in the form of the failed Put Parent in Charge Act. Hopefully, this is a crusade on which the good Governor will not give up. No one doubts that S.C public education needs reform; the problem is that Democrats and many Republicans (especially the neo-Conservatives) feel the best reform is 'more of the same'. I could be wrong, but if 'more of the same' was not the answer in Iraq, isn't it also likely that 'more of the same' is not the answer for S.C education? Maybe if the Governor keeps at it, the people of South Carolina will begin to see the light.

The Governor, at the very least, paid lip service to some of the main problems we have over on the coast, such as those with the building of new roads and skyrocketing property taxes. Although, I have to say, I didn't see much in the way of actual solutions, just the usual political B.S. Time will tell, I suppose.

Overall, the speech seemed pretty good and, most importantly, had some good ideas in it. However, given that the S.C Governorship is one of the least powerful Executive branches in all 50 States, not to mention the somewhat abrasive nature of his relationship with the S.C State Legislature, one can't really determine how many of his ideas will actually translate into laws. Nevertheless, I personally am a huge Mark Sanford fan, and appreciate the way he conducts business up in Columbia. He had a successful 1st term and, for now, I have high hopes for the second.

At least, as high as one's hopes can be for a politician.