The Democratic National Committee today released a new television ad entitled “Playing Politics” that calls on South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford to stop playing politics with federal job creation and economic recovery funds. The ad, which will begin airing in Columbia on Monday, outlines the deepening economic challenges facing South Carolina’s working families. Despite record unemployment and soaring foreclosures, Governor Sanford is kowtowing to the Rush Limbaugh-led obstructionist wing of his political party by rejecting $700 million in money to create jobs, improve our health care system and improve our schools.
As the ad notes, a bipartisan group of South Carolina leaders – including Democratic Congressman James Clyburn, Republican Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer, and Republican State House Speaker Bobby Harrell – have criticized Governor Sanford for putting political posturing ahead of job creation in South Carolina. The ad can be viewed here.
“Mark Sanford needs to stop playing politics with economic recovery and job creation in South Carolina,” said Democratic National Committee Communications Director Brad Woodhouse. “At a time when his state is suffering from crippling unemployment and more and more families are losing their homes, South Carolina’s working families cannot afford for their governor to be distracted by empty political posturing. If Mark Sanford is worried about his political future, all he needs to do is focus on working with leaders from both parties who want to use the economic recovery funds to help create jobs, fix our schools, reform our health care system, make America energy independent, and lay the foundation for long-term growth in the 21st Century.”
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Hawaii
15 years ago
Complete text of letter to Gov. Mark Sanford signed by 52 state mayors:
ReplyDeleteDear Governor Sanford and Members of the South Carolina General Assembly:
As you are well aware, we are facing an economic crisis in South Carolina as dark as we have seen in decades. Our state’s unemployment rate for January 2009, released this week, stood at 10.4%, second highest in the entire United States and the highest in nearly 26 years. Nearly 43,000 of our fellow South Carolinians lost their jobs in January, and all told, there were nearly 228,000 people without work in our state. There is no reason to believe those numbers have improved since January. In fact, our state’s Board of Economic Advisors has warned that the unemployment rate could rise to as high as 14% by summer.
The numbers are grim, but as mayors who lead South Carolina cities and towns, we see the human-scale impact of these statistics every day. We know the terrible cost of this economic downturn on our fellow citizens. Every day, we talk to people in our communities who have lost work to the latest layoff or downsizing, who struggle with impossible choices like buying either groceries or prescriptions for their children, or whether to pay the rising health insurance premium or this month’s rent or mortgage payment. The people represented in the unemployment statistics are not abstractions, they are our neighbors, and they are hurting.
To deal with this crisis, last month Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), designed to stabilize the economy and to preserve and create jobs, help the unemployed, invest in our nation’s infrastructure and stabilize state and local government budgets to avoid further layoffs and cuts in vital services.
This week, Governor Sanford sent the General Assembly a letter indicating that he will ask President Obama for a waiver from spending a substantial portion of the funds the way Congress intended, but rather to use it to retire state debt. If President Obama does not grant the waiver, Governor Sanford says he will reject bringing these badly needed funds to South Carolina, and the dollars that our citizens pay in taxes to the federal government will be sent to the other states.
To reject this funding will mean drastic cuts in services to our citizens and be tragic to South Carolinians who badly need help in this time of crisis. We urge Governor Sanford to reconsider his position.
If Governor Sanford does not reconsider, we urge the General Assembly to override the Governor’s decision to reject the funds and apply them to help our state achieve the goals of the ARRA. This would include overriding the Governor’s position that he will reject funding for an extension of unemployment benefits to part-time workers who are searching for full-time work. The teachers, police officers, parole officers, firefighters and sanitation workers who serve in our communities and whose jobs are threatened by budget cuts deserve nothing less. The citizens in our communities who those wonderful employees serve should not have those services cut when the means exist to prevent it.
Furthermore, it is a matter of the highest urgency that our state government acts immediately to get the ARRA into our economy as fast as possible to help as many people as possible and to stop the downward economic spiral. May states have appointed a “stimulus czar” or other official to help efficiently utilize the funds, ensure accountability for them and to maximize their state’s competitiveness when it comes to seeking discretionary funding for their states. We urge Governor Sanford to appoint an official whose job will be to challenge state agencies responsible for this funding to spend it as quickly and as wisely as possible so that it gets into the cities and towns and communities all across South Carolina and begins to relieve suffering caused by the economic distress.
As mayors, we know that people don’t eat in the long run, they eat every day. We are Republicans, Democrats and independents and our letter has little to do with our political ideology or whether we feel the stimulus package is good national public policy or not. We are writing as citizens of this great state, who as mayors, are focused on our towns and cities, but we speak for the needs of all South Carolinians, whether in our cities or not. The 228,000 South Carolinians who are out of work and the hundreds of thousands more whose jobs, homes and families are threatened by this economic crisis live in our communities, they are our neighbors, and they rightly expect leadership from us in this time of crisis. The ARRA provides our fellow citizens with the promise of jobs and relief from the pain of this terrible economic downturn. We urge you to seize the opportunity presented by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help reverse the downward spiral in our economy and to protect the vital services our state and local governments provide to our citizens.
Sincerely,
Joseph P. Riley
Mayor, City of Charleston
O.L. “Buddy” Johnson, Jr.
Mayor, Town of Little Mountain
Harold Thompson
Mayor, City of Union
Kevin L. Johnson
Mayor, City of Manning
Nancy G. Brigman
Mayor, Town of Latta
Bobby Brock
Mayor, Town of Blenheim
Thomas R. Rivers
Mayor, Town of Williston
Keith Bailey
Mayor, Town of Blythewood
Jeffrey Graham
Mayor, City of Camden
Minnie Blackwell
Mayor, City of Hanahan
Steve Carver,
Mayor, Town of Wagener
Derek A. Hodgin
Mayor, City of Westminster
Elise Partin
Mayor, City of Cayce
William Barnet, III
Mayor, City of Spartanburg
Charlene N. Herring
Mayor, Town of Ridgeway
Don Godbey
Mayor, City of Mauldin
Bob Coble
Mayor, City of Columbia
Moses L. Cohen, Jr.
Mayor, Town of Fairfax
Joseph McElveen
Mayor, City of Sumter
Sallie Peake
Mayor, City of Wellford
Welborn Adams
Mayor, City of Greenwood
Carl B. Beckmann, Jr.
Mayor, City of Folly Beach
Wright Gaines
Mayor, City of Inman
Ailene D. Ashe
Mayor, Town of Lockhart
Thomas H. Alexander
Mayor, City of Bishopville
Nathan R. Salley, Sr.
Mayor, Town of Salley
Terence Roberts
Mayor, City of Anderson
Alton McCollum
Mayor, City of Bamberg
Rob Taylor
Mayor, Town of Aynor
Doug Echols
Mayor, City of Rock Hill
Randy Randall
Mayor, City of Clinton
Bronco Bostick
Mayor, City of Hardeeville
Burley L. Lyons
Mayor, Town of Edisto Beach
R. Keith Summey
Mayor, City of North Charleston
Billy Keyserling
Mayor, City of Beaufort
Carol E. Burdette
Mayor, Town of Pendleton
Rick Danner
Mayor, City of Greer
Stephen J. Wukela
Mayor, City of Florence
Frank McMulty
Mayor, Town of Seabrook Island
Johnnie Waller
Mayor, Town of Calhoun Falls
Anne Johnston
Mayor, Town of St. George
Peggy Paxton
Mayor, Town of West Pelzer
Donnie D. Grice
Mayor, City of Clover
Roy Smith, Jr.
Mayor, Town of McCormick
David Owens
Mayor, City of Pickens
Charles Ackerman
Mayor, Town of Harleyville
Tony Watkins
Mayor, City of Darlington
Larry Abernathy
Mayor, City of Clemson
Tom Alexander
Mayor, City of Bishopville
J. Edward Lee, Ph.D.
Mayor, City of York
Arvest M. Turner
Mayor, Town of Ninety Six
Paul Miller
Mayor, City of Orangeburg