News and Press Releases for June 2006

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06/06/2006

Governor Tours State to Discuss Budget

Governor Visits Anderson, Laurens, Orangeburg During Day One of Tour to Talk About Budget

Columbia, S.C. - Governor Mark Sanford today began his tour of South Carolina to discuss the state's ballooning budget after lawmakers refused to debate potential vetoes to the state's spending plan prior to the June 13 primary -- denying voters the right to know before they head to the polls exactly where lawmakers stand on growing government more than twice as fast as the average South Carolinian's paycheck.

South Carolina's revenues have grown by more than $1.1 billion this year, a record-breaking pace of revenue growth. But despite that rate of growth, the General Assembly chose to return only 12 cents of every new dollar coming into state government to the taxpayers. Last week, the governor called on legislators to send him the budget and deal with any budget vetoes prior to the June 13 primary as they did in 2004 during the last statewide primaries. But the General Assembly instead employed a procedural maneuver to avoid sending the budget to the governor at all.

Gov. Sanford said today was the first part of making good on his statement last week that if legislators wouldn't come back to Columbia to talk about the budget, the governor would travel South Carolina to talk about it.

"We looked for any way we could to work with the General Assembly members so they could finish their most important and most basic responsibility - completing a budget - prior to the June 13 primary, because it's key for voters to know where legislators stand on growing government and providing very little in the way of new tax relief," Gov. Sanford said. "But based on the events of last week, it's clear members of the General Assembly want to make their choices on a budget that grows government by 13 percent after folks have already made their choices at the polls. We've said from day one that if the General Assembly isn't going to send any more than 12 cents on the dollar back to hardworking South Carolinians, they at a minimum need to set aside far more for a rainy day. Since legislators are instead choosing to spend far more than they're sending back to taxpayers or setting aside, we're going to move around the state this week letting people know exactly what this budget means to them."