Recently, my governor came up with a great line. In a op-ed article, he pointed out, “If the stimulus bill were a country, it would be the 15th-largest country in the world.” This made an effective headline. It caught my eye and give me the topic for today's blog.

Mark Sanford, South Carolina's (and my) governor, is the chair of the Republican Governors Association. The bill he referred to is officially the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

But seen another way, the stimulus bill is less than . of 1 percent of the US GNP! Wow. Without exceeding one percent of its GNP, the US economy places in the world's top 15! We are big, but we're broke, bloated, backed up, baffled, and bailing. (And perhaps blind.)

In place of vision, we have sound bites. And without a penny spent, the stimulus bill has already overstimulated the political discussion. One commentator called the $787 billion bill “a steaming pile of garbage.” Really? Bring it to my backyard trash pile. Obviously, in the 15th largest pile of garbage in the world, I'll bet I could pick through it and find something to recycle.

The bill's official announcement says it mets the goals the new administration and Congress set on “day one.” This, after halcyon days of constructing a 1,100 page bill that no member of Congress will admit to having read and no Republicans supported, except for two women from Maine and a friend of Strom Thurmond's from Pennsylvania. (I did browse 676 pages; if you like government spending, it's pretty heady stuff.)

Mark Sanford is at odds with his state's Congressional delegate over the stimulus bill. The delegation includes the House Majority Whip (the House's 3rd ranking member), and the Chair of the House Budget committee. Sanford, himself once a House member, is a self described moderate populist conservative. Sanford slept on a cot in his Congressional office and awoke daily to his koan: he was (is) absolutely against the spending of any federal money for most measures beyond defense and opposes unequivocally deficit federal spending, which he enlightenly contends harms business development and the incomes of families.

Sanford once called federal highway bills Congressional bribery. Sanford wants to turn down the stimulus package federal aid targeted for South Carolina. He has announced that he might reject the money South Carolina is eligible for. These monies include funds for unemployment, health care, and other services that directly impact the state's families. The Governor's position is supported by, among others, an Episcopal diocese's theologian, who cites as a reason the failure of government stimulus during the “lost decade” (1990's) of Japan's downturn.

Charleston's mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr., a optimistic cheerleader for cities, sees the stimulus aid through a different lens and frames the question differently. His view is not predicated on “whether the aid package will “work.” Riley doesn't worry about its size. He doesn't cite the metrics of the cost of job creation or debate how many. He manages a budget. Yet Mayor Riley's head is not in the sand. From his view, he sees are citizens suffering as houses go into foreclosure, jobs are lost, and sales in all sectors slump.

“The governor [Sanford] needs to feel responsible for the economic health of his state and the people of his state,” Riley said, in a Charleston City Paper quote.

The stimulus may create 53,000 jobs in South Carolina, and increase tuition tax and extend unemployment benefits, among other services. Road projects, schools, green energy are targeted. Riley thinks that building infrastructure and saving the state from deep cuts in services during the downturn is important. If families are stabilized, they will maintain a quality of life that will help them avoid making up lost ground when the economy turns around.

The stimulus bill that passed does have an earmark, but not for funds for a SC project. Instead the national bill included a provision that allows the SC State Legislature to bypass the Governor's executive authority. It authorized the state legislature, if a governor declines, to receive federal monies from the stimulus bill for “roads, schools, Medicare funds” and other state services. The legislature could then put these funds into the state budget. In fact, it guarantees a state legislature can receive funds unless both houses of the state's legislature vote no.

The House whip, James Clyburn, authored the bill's codicil, aimed at South Carolina and Texas. The bill “is the right mix of spending and tax breaks to get America working again," Clyburn aruges. And with the sound bite of the debate, he trumped the Governor. To the Republican mantra that tax cuts build and repair the economy, Clyburn said on the House floor last Wednesday, "What good does a tax cut do if you don’t have a job?,” the Greenville News quotes him. Yup. Tax cuts for those unemployed workers in the world's 15th largest economy in the right mix at less than one percent of US GNP since “day one.” A cogent model for the recovery that the American people want.

Funds in the stimulus package for South Carolina, according to the Congressional Research Service and Center for American Progress include: $905 million to stabilize state revenues, $291 million to improve schools and colleges, 1.1 billion for state Medicaid payments, 468 million to improve highways, according to the Greenville News.

Several local communities, Hardeeville and Jasper on the Carolina Coast, an area called the lowcountry, have hired lobbyists to help gain stimulus funds—if South Carolina accepts them. These communities have taken the traditional approach. They hired connected people who peddle influence to state their case and gain commitments, if possible, so they won't be left at an empty trough. These hirings are also an indication that lobbyists are now moving down the feeding chain: the stimulus bill directs a minimum 10 percent of rural-development dollars to a state's poorest counties. By legislative definition, these are counties with at least one-fifth of its residents with incomes at or below the federal poverty baseline for a minimum<u> 30 years</u>.

Jasper County is one of 12 counties in South Carolina that meet that criteria. Since this proviso is a mandate, it is extremely likely that Jasper and its communities--and the other eleven counties--would be granted funds when the state divides and assigns its shares--even without the intercession of in-state lobbyists with federal connections. Of course, the Governor who opposes this aid has done little to allievate its stark baseline of poverty.

So South Carolina has a Governor who opposes the bill and says he doesn't want any stimulus money for his state, despite its “corridor of shame” and its entrenched poverty. An Episcopal theologian agrees with Sanford on the historic grounds of an Japanese example. A well-known Mayor wants the funds to mitigate the recession's impact on citizen's quality of life. A member of the state's Congressional delegation creates a parallel legislative universe which may form a black hole in American politics.

The state's senior Republican senator argues the stimulus package masks a “spending bill,” but the Senator tells the Governor publicly it would “be smart “for South Carolina to accept the money. And his reason for accepting funding he voted against? He says, take the state's appropriation, since ultimately South Carolina has to pay its federal share. Local counties with populations with thirty years below the poverty standards have hired lobbyists to help obtain what they are pretty well guaranteed by legislative mandate to receive. In other words, they may be paying someone to help them get what they already got coming.

As my Grandfather use to say, money draws the crowd.The stimulus bill may or may not create jobs or help the economy recover. But it has already created a barrel of laughs, antics, guffaws, and sound bites. I just hope they can slap their sides and laugh in joy in those 12 counties.

A reader posting on Greenville News online edition may have voiced the right balance:
The economy's in turmoil they're sayin'
the stimulus help they're a prayin'
instead of a will
we're leavin' a bill
that the sons of our sons will be payin'...

(fair use)