A Just So Story: How Mark Sanford Used Two Piglets To Fight Pork Barrel Spending
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| Representative Mark Sanford (R-SC) |
Sanford’s economic intellect and Constitutional integrity are so respected that his advice is quietly sought, and given careful consideration, by leadership. His conservative bona fides, as a member of the House Freedom Caucus, are impeccable. An unfortunate,
overdramatized, incident in his personal life -- which his constituents do not hold against him -- really is immaterial. If one recognizes Members of Congress as mortals rather than gods, it could even be held an endearing if clumsy display of the soul of a star-crossed romantic lurking beneath an Eagle Scout persona.
Therefore, it was a pleasure to get a first-hand account of how Sanford, when governor, deployed two piglets to pressure the South Carolina state legislature to accelerate the elimination of a $150M accumulated deficit. $150M isn’t much by federal standards. Per a 2010 article in The Washington Post it is less than a third of what the Defense Department spends, per year, on its marching bands.
That said, this profligacy was a big deal to then-Governor Sanford and for South Carolina.
South Carolina’s state constitution (unlike the federal constitution) forbids deficit spending. Sanford, as governor, discovered that some accounting tricks had been used in the service of overspending on pork. He was appalled.
This was not mere profligacy. It was a breach of integrity by the state government that he led. What he did and how he did it provides a nice lesson in politics as well as showing Sanford to be ready to use extraordinary means to fight for the taxpayers and for justice.
The lesson? In politics, logic alone rarely prevails.
As described at the time by Jennifer Talhelm and Valerie Bauerlein in The State:
… House members on Wednesday angered Sanford by accepting just one of his 106 vetoes of items in the state budget. Sanford also criticized lawmakers for relying on the sale of property - and not savings - to pay down the last $16 million of a $155 million deficit.
"Pork won and taxpayers lost," Sanford said. "I find it unbelievable to think there's not one additional dollar in savings that could go to pay down that unconstitutional $16 million debt."
House leaders countered quickly, saying Sanford had taken a previously genteel argument over fiscal responsibility to a new low.
"It's beneath the dignity of the governor to bring pigs in the State House outside the chamber just to get a photo opportunity," said House Speaker David Wilkins, his jaw set, his eyes down. "This is the people's House. He defiled it."
Sen. Jake Knotts, R-Lexington, defended the governor.
"Sometimes we have to embarrass people to make them understand what they have done," he said.
… Sanford 's news conference lasted just 10 minutes. At the end, the governor, who said he spent summers growing up on a farm, swiftly scooped up the piglets - dubbed "Pork" and "Barrel" -- and marched back to his office.
Then-Gov. Sanford discovered this hidden accumulated debt. He worked out, with the state legislature, a plan to pay it off fully over three years. He then went and briefed the Wall Street credit rating agencies. These proved content with the plan and did not downgrade South Carolina’s credit rating.
And then… the economy suddenly turned up and, with it, state tax revenues. There was enough new money to pay the accumulated debt off immediately. Sanford drove his staff around the clock for weeks to find ways of cutting the excess pork (by the barrel) out of the legislature’s proposed budget, using his line-item veto to get this done immediately rather than on the installment plan.
Sanford could have finessed the matter, sticking with the installment plan in place. But he wanted to do the right thing by the state constitution and by the taxpayers. As reported at the time by GoUpState he said, “I think we have a constitutional requirement to pay it off rather than pay for pork projects around the state.”
He took his proposed vetoes of the new pork barrels to the grandees of the state legislature. They, seeing lots of lovely new money pouring in, weren’t having any of it. The legislature's leadership told him that they were going to override his vetoes wholesale.
Sanford reasoned with them.
Wheedled them.
Pleaded with them.
No dice.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Sanford decided to dramatize, rather than back off, the standoff.
This scenario, in passing, reminds me of a joke told about President George W. Bush.
To which the Marine replied: 'Good trade, Sir!'
Does this incident mean anything for your checkbook, for America’s future… and for the future role of Rep. Sanford in blowing Big Government down? It might.
My current census of the 435 Members of Congress now in office yields only three truly extraordinary, possibly transformational, figures. Rep. Sanford is one. The rest, bless their hearts, have been Assimilated by the Borg we know as the Congress of the United States. Democrat or Republican, they're just toeing the party line. Sanford answers to a Higher Power: the future well being of America.
Sitting in his Capitol Hill office, we squabbled about the federal deficit. Government spending is a matter I take more seriously than do most Supply-Siders. My thinking was formed by long association with Lewis E. Lehrman (whose eponymous Institute I formerly advised). Lehrman was a key advisor to the Supply-Side’s political quarterback, Rep. Jack Kemp, as well as an informal advisor to President Ronald Reagan. He is also the preeminent advocate in our era of the classical gold standard. Lehrman, along with Steve Forbes, George Gilder, and a small handful of others constitutes the leadership of Team Gold.
This may not quite be academic. President Trump is a gold sympathizer. As I noted here:
One also well might take note of Trump’s comment to GQ: "Bringing back the gold standard would be very hard to do, but boy, would it be wonderful. We’d have a standard on which to base our money."
Just as sailors on shore leave will drink until the bars close, legislators will spend whatever money they can get their hands on. The classical gold standard is one way of closing the bar.
Lehrman was and is, as I am, an anti-government-spending hawk. So is Sanford. He and I squabbled about whether it is more practical to bring the federal budget into balance by cutting or by fomenting economic growth while constraining spending.
In our argument Sanford played the Eagle Scout, demanding strict spending rectitude on the part of Uncle Sam. I was cast in the role of the star-crossed romantic of economic growth.
I pointed out how the Congressional Budget Office observed, a few years ago, that every one-tenth of one percent of additional growth brings over $300 billion over ten years in federal revenues. (I dubbed this the “Kadlec Curve," named after Supply Side thought leader Charles Kadlec, who discovered it.) Thus 2% growth over baseline would bring Uncle Sam $6 trillion over ten years, turning the federal deficit into a surplus, providing resources to pay down the federal debt. Or cut taxes further. Or both!
That's what the Kadlec Curve did for President Clinton. That's what it would do for any president. Such growth rate would be dramatically, maybe exponentially, even more beneficial to the private sector. Thus government spending as a proportion of the national economy gets forced down elegantly. Voilà!
Deficit hawks? Let the Curve be with you!
Ever sharp, ever passionate for integrity, Sanford challenged me. He cited both the demographic and the productivity challenges to bringing that extra 2% growth on stream. Having myself, back in the Reagan days, refused to date Rosie Scenario I sympathized. Yet, ever the romantic, I told him that when I first entered the political sphere, in the late 1970s, I then also heard innumerable reasons why it was impossible for America to achieve sustained 4% economic growth.
It was soberly declaimed how Certain Factors woulf, and would continue to, preclude such growth rates. Until, of course, Reagan, building on the foundation established by Kemp (designed to emulate the tax policies of President Kennedy, which also generated epic growth) did exactly that. President Clinton, embellishing and extending The House That Jack (Kemp) Built, enjoyed years of sizzling growth. And a federal surplus.
So, Congressman, pardon my skepticism of the ambient skepticism.
Most Congressmen fade into the woodwork. Sanford has not. He is an “outlier,” a remarkable example of someone who hasn’t joined the Conventional Wisdom parade but seeks to transform it, and, with that transformation, to transform the economy and the course of history. Will he?
If Rep. Mark Sanford will turn his remarkable intellect toward generating epic economic growth, conjoined with federal spending restraint, he can prove himself one of those rare birds with the potential to unleash equitable prosperity and transform our lives. As did President John F. Kennedy. As did President Ronald Reagan under the inspiration of Rep. Jack Kemp. As did President William Jefferson Clinton.
Mark Sanford, when South Carolina’s governor, fielded two pigs to counter the abuse of the constitution and taxpayer interests. Pig feces notwithstanding, it was an elegant move, generating a media circus.
In order to force Eagle Scout fiscal rectitude on our elected officials, however, more is needed: epic and equitable economic growth. Rep. Mark Sanford, I beg you to remember the words of that U.S. Marine: “Good trade, Sir!”
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Ralph Benko is an advisor to nonprofit and advocacy organizations, is a member of the Conservative Action Project, a contributor to the contributor to the ARRA News Service. Founder of The Prosperity Caucus, he was a member of the Jack Kemp supply-side team, served in an unrelated area as a deputy general counsel in the Reagan White House. The article which first appeared in Forbes.
Tags: Ralph Benko, Mark Sanford, Two Piglets, U.S. marine, Fight Pork Barrel Spending To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
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