A Liberal Is A Conservative Who Needs A Bailout

One of the 50 "mini-Hoovers" in the states finally got religion when he couldn't fix the problem of poor people not having enough to eat with another round of tax cuts. The episode is instructive.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Just hours before the unemployment benefits fund was to run out in South Carolina, the state with the nation’s third-highest jobless rate, Gov. Mark Sanford relented Wednesday and agreed to apply for a $146 million federal loan to shore it up, after weeks of refusing to do so.

The governor’s position had drawn rebukes even from fellow Republicans in the Legislature, one of whom denounced Mr. Sanford as “heartless,” and from newspaper editorial pages. On Wednesday, The State, the daily newspaper here in Columbia, accused the governor of playing “chicken with the lives of the 77,000” who are unemployed in South Carolina.

For weeks, Mr. Sanford, newly elected as head of the Republican Governors Association and known for being a fierce free-market foe of government spending, stuck to his stand, questioning the probity of the South Carolina Employment Security Commission and demanding a new audit of the agency.

It just couldn't be that the state had so many jobless that the fund was broke. There had to be some big gubmint mismanagement, or they were lying about their bookkeeping. He kept asking for a strict audit of the unemployment office to "cut the fat," although they have received a clean bill of health every year. But some freeloader at the agency had to be ruining it for everyone. The fact that the economy is in the shitter and South Carolina in particular has had their industrial base shipped overseas for the last 30 years had nothing to do with it.

I think Sanford's problem with the unemployment agency is that poor people get money for not working. Their running out of cash wasn't a bug, but a feature. But the inevitable outcome of conservative "ideas" in a crisis is people collapsing of starvation in the streets, and for some reason the public won't tolerate that. These lily-livered cowards must have never heard of something called "work ethic." And those rat-bastard bleeding heart reporters just ruin it for everybody.

Mildly rebuking the news media here, he said that “you can find any number of people, particularly around the holiday season, who have the most unfortunate circumstances, they’ve lost their job, and those are compelling personal stories.”

How dare they have an ounce of concern for their fellow man. Can't they let Governor Scrooge a moment's peace?

It goes without saying that Sanford is considered a leading candidate for the Republicans in 2012. But after this weak-kneed capitulation, he's obviously hurt his chances as a paragon of freedom and liberty. It really mucks up his campaign slogan "Sanford: No To Lucky Duckies!"