Sanford's Rejection Of Stimulus Funds Could Cost 7,500 Teachers Their Jobs (SC)

[struggle4progress]

Last month, eighth grader Ty’Sheoma Bethea was an honored guest of President Obama when he made his address to a joint session of Congress. Bethea had written a letter to Gov. Mark Sanford (R) asking him to repair her school, JV Martin Jr High School in Dillon, SC, which was falling apart. “I felt that our school was in bad condition,” she said. “After the stimulus bill was passed I hoped we could get some of the money to rebuild the school.”

However, Sanford continues to stand in the way of Bethea’s hopes. Yesterday, in what Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) deemed “100 percent political posturing,” Sanford announced he would seek to pay down the state’s debt by redirecting $700 million of the state’s stimulus money meant for school funding and public safety ...

John Cooley, deputy superintendent for finance and operations at the South Carolina Department of Education, explained that the stimulus funds would help fill a 15 percent budget cut already inflicted on the school system. Without those funds, Cooley estimated that up 7,500 teachers (15 percent of the state’s 50,000 teachers) could be negatively impacted. But he cautioned, “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that we’ve reduced 7,500 teachers” or that all 7,500 will lose their jobs ...

As Charleston Mayor Joe Riley said yesterday, “Paying off the debt does nothing for the schoolteacher who is losing a job or the probation officer who is being laid off.” Even with news yesterday that South Carolina now has the second-highest unemployment rate in the country, at 10.4 percent — and the fastest growing rate anywhere — Sanford is apparently willing to offer his citizens nothing but his prayers.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/12/sanford-stimulus-education/

[Hawkeye-X]

1. And begins the blue stream... thanks Sanford!

[MineralMan]

2. You go, Sanford! Show 'em! Then, don't be surprised when

your state goes completely blue. Thank you for your service!

[rwheeler31]

3. God I wish John and Elisabeth Edwards could lead the

fight against this nonsense.

[madrchsod]

4. markie is full of shit....he`ll do what he`s told

[WoodyM]

5. In May 2003, just as the S. C. legislative

session was ending, Bush signed a tax-cut bill that included, courtesy of the free-spending republican Congress, a $20 billion appropriation to the states. South Carolina’s share of the goodies was $265 million. The S. C. Republican authorities promptly devoted $220 million of that money to shoring up the fiscal 2004 S.C. Medicaid health care plan. Then, Sanford and legislative leadership “found” another $44 million for state aid to schools, allowing them to beef up base state aid per pupil spending for the following fiscal year from $1,701 to $1,777.
Both Sanford and then House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, took credit for this last minute boost to public school spending. Though they didn’t mention where the money had come from. The S. C. Education Association, with some shrewd forensic accounting, deduced that the money had come from the leftover financed federal largesse.
True, the federal red ink that made possible this timely boost to Medicaid and state school aid pales in comparison to the payment South Carolina would receive from the federal stimulus package. But it’s a difference only of degree.
If it was OK in 2003 for the state to glom onto a deficit-financed rescue for Medicaid and state school aid, why is it now not OK for the state to glom onto the S. C. portion of the federal stimulus package?
The answer, I suspect is that the Democrats now control the machinery of the federal government.
On Bush’s watch, they cheerfully incurred huge deficits while expanding the domestic side of the federal budget more than any Congress since the days of President Johnson.