Credit rating angst points to need for one financial voice

LAST MONTH, Sen. Brad Hutto announced he would file legislation to make the state “speak with one voice” to credit rating agencies. His goal is absolutely right. What he has wrong is how to accomplish it.

Mr. Hutto’s proposal was the latest attempt by Democrats to blame Republicans — and specifically Gov. Mark Sanford and Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom — for last year’s decision by one of the three credit rating agencies to lower the state’s top AAA rating one notch to AA-plus. It came in response to the latest effort by Republicans — specifically treasurer candidate Thomas Ravenel — to blame Treasurer Grady Patterson for the downgrade.

It’s tough to think of a dryer and more confusing issue to wage a political campaign over than credit ratings. The rating is important: The better it is, the less it costs the state to borrow money. It’s not always clear, though, why the various rating agencies act as they do, and it’s not always possible for elected officials to do anything to improve it.

But when you’re running for treasurer or comptroller general, you can’t be real choosy about campaign issues. So Mr. Ravenel trekked up to New York last month to “open up a dialogue” with the rating agencies, which gave him an excuse to again bring up his highly questionable claims that Mr. Patterson was to blame for losing our prized AAA rating.

And Mr. Hutto hauled out his proposal, which gave him an excuse to remind folks about the bizarre trip Mr. Sanford and Mr. Eckstrom took to New York in the spring of 2005 to lobby the rating agencies to support the massive tax cut that Mr. Sanford was having no luck selling to the Legislature; the downgrade followed not too long afterwards. It also gave Mr. Hutto an excuse to slap Mr. Ravenel, for what both he and Mr. Patterson termed a political stunt.

While we agree that Mr. Ravenel’s visit was a stunt, we’re not particularly concerned about it; we assume credit agencies are savvy enough to understand that a mere candidate for elective office does not speak for the state. But it’s a different matter when the governor and comptroller are telling them one thing, and the treasurer is telling them something else. That’s a problem we can’t afford.

But the solution isn’t to gag the governor or the comptroller or anyone else. It’s to give the state a single voice on these matters, as other states have.

Right now, we elect a treasurer to oversee some investments and banking transactions and serve as the state's top financial adviser. We elect a comptroller general to act as paymaster (the decisions on how the money is spent are made by the governor and Legislature) and handle accounting and financial reporting. The actual work done by both officials, while certainly important, is nonetheless ministerial — that is, it doesn’t involve the sort of discretionary decision-making that you need to elect someone to handle.

And we elect a governor, who’s supposed to be the chief executive officer, but who has no control over how these and other lesser executive officers do their jobs — much less how they speak for the state.

There are countless reasons that it makes no sense to dilute the authority of the executive branch by maintaining these three separate islands of authority. The latest one: An elected treasurer and comptroller general can create all sorts of trouble when they go out searching for reasons why anyone should care who holds the offices.