Budget haunts politics

COLUMBIA - The outline of a red fiscal bull's-eye is getting painted on the backs of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and the Republican-controlled Legislature because of the state's budget crisis, political analysts say.

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The impact of the $5.2 billion state budget is ripping into taxpayers, hitting them with higher property taxes, fees and college tuition and leaving them with fewer schoolteachers, professors, prison guards and state troopers. The rhetorical firefight over next year's economic blueprint already has begun.

In hearings Mr. Sanford has held in the past three weeks to get a jump on putting the state's financial house in order for the legislative session in January, agency chieftains have sounded loud warnings about big deficits just around the corner and the demand for more prisons, roads and other tax-funded services.

Democrats already are zeroing in.

"When folks want to say get government off their backs - well, the General Assembly of South Carolina has done that," said state Sen. Tommy Moore, D-Clearwater, one of the sharpest critics of South Carolina's Republican leadership. "I think in the next two or three months, the reality will become clear about the cost of all this."

With state economists making gloomy predictions about flat revenues for next year and South Carolina's history of slow economic recovery, prospects are high that Mr. Sanford and the Legislature will face a $200 million to $300 million shortage identical to the one they just grappled with.

This time around, there's no guarantee of a $250 million federal bailout like the one that legislators relied on to balance this year's budget.

Mr. Sanford, who took office in January, will be up for re-election in 2006.

"Things need to be turned around by late 2005, but if we start getting bad rankings in things like education, he's going to get blamed and so are the Republicans," said Robert Botsch, a political science professor at the University of South Carolina Aiken. "That would make education and the economy wedge issues for the Democrats."

Mr. Moore is eager to turn both issues into political trump cards for his party.Republicans, including state Rep. Roland Smith, of Langley, the chairman of the House Education Committee, said an increase in state taxes would be a bitter pill for taxpayers already tasting a sour economy.

"You know as well as I do that once you put a tax on, it never goes away," Mr. Smith said.

Other Republicans said South Carolina's budget crisis started under former Democratic Gov. Jim Hodges.

"The real deficit occurred with the previous administration, and we're just trying to turn it around," state Comptroller Richard Eckstrom said. "Everybody knew last year that the state was just barreling down the tracks like a runaway freight train."

Mr. Botsch said the train is still out of control.

"He (Mr. Sanford) and the Republican leadership need to talk, but there's been no sign of that so far," Mr. Botsch said. "They need to get their house in order, or they're going to make it easier for the Democrats."

Reach Jim Nesbitt at (803) 648-1394 or jim.nesbitt@augustachronicle.com.

--From the Monday, July 7, 2003 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle