There's a lot more going on in South Carolina during these dog days of summer than the news that Gov. Mark Sanford's former spokesman, Will Folks, pled guilty to a domestic violence charge.
In response to Standard and Poor's recent downgrading of the state's triple-A credit rating - and because he also believes it will boost economic development - Sanford has been touring the state pushing for his Taxpayer Empowerment Amendment, which would limit growth in state spending to the state's population increase, plus inflation. He's using the gubernatorial bully pulpit to turn up the heat on lawmakers to put the amendment on next year's November ballot.
The state's credit rating problems were largely a result of overspending during the recession years earlier this decade, and now it's necessary to grow the economy by curbing state spending and letting consumers keep more of what they earn, says the governor.
His taxpayer amendment is a good plan because it would force the legislature to cut government spending when the economy slows, but to increase spending when the economy is doing well, providing the spending does not exceed revenues.
This is what's called thinking outside the box, although Sanford is not the originator of the idea. It has been in effect for a decade in Colorado, and that state's economy flourished during the recession years. A similar plan also has been generating interest among a number of Georgia lawmakers, but so far it has not been embraced by Gov. Sonny Perdue.
Another key issue Gov. Sanford is trumpeting involves the U.S. Supreme Court's eminent-domain ruling, giving local governments much broader power than the U.S. Constitution seemingly allows to seize people's homes to make room for shopping malls or other private development.
Even though the Palmetto State has one of the strongest private-property protection laws in the nation - it's one of only eight states that bans eminent domain for economic development unless it's to get rid of blight - Sanford wants to make it even stronger. He's planning to push legislation next January that would tighten definitions of the terms "public use" and "blighted area," and to limit which government authorities will be allowed to exercise eminent domain.
"The Founding Fathers were very deliberate in laying out exactly when government could and couldn't take citizens' private property," said the governor. ... "(T)he recent Supreme Court decision is a step in the wrong direction ..."
He's right. Property rights aren't about government empowering wealthy corporations and developers to buy up all the property they want by kicking ordinary property owners out of their homes and businesses.