THE KEY to evaluating a Mark Sanford budget — or any of the governor’s proposals, for that matter — is understanding that there is no such thing as “The Sanford Policy.”

There are two separate and distinct “Sanford policies,” which occasionally coincide but more often are artificially jammed together in a vain attempt to look like a coherent whole.

There is the pragmatic, real-world policy that seeks to address real problems, that produces common-sense solutions that any objective observer would embrace: Don’t spend money you don’t have. Don’t inadvertently commit yourself to a course of action by thoughtlessly making what appear to be inconsequential choices. Don’t cling to the status quo when it doesn’t meet your needs.

Then there is the ideological policy, which insists on solving “problems” whether they exist or not. This policy — borne of a quasi-religious belief that government is evil and bad and wrong — almost always manifests itself in the same mandate: Reduce government’s size, its scope, its authority, its influence; but above all, reduce.

One of the clearest examples of interplay of the two Sanford policies was on display last week, when the governor previewed his later budget roll-out by unveiling a “Fiscal Fitness Challenge” to the Legislature. It’s useful to examine the challenge not just because it offers such a neat illustration of the dichotomy, but also because its individual parts are built on bedrock Sanford principles.

The challenge was heavy on solutions to real problems: Reduce our state’s practice of using one-time money to fund ongoing needs — the practice that contributed as much as the recession to years of painful budget cuts. Stabilize the state retirement system — a goal whose practical importance should be obvious to anyone. Repay trust funds we’ve raided and pay off bond debt — both of which make sense in their own right (the former more than the latter) but also better position the state in case the nation drops back into recession.

But thrown in with those pragmatic proposals, and dressed up to look as though there was a rational connection among them all, was a purely ideological, government-must-be-slashed proposal: Cap the growth of state spending to the rate of inflation plus population growth.

That idea might sound great if you are part of that tiny sliver of society that shares the governor’s extremist anti-government ideology. (Likewise, both that one and the pragmatic proposals are evil incarnate if you are part of that tiny sliver of society that is convinced that government is always right and should always do more, grow larger.)

But like the rest of Mr. Sanford’s libertarian ideas, it is frustratingly maddening if you are part of the vast majority of practical, commonsense, pragmatic people — along the lines of the practical, commonsense, pragmatic side of Mr. Sanford — who believe that the proper role of government is to do that which government needs to do, to do it as efficiently as possible, and to do it well.

Mr. Sanford’s artificial cap on government spending stems from his contention that government in South Carolina is growing out of control — by his reckoning, at 29 percent more than the national average.

But there is a big flaw in his logic. Even if you believe that Mr. Sanford’s numbers present an accurate picture of reality — and I am not at all convinced that they do — they are irrelevant to this proposal:

If government is too big, or too inefficient, then allowing it to grow at even the rate of inflation plus population growth would be wasteful; it should be cut, not grown less rapidly.

If, on the other hand, government does not have enough money to provide the programs and services that the public agrees need to be provided, then a cap like this is destructive: It merely maintains the status quo, thus ensuring that government will never be able to provide the programs and services that the public agrees need to be provided. And as we all know, clinging to the status quo is bad ... at least, that’s what the practical Mark Sanford believes.

Mr. Sanford tried to sound practical about the ideological cap last week, explaining that he was worried that the national economy was still at risk, and he didn’t want to overcommit the state when another recession might be just around the corner. That’s a defensible position.

The problem is that Mr. Sanford was pushing for this sort of limit before we knew what the recovery would look like, back when we were still in a recession. And the reason he’s talking about it now is not because he wants to affect next year’s budget — in which there won’t be enough money to even reach the cap— but because he wants to bully the General Assembly into committing itself to this artificial limit in perpetuity.

Understanding the difference between the two types of proposals Mr. Sanford lays out is useful to the public. For legislators, it’s essential — so they will be able to accept the practical ideas and reject the ideological ones.

Ms. Scoppe can be reached at cscoppe@thestate.com or at (803) 771-8571.