Sorry Unemployed South Carolinians, Mark Sanford Has an Ideological Pose to Strike

Two weeks ago, we reported that a number of Republican governors had made noise about rejecting the federal government's stimulus money to score political points.

Well, given the rampant unemployment, home foreclosures, and education deficiencies in their respective states, we didn't think any of these governors would be stupid enough to actually pass up money for job creation, education and infrastructure.

Note To Self: When it comes to questions of political posturing, care for constituents, and general egomania, stop giving Mark Sanford the benefit of the doubt...

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has been the leading voice among Republican governors who have criticized President Barack Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus plan...

But the governor's announcement this week that he may reject nearly a quarter of the money headed to South Carolina has stirred criticism in the state and elsewhere that he has placed his own political future ahead of the needs of the state's most vulnerable citizens.

Several GOP governors, including Rick Perry of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Haley Barbour of Mississippi, have said they would reject a portion of the money that would expand unemployment benefits to those not currently eligible to receive them. Sanford says he will also reject those funds, but he has threatened to go much further, requesting a waiver to spend some $700 million targeted for education and other programs to pay down some of the state's debt instead...

[Sanford's] announcement came the same week that South Carolina's unemployment rate shot to 10.4 percent, the second highest in the nation.

While the other governors mentioned in the article, notably Perry, have shown eagerness to dump on the unemployed, Sanford's drive to cut out education funding is particularly curious given that South Carolina's illiteracy rate now stands at 15%. So surely something else is at play here. But what?

Oh, that's right. Sanford is running for President!

(Not officially, mind you. Right now we're still in the posturing stage, as the DNC points out in their new anti-Sanford ad.)

Needless to say, Sanford claims his stimulus rejection owes not to political ambitions, but to good old-fashioned mule-headed stubbornness.

"I've got a 15-year pattern of doing exactly this kind of thing," Sanford said.

Well that's nice, Governor. Interestingly enough, our nation also had a 15-year pattern-- one of economic growth via the credit and mortgage markets until last year's system-wide collapse sent us into the worst economic environment since the 1930s. Seriously. You can read about it in an economics textbook.

Oh, except that's right. You just cut off your state's funding for all new textbooks.