South Carolina Statehouse Blog

Columbia, S.C. - June 11, 2009 - Governor Mark Sanford issued the following statement on the state Board of Economic Advisors’ decision to cut this year’s estimate for state revenue by $92 million, and next year’s by $120 million:

“Just as we’ve said for the past six and a half years, trees don’t grow to the sky, gravity always works, and what goes up will come down with regard to state revenue - and these new estimates again highlight the need to pass spending caps legislation so that we don’t continue to find ourselves in this situation every few years,” Gov. Sanford said. “We realize time is short to make adjustments under the current budget, but we continue to believe that cuts as a result of these new estimates need to be done in a targeted, rather than an across the board, fashion.

“More importantly, everyone involved needs to realize that this isn’t over. South Carolina continues to go deeper into debt when it comes to our unemployment trust fund, and nothing was done to address this in terms of paying down debt in this year’s budget. The legislature did nothing on our proposals to make our state more competitive for jobs and investment, like our corporate income tax elimination plan or our flat tax plan. That said, all signs point to continued revenue reductions as the year goes on, and the necessary cuts that will come with those reductions mean we need to plan for dealing with them now. I’d urge leadership in the General Assembly to look back at our Executive Budget and at the ideas from the Ryberg-Davis budget, and look toward targeted cuts rather than making round after round of across the board cuts as was done last year.”