America's Most Conservative Governor

With Republicans on a national spending spree of historic proportions, it is reassuring to see a governor still fighting to limit the size and scope of government. Whereas the GOP majority in Washington has presided over an increase in domestic discretionary spending of eight percent per year, Mark Sanford of South Carolina has kept his state's increase to a mere one percent. In recent history, only one politician has done better. Ronald Reagan actually cut spending by an average of 1.3 percent per year over his two terms.

Gov. Sanford likes the Reagan comparison and, indeed, has set him as his model. Like President Reagan, he made control of spending, the bureaucracy, and waste his top goals from the first. He spent half of what his predecessor did on his official transition to office, disbanded his security detail and scrapped the traditional black tie fancy ball for a Bar-B-Q picnic open to all. But his actions once in office were hardly just symbolic. He adopted the first detailed executive branch budget in the state's history, which identified millions of dollars in possible savings, rather than leaving decisions solely to the legislature as had all earlier governors.

Gov. Sanford faced a $155 million deficit from his predecessor the day he entered office, together with threats from credit rating agencies to lower the state's borrowing status. To close this gaping hole, he engineered passage of a "Fiscal Discipline Act" through a reluctant legislature. He negotiated $139 million in repayment and issued 106 vetoes to cut spending to close the remainder of the gap. While the legislature overrode all but one veto, the governor did not stop there. He walked into the statehouse rotunda with a live pig under each arm to ask why the legislators could not cut unnecessary pork spending. While the spenders were squealing, the people loved it and granted the governor a 70 percent approval rating. Showing his true nettle, Sanford invested his popularity in his budget cuts and a half dozen Republicans who had defied him on spending, including the House majority leader, lost primaries in the following election.

Like Ronald Reagan, Sanford understands that legislators must be confronted if fiscal discipline is to be imposed. Representatives want to give people things in democracies, not to say "no" to them. That is why spending explodes if they are not restrained by executives. America's Founders understood this by giving the president the veto as his major domestic power. Rather than hoard them, the strong executive exercises vetoes with some frequency. One of Sanford's early acts was to veto a pork-laden "economic development" bill and threaten to go to court even if it was overridden as violating the state requirement for only one subject for each law enacted. He also went after the taxation side, proposing a one billion dollar tax cut, slashing discriminatory rates against the small businesses that create the jobs, from 7 to 4.75 percent over ten years.

Again following Reagan, Sanford set up a state version of the Grace Commission to investigate ways to control waste, fraud and abuse, recognizing that if the executive does not control the details of administration, it cannot truly govern. The new budget drew even agencies given independence by state law under the scrutiny of the governor. He had the troubled Division of Motor Vehicles transferred to the executive and reduced wait time at the agency from an average of 66 minutes to 15 to make it more responsive to citizens. A unit of the Department of Mental Health had lost 90 percent of its patients over time but continued to operate and waste taxpayer funds. Sanford saved $5.3 million on operating costs and $33 million from closing the underused facility and transferring the remaining patients to a better facility. The Department of Commerce was cut from 15 to 5 divisions, becoming more efficient and creating savings. Rather than having one state agency rent cars to another, he proposed to sell 6,000 cars, using more cost-effective private rental agencies to save the state $33.8 million. Additional privatization and private school choice are set as future priorities. Deregulation efforts include voiding the state's one handgun purchase per month limitation, ending a vest-hunting requirement on one's own property, and canceling state restrictions on local school construction. He backed his efforts up with an executive order forbidding the cabinet agencies from lobbying the legislature for more funds or more regulation.

Gov. Sanford comes across as a smart, serious executive who understands how government bureaucracies and legislatures work. This is nothing new for him. When he ran for Congress in 1994, he set a term limit for himself and had the courage to actually keep his word and quit when it expired. During his six years in the House of Representatives, the 44 year old earned high grades from the National Taxpayers Union, Citizens Against Government Waste, Christian Coalition, National Right to Life Committee, and the American Conservative Union. He was widely recognized in Washington as a tough legislator who could be counted upon to act on substance rather than rhetoric. He is conservative even when it directly affects him--he slept on his office futon while in Congress, raised private funds to make needed repairs in the governor's mansion and cut 60 positions from his own staff.

Even the media cannot deny his energy and commitment. As "The Columbia State" newspaper noted: "Oh lawmakers talk a good game about shaking up the bureaucracy, trimming the fat; but even the starve-government Republicans have done precious little to challenge this assumption since they came to power. Until now. Partly because he's an outsider with no investment in the way things have always been done, partially because he is more willing than the typical politician to make waves, Mark Sanford is working to overturn that idea."

He not only acts politically like Ronald Reagan, he gives the same sense in person that he is the real thing. His best friend and campaign manager is his wife, Jenny. He is devoted to his children. He asks all the right questions and wants to know every option. He questions everything and never accepts something simply because it is the way it has always been done. He is a serious, courageous and committed conservative -- in fact, the most conservative chief executive in America.

Donald Devine, Editor.