Does SC have a recall law? That would really come in handy about now....

"he starts with a lack of economic understanding, follows it up by misdiagnosing the problem, and then concludes by making a misguided decision based on foolish assumptions."

Heh, that's a perfect summary of typical conservative thinking. No wonder the country is in such a mess.

Nominate this Neo-Hooverite, please.

I heard on Olbermann's show (I think) recently from an SC congressman that since Sanford is termed out in 2010, they aren't going to bother with a recall or impeachment...

- PonB

Sanford will be turned out in the next election cycle. He will pride himself on standing on principle, but we will know his principle is wrong!

Gov. Sanford, if your don't rethink this needed money, you will be but a footnote in the dust bin of history! -Kevo

It's so obvious that he's gearing up for a presidential run. And with this kind of willful stupidity, blatant demagoguery and full embrace of the kind of populism that makes very bad policy, he stands a good chance of getting a lot of GOP support.

Steve, it would be more work, but also more persuasive, if your blog post actually explained why Sanford is wrong instead of just stating that he is. Don't assume everybody knows.

In his defense, Americans' comfort with debt is thoroughly unhealthy. Denying ANY validity to Sanford leaves us agreeing with Dick Cheney that "deficits don't matter". In the event that we didn't have massive debt and deficits, I wouldn't be so scared during this depression.

I see in our future long hours at lower pay with smaller profits. Everyone will be working harder including those plutocrats at the helm. They REALLY don't like having to work and think for their money; it's so much easier when people buy junk at top dollar. Our nation's massive spending, past and present, will be weakening the dollar to the point where our trade deficit will be reversed. This will only be possible if our labor is affordable by the rest of the world. THIS will only happen if our buying power diminishes. No longer will we consume an outsized portion of the world's resources. We've already done that and put it on a bar tab. Now begins the hangover.

again, I don't agree with Sanford. I see this harnessing of the American workforce to a much heavier yoke as inevitable. The Keynesian spending is merely getting this inevitable payback over with faster. A drawn out depression will not help matters. This enlistment of labor is long overdue. The Republicans screaming that Democrats' call for temperance was, in the words of Reagan, just so much "doom and gloom" only compressed the pain into the next ten years of hardscrabble survival.

I suppose we all ought to be thankful that this twit isn't a physician, otherwise Mr. Benen's commentary might need to look like this:

he starts with a lack of "medical" understanding, follows it up by misdiagnosing the problem, and then concludes by making a misguided decision based on foolish assumptions.

But then again, I suppose that any form of malpractice that places lives at risk, whether medical or political, is still worthy of the label "terrorist."

Can we just start calling Sanford the Talibanner by his well-earned moniker---Mullah Mark---now?

You are mistaken,if you think the working poor don't work hard now, tooweary. The shit has been running downhill for decades. You sound like a fascist.

governor sanford can send south carolina's share to vermont. we'll accept it.

Of course he's gearing up for a presidential run. Otherwise, maybe he'd have published his explanation for his behavior in The State or the Charleston Post and Courier instead of the Wall Street Journal. You know, newspapers his constituents are more likely to actually pick up out of their driveways this morning.

I'm not sure I agree with the blanket postiion that the current economic problems were not caused by too much debt. And there is no need to be so categorical: even accepting that "too much debt" is part of the problem, it is still easy to show how clueless and wrong Sanford is - and point out broader flaws in the economic thinking of most Republicans.

The "too much debt" that is a part of the economic problem is too much consumer debt. Too big of houses, excess consumption on credit, overpriced Hummers, second mortgages and mortgage lines of credit to buy boats, vacation houses, or just BoTox treatments. The economy was too "hot," based on unsustainable spending in excess of actual resources. That was a bubble that had to eventually burst. That debt is, however, not at all the same thing as government debt - they have nothing in common, really. But this is the same lack of understanding of the difference between microeconomics and macroeconomics that the Republicans show all the time. It is also a continuation of the Republican fallacy that government should be run like a business (because business is the Platonic ideal of an entity, right?)

The other way "too much debt" is relevant also hurts, not helps, Sanford's argument. The massive government deficit makes solving the current economic crisis harder both politically and economically. That doesn't change what needs to be done - it just means it would have been a lot easier, and the "treatment" less painful in the long term, if Obama were working with the Clinton budget surplus instead of Bush's underwater budget, or if we had for stimulus money the billions spent in Iraq or given in tax breaks to the same rich people who drove us into the ditch.

Neither of these arguments about "too much debt" make Sanford look even better, even though both arguments agree that "debt" is part of the problem.

Sanford is exactly right when he says that problem was created by too much debt. Financial institutions had too little capital and too much leverage. Households were clearly over extended.

Sanford is completely wrong when he says more govt debt won't fix the problem. We obviously need a much bigger debt-financed fiscal stimulus to revive the economy. It's a bad choice, but the only one we have.

So Sanford is only half right, and dangerously wrong. But to dismiss his correct statement about how we got into problem shows ignorance and a level of partisanship that I have learned to expect from the other side.

Piggybacking on zeitgeist's excellently argued comment, I think Obama and the Dems are going to have to do a better job of explaining the difference between micro and macro economics to the public, hammering home the distinctions between the debt that helped create this situation and the role of government spending in ameliorating it.

This is a complicated situation and people are quite understandably getting lost. It's way too easy for totally erroneous but easily grasped and familiar explanations like Sanford's to fill the information gap. Obama is, commendably, starting to use his supporter network for a sort of policy canvassing, but I haven't seen enough evidence yet that his people are properly arming supporters with the right information tools. The MSM is naturally not helping, so it's really critical that Obama himself and all his surrogates be on message in media appearances.

Of course he's gearing up for a presidential run. Otherwise, maybe he'd have published his explanation for his behavior in The State or the Charleston Post and Courier instead of the Wall Street Journal. You know, newspapers his constituents are more likely to actually pick up out of their driveways this morning.

Posted by: tess on March 21, 2009 at 11:26 AM | PERMALINK

exactly my first thought. what kind of good Southern governor explains himself in the pages of a newspaper published in (GASP) New York City? to give you an idea, according to the Journal themselves http://www.wsjmediakit.com/newspaper/circulation/eastern the wednesday circulation for the Journal in the entire South (the Carolinas, Alabama and relevant portions of Mississippi, Wast Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee is only 250,000. so you gotta figure most of those are in Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte, the relevant financial centers. so you figure there are what, 50k Journals in SC, max, on a Friday? who's your target for this announcement, Governor? the people of South Carolina, or Wall Street?

oh, sorry, I forgot to include Georgia in that region, figure Atlanta gets the lion's share, no?

Household debt is now at 97% GDP. Two years when Americans' debt became 100 percent of GDP -- 1929 and 2007.

Previously, you've told us he was doing this because he wanted to run for president.

Now, you tell us he's doing this because this is what he (dumbly) believes.

Did you get a new ouija board? This is all mind-reading, of course. But do you feel any obligation to stick to your previous inventions?

SB: "And if the crisis were created by too much debt, Sanford's response would be perfectly sensible."
No it wouldn't. Sanford is the Governor of South Carolina. His constituents will have to pay anyway to service the higher debt, through federal taxes he has no control over. Refusing the spending that debt enables today is a zero-sum game: if South Carolinans don't get it, the citizens of other states will.
There is no reading of the situation that does not make Sanford an irresponsible, grandstanding, ideological Yahoo.

Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham probably get most of the WSJs, and a lot of those subscribers are likely libraries. I know the public library where I work (in Georgia) has a subscription (gifted, because we can't afford it otherwise), though when the market started to go downhill this fall, we started to notice that days would pass and the WSJs hadn't been touched--local papers for the surrounding counties (which tend to focus on high school sports and other small town news) get way more use.

"Previously, you've told us he was doing this because he wanted to run for president. Now, you tell us he's doing this because this is what he (dumbly) believes."

The two are not mutually exclusive, idiot.

The average citizens here in MO that I've heard talk about this think just like Sanford does...that too much debt has caused this problem so why should we create more.

Benen could have said "this is the problem... and this is how we deal with it and this is why. Maybe Obama could do the same so there is a quick talking point that debunks Sanford's position that these citizens could remember so they aren't so easily mislead....and maybe even Sanford would get it (because after all, Sanford has access to professionals). Just saying STEVE

I would like to suggest that the governors of states who are rejecting money be required to open the doors of their governor's mansions to the unemployed, poor, etc. (for a place to sleep) and also be required to serve those folks breakfast, lunch and dinner. As I'm sure they wouldn't all fit into those mansions, the governors should be required to find alternative housing arrangements. Maybe then they would get a clue.

Faith-based economic plans like Governor Sanford's are usually financed on the backs of the poor.

Today, the governor [ Sanford ]has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, explaining the rationale for his decision. It's a reasonably detailed, 900-word piece, but this summary sentence gets at the root of Sanford's thinking.

In the end, I just don't believe a problem created by too much debt will be solved by piling on more debt. This doesn't strike me as an unreasonable or extremist position.

Two things:

If the stimulus bill is federal law and he refuses to allow it to be executed, then isn't he violating the law? Isn't that a felony?

Didn't we already have this debate during the presidential campaign? Didn't the public decide they wanted to go with Obama's plans? Why doesn't Sanford support the Democratic result of that campaign, debate and election results?

His analysis is not even close to reality, and it's unsupported by any evidence at all.

Rather than just asserting that Sanford is completely wrong, you need to provide an argument _why_ Sanford is completely wrong. I think too much debt did contribute to the problems our economy is facing, but I could be persuaded such an argument oversimplifies the real problems we are facing.

Republicans have made a cottage industry out of asserting truths that defy rational explanation, and then badgered their critics for questioning those truths. You shouldn't be following their example.

But according to supply side economics debt doesn't matter only growth. And as a Republican Governor in the most Republican state in the country why doesn't he just tax cut his way o prosperity.