Is Mark Sanford now the designated GOP maverick?
The conservative South Carolina governor, 48, whose name surfaced before Sarah Palin won the Republican veepstakes, is now the head of the Republican Governors Association. It’s a forum that has him prominently positioning himself as the antibailout governor who’s almost libertarian in his limited-government philosophy.
At a time when the nation’s recession is deepening, unemployment increasing and state budgets plummeting, Sanford says no to help from Washington. No to help in the form of lifelines to the auto industry. In the form of public works projects. In the form of stimulus checks.
His rationale is simple. A nation drowning in debt doesn’t need any more.
“We must be wary of the moral hazard present in the idea of bailing out the private or public sector,” he noted to President-elect Obama earlier this month.
It’s an intriguing, perhaps beguiling, position. Almost no one is in favor of more debt, any more than anyone is in favor of helping those whose cupidity and stupidity brought on their own demise. But the economic ripples are targeting everyone, and the cost of doing nothing — instead of stopping the bleeding — is an invitation to a depression.
Gov. Sanford’s “moral hazard” reference is revealing. He wants to spread the religion of fiscal restraint regardless of context, which includes unprecedented economic upheaval with national security implications. Sanford may disavow government stimulus plans, but it’s likely that his “moral hazard” rhetoric is intended to stimulate something else: his own political agenda in a GOP looking to regroup and searching for its identity.