Sanford, lawmakers face tough choices in 2009

Get ready South Carolina, the budget ax is getting ready to fall once again.

This week, Gov. Mark Sanford will release his plans for balancing the state's bottom line and slashing spending.

It won't be pretty. Already this fiscal year, the state has seen a billion dollars in anticipated revenue - vanish.

What many thought was a good idea a few years back - making sales taxes the leading source of revenue for government in the Palmetto state - suddenly seems like the most lame-brain idea to come out of Columbia in decades. As people across the state tighten their hold on their wallets, the state's coffers have emptied faster than a crime scene.

So far, most of the cuts have come out of health programs as well as the budgets of the state's colleges and public schools.

On Monday, a spokesman for Sanford said the Governor's spending plan is full of hard choices. Sanford already has announced plans for business and income tax breaks paid for mostly by eliminating some economic development incentives and by raising cigarette taxes.

Next week, state lawmakers will return to Columbia to begin the long, drawn-out process of putting a new budget together.

The course they set will have real impact on families across the state. From teachers and tech school students to Medicaid patients and law enforcement officers, the decisions made in Columbia over the next few months will be felt at dinner tables from Anderson to Myrtle Beach.

Of course, the timing could not be worse. As thousands of people are losing their jobs in the private sector, massive cutbacks in state government will only deepen the lines at the unemployment office.

The time is now for real leadership in Columbia. Lawmakers, agency heads and the Governor must work together to put a creative plan in place that will keep the state's financial house in order - without making a miserable situation worse.

It won't be easy.

We'll be watching.

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