Joel Sawyer Spending Quotations

We don't believe the House plan represents a true spending limit. This budget is completely at odds with what the House indicated we could expect.

You can have one budget that grows government at 10 percent or break the budget into three different bills, but the bottom line is this does not seem to be in keeping with the notion of a true spending limit.

Whether you have one bill that grows government at 10.9 percent or try to spread the spending over three different bills, this is still not consistent with the House's previous statement on the need for a true spending cap. We don't understand why some in the House now appear to not be willing to live within the cap they've already passed on themselves.

The fact that the House is now talking about spending caps is certainly a step forward compared with what they were talking about last week. But the real question for us is always where does the money above and beyond the cap go?

Our state is spending more than it ever has before on higher education. At the same time, tuition is continuing to increase by double digits year after year.

At the same time, taxpayers should be outraged that the Senate is spending almost a billion dollars more than what was being spent last year - and not a dime of new money is going to be returned to the hardworking people of this state.

This is about whether the House is going to pass a budget this year that limits state spending and shows sympathy for the hardworking taxpayers of our state.

When Dan Cooper puts together a budget that shatters state spending records, I can understand why he's sensitive about someone looking over his shoulder. But Gov. Sanford's job is to look out for the hard-working taxpayers of this state, and that's always going to be his top priority.