***Palmetto Morning Presented by Jim Dyke & Associates***
THIS FIRST — “House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt on Tuesday criticized a ‘war tax’ proposed by House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey in an unusual public spat between two top Democrats,” McClatchy reports. “Spratt said income taxes shouldn’t be raised to pay for the troop buildup. ‘I don’t think it’s timely to put a surcharge on income given the state of the economy,’ Spratt said. He said the cost of sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan would likely be offset by savings from removing troops and equipment from Iraq. ‘The builddown in Iraq is likely to be a bit faster than the buildup in Afghanistan,’ Spratt said. “Consequently, the savings from the Iraq deployment will offset the increased deployment in Afghanistan.’”
HAPPY BIRTHDAY — Senator Harry Reid is 70 today. He’s joined by Britney Spears, Rick Savage (Do you wanna get rocked?) and Greer’s Jay Haas.
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NATIONAL LENS — “President Barack Obama largely bypassed his usual appeals to American hopes and values Tuesday night in a speech in which he pleaded for resolution and patience for a final, pragmatic push to set Afghanistan on a less threatening path.” Politico writes that “Obama seemed to take for granted that the unpopular, confusing war will never again be a cherished national cause. He argued for a stringent, grudging, and time-limited military commitment to Afghanistan, dropping all discussion of human rights and civilian nation-building. … ‘I make this decision because I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan,’ Obama said in his clearest statement to date of an American foreign policy intensely conscious of its limits. ‘Some call for a more dramatic and open-ended escalation of our war effort – one that would commit us to a nation building project of up to a decade. I reject this course because it sets goals that are beyond what we can achieve at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interests.’”
WEIGHING IN — Senator Graham on CNN discussing the speech.
“OBAMA’S CLOSEST ALLIES hesitated to grant their support,” according to Time. “Returning from the White House, where Obama briefed them on his plan, Rep. Jim Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democrat, called the meeting ‘civil and somber.’” But Clyburn tells CNN “I’m very supportive of it.”
BEDFELLOWS — “In a sign of the odd couplings created by the politics surrounding the Afghan war, President Obama received a ringing endorsement Tuesday from Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) for his proposal to send tens of thousands of additional troops to the battlefield.”
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ON THE IMPEACHMENT FRONT — “A House subcommittee weighing an impeachment resolution against Gov. Mark Sanford on Tuesday zeroed in on his use of a state-owned airplane, including a 2005 flight that included a stop in Spartanburg.” The Spartanburg Herald-Journal reports, “the seven-member subcommittee examined nine flights — all part of the State Ethics Commission’s preliminary report charging Sanford with 37 violations of state ethics laws — during the three-hour hearing.
CRUCIAL — “The subcommittee also voted to add Sanford’s 2008 trip to Argentina to the probe. That trip originally was an economic development excursion to Brazil, but Sanford had the Argentina leg added on.” In fact, Tim Smith of the Greenville News says the trip “may become the pivot on which the governor’s potential impeachment swings.”
GOING THERE — The Wall Street Journal asks “Should the Feds Be Looking at Governor Sanford?”
VIEWPOINT — AGREEING TO DISAGREE — Democrat Chad McGowan responds to yesterday’s defense of Senator DeMint by the Herald-Journal. “Instead of working for the people of South Carolina and America in the Senate, he’s running around the country playing politics, intervening in Republican primaries in places like California, New York and Florida. If that’s your idea of statesmanship, then we can agree to disagree. While Sen. DeMint is playing politics from coast to coast, he gets nothing done for our state or our nation. In the time he has been in the Senate, he hasn’t sponsored one bill that has passed into law. Not one. Is that your idea of a good senator? Is that the record of a statesman? You say I prefer to focus ‘only on the narrow interests’ of South Carolina. If by that you mean working to get a job for the 250,000 South Carolinians who don’t have one, you are right. If you mean working to fix our schools, make our streets and communities safer and make health care more available and affordable, you are right. If you mean working for the people of South Carolina instead of engaging in partisan political fights 3,000 miles away in California, you are right about that, too.”
ON HIS OWN — “McGowan – a Rock Hill trial attorney who national Democrats see as their best hope to unseat conservative Republican Jim DeMint – appears to oppose the bulk of the White House’s economic agenda, including the stimulus package and ‘a government takeover of healthcare,’” writes CNN’s Hamby. “That McGowan might not march in lockstep with other Democrats in Washington isn’t exactly a surprise: He told CNN in October that he was once registered as a Republican and voted for Lindsey Graham in last year’s Senate election. McGowan also called himself ‘a gun person.’”
TRANSITIONS — DeMint makes staff changes as State Director, Luke Byars, heads to the Barrett for Governor campaign. Ellen Weaver is stepping in. Deets here.
SAME TICKET — Governor Sanford “talked restructuring state government during a lunchtime visit Tuesday with the Georgetown Rotary Club.” The Georgetown Times reports, “Sanford said he also wants a change that would allow the governor and the lieutenant governor to run on the same ticket. He said it makes no sense for the two to go in different directions. ‘It’s something that can happen if you make enough noise,’’ he said.”
VIEWPOINT II — Comptroller Richard Eckstrom opens up about the stimulus to The State. “I have been open about my opposition to the stimulus: We’re spending money we don’t have, and we’re burdening future generations with mountains of debt, all under the pretense of economic recovery. Washington used the economic crisis as an excuse to permanently shift resources from the private sector to the public sector, dramatically increasing the size and scope of government at a time we should have been scaling back the cost of government. Furthermore, I’ve been concerned that the stimulus would do little to create jobs, because so much of the spending is on things that have little to do with stimulating the economy. Regardless of one’s opinion on the stimulus, we should all be able to agree that Americans deserve an honest assessment of the stimulus’ impact. Besides, we won’t be the ones repaying this debt – that will fall to our children and grandchildren. We’re ‘eating their seed corn,’ to borrow an old country phrase. It means we’re consuming resources today at the expense of tomorrow. More than anything, we owe it to those future generations to measure, as accurately as possible, the effectiveness of this stimulus spending for which they’ll be paying for decades.”
DRUGS — “Some of South Carolina’s top law enforcement officials are getting together to discuss drug abuse in the state. Department of Public Safety director Mark Keel and Anderson County Sheriff John Skipper are among the officials giving opening remarks at the South Carolina Drugs of Abuse Conference Wednesday in Columbia. … U.S. Attorney Walt Wilkins is scheduled to give a lunch presentations on Wednesday. Attorney General Henry McMaster is addressing the group Thursday.”
GRAFITI — “Republican Bill Connor, a Columbia attorney who is running for lieutenant governor, claims his campaign Web site was defaced by an unidentified Middle Eastern hacker promoting radical Islam.”
DREAM BIG — Seven out of 10 Darlington tenth-graders pass HSAP on first try; Exit Exam scores fall in Pickens, Anderson 1; Greer Schools score above district, state on HSAP
ANDERSON — Unemployment near 30 percent in city of Anderson
STATEWIDE — SC Unemployed Workers Eligible for Partial Health Payments
SUMTER — Army unit at Shaw changes command
STATEWIDE — Scottish Rite speech centers carry on in tough times
UPSTATE — Upstate Census Workers Needed
KABOOM — “A loud noise heard along the South Carolina coast at mid-morning Tuesday likely was a sonic boom from an aircraft flying offshore, officials said.”
FINALLY THIS — Since we were still under the impression that 1600 was tops for the SAT, we were astonished to read about this Riverside senior that got a 2400. Either way – impressive!
THAT’S IT FOR THIS MORNING – STAY TUNED ON TWITTER OR FACEBOOK FOR UPDATES THAT JUST CAN’T WAIT UNTIL TOMORROW. HAVE A GOOD ONE!
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