Can't Is Not an Option, by Gov. Nikki Haley: on Budget & Economy
Barack Obama:
OpEd: Each bailout revealed more of Washington's inside game
TARP opened the floodgates for a wave of unaccountable spending that flowed out of Washington. Soon afterward, President Obama bailed out the auto industry to rescue big labor. His allies in Congress passed the
$787 billion stimulus bill, most of them without having read it. And he forced through a trillion-dollar health care takeover. With each bailout, more and more of us felt we were getting further and further from what
America was meant to be: a free and striving people with a limited and accountable government. Instead, Washington was revealing itself to be an inside game, with the rules fixed to benefit the establishment.
The rules favor the well connected, while the rest of us in flyover country pay the bills.
Source: Can't Is Not an Option, by Gov. Nikki Haley, p.115
Apr 3, 2012
Gresham Barrett:
OpEd: Lost election due to vote for TARP bailout
Even though no one was running television ads yet, my opponents were already spending freely on the race. Gresham Barrett ran through $1 million before he put his first ad up on the air. We'd barely spent anything--we didn't have much to spend,
and what we did have we were saving for our TV ads. But we began to notice something that confirmed our view of the mood among the voters. Despite all their spending, none of the other candidates' poll numbers were moving much.
We all knew this meant opportunity. South Carolina was looking for something new.
Congressman Barrett was well known in his district but was still an unknown quantity statewide.
He was well funded and was spending more than anyone else in the race. But he had vulnerability--a big one for South Carolina in 2010. He had voted for the TARP bailout as a member of Congress in 2008.
Source: Can't Is Not an Option, by Gov. Nikki Haley, p.121
Apr 3, 2012
Mark Sanford:
2004: Vetoed 106 pork projects; overridden on 105
At the time I entered the legislature, Governor Mark Sanford was leading something of a revolution in South Carolina. For generations, a good old boy system had run Columbia. It wasn't so much Democrat-versus-Republicans politics in the legislature as
it was go-along-to-get-along politics. Legislators supported other members' pork projects, secure in the knowledge that their colleagues would return the favor when it was their turn at the trough. The result was that first Democrats and later
Republicans created and nurtured a bloated, inefficient state government.Governor Sanford attacked the good old boy system head on. He consistently vetoed legislators' overspending and pork projects, and they hated him for it.
He would send down budget vetoes and the GOP-led legislature would summarily override them. The year before I came to the house, in 2004, Governor Sanford issued 106 budget vetoes. The legislature took just 90 minutes to override 105 of them.
Source: Can't Is Not an Option, by Gov. Nikki Haley, p. 61
Apr 3, 2012
Mark Sanford:
2009: Reject stimulus funds; reject Washington bailouts
I supported Governor Sanford in his fight for South Carolina to reject the stimulus funds because I believed the bill took our state--and our country--in exactly the wrong direction. It mandated more spending instead of less and encouraged us to avoid
the difficult but necessary tasks of prioritizing the way we used tax-payers' money and reigning in government.In the spring of 2009, Governor Sanford had waged a fierce (and ultimately unsuccessful) battle against the spending, even against its
funding for South Carolina. His principled, fiscally conservative stand didn't sit too well with the national media or the South Carolina establishment, but it made him a hero to many
South Carolinians and others across the country. Not only did he fight the stimulus, but he also fought the Washington bailouts, whether they were of the banks or the auto companies.
Source: Can't Is Not an Option, by Gov. Nikki Haley, p. 73&79
Apr 3, 2012
Nikki Haley:
Trained as bookkeeper for family business at age 12
My mom opened a gift shop of treasures imported from all over the world that took off. One day my mother's bookkeeper, Miss Joyce McMillian, announced that she had taken another job. My mom grabbed my arm. She stood me in front of the bookkeeper and
said, "I want you to train her."Miss Joyce laughed. "Her? Raj, you can't be serious. She's 12!"
"If you teach her, she can do it," my mom replied.
So Miss Joyce trained me. Mom would do the bankbooks, and I did the taxes and everything else.
Mom paid me, of course, but she kept every other paycheck because I was earning my "keep". I was writing checks for the business and keeping the general ledger when I was 13 years old. I told my friends
I worked in the store after school, but we never discussed exactly what I did. It wasn't until I went to Clemson and studied accounting that I realized that all 12 & 13 year olds aren't versed in the business tax code.
Source: Can't Is Not an Option, by Gov. Nikki Haley, p. 22-23
Apr 3, 2012
Nikki Haley:
2009: Reject stimulus funds because it creates new costs
I fought against President Obama's stimulus bill, Washington's desperate attempt to boost the stagnant economy. The money promised to the states in the bill came with strings attached--long, strong strings. In the area of unemployment insurance, for
example, the stimulus mandated that states change their programs to broaden eligibility--and create new costs--as a condition of receiving the money. But what would happen when the money ran out? I supported Governor Sanford in his fight for South
Carolina to reject the stimulus funds because I believed the bill took our state--and our country--in exactly the wrong direction. It mandated more spending instead of less and encouraged us to avoid the difficult but necessary tasks of prioritizing the
way we used tax-payers' money and reigning in government. I supported Governor Sanford in his fight for South Carolina to reject the stimulus funds because I believed the bill took our state--and our country--in exactly the wrong direction.
Source: Can't Is Not an Option, by Gov. Nikki Haley, p. 72-73
Apr 3, 2012
Nikki Haley:
S.C. budget was perfect example of unaccountable government
I'm an accountant. Numbers tell me stories. So I would reel off what the history of the numbers in the South Carolina budget told me. It was the perfect example of unaccountable government. In 2005, the S.C. budget was $4 billion. The next year it was
$5 billion. By 2007, it was $6 billion. We had grown government by a billion dollars a year, but no one could really say where it had gone. The people couldn't feel it, and because votes weren't on the record, no one knew who was responsible. And these
were our fellow Republicans running up this spending! The reason, I told everyone who would listen, was simple but fundamental: Our politicians had lost sight of what the role of government should be. Government was intended to secure the rights and
freedoms of the people--period. It was never intended to be all things to all people. If the people whose money is being spent--the taxpayers--controlled government rather that the other way around, government would live within its means.
Source: Can't Is Not an Option, by Gov. Nikki Haley, p.111
Apr 3, 2012
Nikki Haley:
Stimulus funds come with too many strings attached
In the debate, I came back to the theme that Washington DC wasn't the answer to South Carolina's problems.Everyone on stage claimed to be against the stimulus, but they had all agreed that, once it passed,
South Carolina should go ahead and take the money. I was the only one who had argued, along with Governor Sanford, that we shouldn't accept it. There were too many strings attached, I had said.
South Carolina needed a different approach from bailouts that were hurting private-sector job growth, weakening the dollar, and increasing the debt for our children.
I knew that the politically correct answer was to take the money and run. one politician's pork is another politician's desperately needed "investment," right?
Source: Can't Is Not an Option, by Gov. Nikki Haley, p.124-125
Apr 3, 2012
Nikki Haley:
It's the people's money; government has no prior claim
In my inaugural address I quoted former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher: "Once we concede that public spending and taxation are [more] than a necessary evil, we have lost sight of the core values of freedom."
It wasn't Mrs. Thatcher's most poetic quote, but I liked it because it expressed so well what I wanted for South Carolina. I wanted the people to be awakened to a new role for their government.
I wanted them to understand that their money is theirs--government has no prior claim to it. I wanted them to understand that their freedom is theirs, that it's not the gift of their government but of their creator.
I spoke of vision for South Carolina that draws its energy and inspiration not from the statehouse that stood behind me but from the people who stood before me.
Source: Can't Is Not an Option, by Gov. Nikki Haley, p.201-202
Apr 3, 2012
Nikki Haley:
No debt-ceiling increase without spending cuts & caps
Holding government accountable and breaking the spend-and-borrow cycle is why I worked with Texas governor Rick Perry to recruit other governors to support the "cut, cap and balance" plan in the debt-ceiling negotiations last summer. Governor Perry and
I wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post in which we opposed an increase in the debt ceiling unless 3 commonsense things happened: First, we needed to have substantial cuts in spending. Otherwise, what was the point? Second, we needed to have enforceable
spending caps to prevent Congress from spending extra revenues instead of using them to pay down the debt or returning them to the taxpayers. And third, we wanted to see congressional passage of a balanced-budget amendment to the US Constitution.
The federal government should be forced to do what most of the 50 states already have to do.We didn't get "cut, cap and balance." So what DID we get? A whole lot of talk, some good intentions, but no resolution to our debt crisis.
Source: Can't Is Not an Option, by Gov. Nikki Haley, p.231
Apr 3, 2012
Rick Perry:
No debt-ceiling increase without spending cuts & caps
Holding government accountable and breaking the spend-and-borrow cycle is why I worked with Texas governor Rick Perry to recruit other governors to support the "cut, cap and balance" plan in the debt-ceiling negotiations last summer. Governor Perry and
I wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post in which we opposed an increase in the debt ceiling unless 3 commonsense things happened: First, we needed to have substantial cuts in spending. Otherwise, what was the point? Second, we needed to have enforceable
spending caps to prevent Congress from spending extra revenues instead of using them to pay down the debt or returning them to the taxpayers. And third, we wanted to see congressional passage of a balanced-budget amendment to the US Constitution.
The federal government should be forced to do what most of the 50 states already have to do.We didn't get "cut, cap and balance." So what DID we get? A whole lot of talk, some good intentions, but no resolution to our debt crisis.
Source: Can't Is Not an Option, by Gov. Nikki Haley, p.231
Apr 3, 2012
Page last updated: Feb 19, 2019