Gov. Sanford Issues Statement on BEA Estimates

Statement

Gov. Sanford Issues Statement on BEA Estimates

Governor Mark Sanford issued the following statement on the state Board of Economic Advisors' decision to cut this year's and next year's estimates for state revenue by an additional three percent:

"This is again unfortunate, but not unforeseen given the run up in state spending over the past few years," Gov. Sanford said. "Given today's news, it again makes the case for our plan to cut individual and business income taxes, both in order to be as competitive as possible in today's world, and to stimulate investment and job creation in our state.

"I'd also again lay down the following markers that need to be kept in mind when writing next year's budget. First, we must improve our very costly form of government via restructuring. Second, we need to commit to the idea of not growing government faster than the economy so that we can avoid these situations in the future. Third, we can't borrow from Peter to pay Paul through the process of annualizations because they ultimately make budget holes worse. Fourth, we have to continue prioritizing and taking care of first things first, which I'd commend the legislature for largely doing in the last round of cuts. We continue to believe the cuts that will come our way as a result of these new estimates should be done in a targeted, rather than across the board, fashion."

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