Godspell and Farewell

Floor Speech

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Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, it had been my intention to do a farewell address on the House floor on Thursday. In fact, I had reserved half an hour of floor time and had intended to not only offer a farewell but to talk one last time about the dangers headed to our economy and country, based on the build-up of our national debt and the economic bubble this has brought about. As it turned out, the day got turned upside down, and so as a consequence, I include in the Record the following.

I would have simply risen to say thank you; as it stands, I write to say thank you.

As a boy, our family would watch the movie ``It's a Wonderful Life'' each Christmas. It was one of our traditions, and it's a telling tale of life's real blessings and the importance of remembering them. It's in that spirit that I recognize how blessed I have been to have been an active participant in federal and state political debates over the last quarter of a century.

It was Teddy Roosevelt who spoke much of the man in the arena, but what's often times forgotten about those who apply his speech to politics is the people who put folks in the arena. And that's where my thanks begin. I ran for Congress for the first time back in 1994 not really having much of a clue on the political process but certainly being concerned, revolted by, and impassioned on the dangers of our federal debt--and what it could do to our economy and our republic. I held flip charts in front of Rotary Club gatherings and walked through rather mind-numbing sets of numbers in explaining the dangers of our debt. I talked about the fall of the Byzantine Empire. I talked about the debt-load in Spain in the sixteen hundreds. I talked about a lot of rather narrow details, and I look back now at those talks and cringe. Those who sat in the back row must have thought to themselves, ``I have no idea what he is talking about, but he sure is passionate about it--and based on that I'll give him the benefit of my vote.''

This was the beginning of 25 years of kindness, generosity, understanding, and more that me, Jenny, and the boys were the recipients of over the years. I don't know how to best express my deep appreciation to the people of the 1st District, and to the people of the State of South Carolina, for the trust they placed in me and the grace they offered me and the family. It's well-known that on same days I exceeded their expectations on duties performed. It is equally well- known that on other days I fell short. But having seen both the highs and the lows of politics, and in falling at both ends of the ``expectation-fulfillment-spectrum,'' I can say with certainty that I have been blessed to serve a most grace-filled lot. For that, I am indeed Jimmy Stewart's character in ``It's a Wonderful Life''--a person only now beginning to recognize the ways in which I have been blessed over the years, and for this, I am most thankful.

In short, public trust represents an awesome and sacred responsibility. It's one that I took most seriously, and regardless of the days when I got it right or wrong, I have earnestly tried to do my best. That meant representing the views, hopes, and dreams of folks at home as I carried their views to both Columbia and Washington. It also meant keeping my word on the things I promised in running, and it is for this reason I think my voting record stands out as it does. On both counts, I will remain forever grateful for the honor of the chance to be in the arena.

Politics is made special not only by the ideas that mark its debates but by the people who give their different vantage points on those ideas and debates. Over these years, I have learned a lot from the many that I talked to . . . whether across the state or on the coast of South Carolina. I don't even know where to begin in thanking people along the journey. Linda Riney over in Berkeley County has always made me laugh with her dry humor. People like Bill and Barbara Bates, Ray Nash, Joan Peters, or Peggy Bangle have been remarkable for the ways in which they have helped me remember that iron sharpens iron. There were another thousand like them who would gently but clearly express their conviction. Their voices helped me to better understand my own thinking on a subject, and I will miss their wisdom. Other friends like Jerry Scheer, Mark Cumins, or Chad Walldorf were never particularly loud about their political views, but they were unbelievably consistent in their friendship. There were also another thousand just like them, and they were vital to my surviving the scrapes and bruises that go with political life. They are friends for life and I look forward to seeing more of them now that I will be able to spend more time at home.

Sustaining this thought of the ways in which no one does anything of significance alone, I also want to single out my family. Political life was never a spectator sport for any of them. I begin first with my former wife, Jenny. The wear and tear of political life certainly took its toll on our marriage, but in fairness, I never could have begun my time in politics without her. Along with being a spectacular mom to our boys and juggling a whole host of other balls that we kept up in the air given our busy life together, she was a great campaign manager. When I first ran for Congress, we ran a phone line into the kitchen to begin the campaign because she was trapped there most of the time with two babies. She put in long hours and made a vital difference in my ability to pursue political life.

And what worked in one campaign applied to the next campaign. And the next one after that. And three more after that. And three more after that. When we moved from congressional campaigns to state-wide gubernatorial campaigns, all the experts said that there was no way you can have your wife managing campaigns of that scale. But we figured ``if it's not broke, don't fix it'' and moved ahead with our most unconventional campaign format. Again, there was wear and tear on the personal front with those many campaign battles, but she did her part and did it ably and I want to circle back to publicly thank her again for all of her time and energy devoted to my time in politics.

The same applies to our sons. They grew up in a very strange way. When I was first elected governor, I remember Jenny and I telling the boys of the details of dad's new work requirements and the move to Columbia. Marshall, our oldest, was curious and couldn't figure out how early he and his brothers would have to get up every morning to be able to make it to school on time in Columbia from Charleston. They grew up so rooted in the Lowcountry that they couldn't imagine moving away. Yet they did that and a whole lot more at a very pivotal point in their lives.

They grew up thinking it was normal to get in the back of a Suburban every weekend and to go off to a different parade, festival, or social event across the state. They would come back each week to live in what Jenny light-heartedly called ``a gated community of one.'' There were certainly privileges that came with living in the governor's mansion, but there was also isolation, given you didn't have neighbourhood kids down the street just dropping by. There were armed guards out front at the end of the driveway. They had to deal with being viewed as the ``governor's sons'' as opposed to simply the great young men that they were as Marshall, Landon, Bolton, and Blake. They grew up standing in receiving lines with mom and dad before thousands; they grew up greeting each new crop of guests to the governor's mansion before they could go up and do their homework.

The list is endless, but the point here is simple. No one gets anywhere alone in their lives. It takes collective effort, and it was as a consequence of not only friends and political allies that got me to where I am in life--but the work of my former wife and my sons on the journey.

Let me quickly mention three last thank you's that are important to me as I close this chapter of life.

One, over the years I have been blessed with an incredible array of talent that came through staff and team positions in the governorship. Let me begin with Marie Dupree. We have worked together for about 30 years. She has been a remarkable help and steady hand over my different offices and professional pursuits. It is funny how time flies by with some people, as over the years, I've watched her and Scott raise children and now come to be called grandparents. But as she did all that goes with life, she also was an incredibly steady hand in helping me organize my life, and for that, I am most grateful.

The same would apply to people like April Derr who has worked with me for about 25 years. She, like Marie, was never political in focus but just cared about politics as a means toward helping other people. They have both done it very well and need to be singled out in this regard.

There is an equally long list of folks who have been with me for chapters of my life in politics, but people with whom I could not have done what I did without their help, care, and focus. Scott English and I argued over policy and ideas for about 20 years. That's a frightening prospect, but we both love policy and would delve into the details of all sorts of ideas. Tom Davis is now a state senator, but we went to college together and he really got his start in politics in a place called Jurassic Park. In my first run for governor, we had a slew of people staying at the house. There was a fraternity-like element to the strangeness of random people coming up into the kitchen in the morning who may have arrived the day before or a month before as they took up residence to help with the campaign. The anchor of that effort was Tom Davis, who slept downstairs in the boys' bedroom that had been converted to a dormitory of sorts. It was filled with bunk beds ladened with the boys' old dinosaur-covered sheets, pillowcases, and comforters . . . and accordingly named ``Jurassic Park.''

Martha Morris was another one of those early volunteers that you never forget. When I began my improbable race to return to the House in 2013, it began with me, Martha, and Jon Kohan. It certainly grew from there, but you never forget the people who were there with you when you are down and who are there to enthusiastically kick off a new enterprise in life, however improbable its outcome. Jon certainly fits this bill as well, and I miss longtime friends like Martha and Jon today.

I better stop with the naming of names because it is a list of hundreds over the years, and my mind is right now jumping back to the great work of people like Catherine Kellahan and Mary Neil Stroud or Jessica Gonzales and Brent Gibadlo. It is crazy how many competent professionals I was blessed to work with over my years in politics.

Speaking of which, I have to mention just two more: Bob Faith and Joe Taylor. The people of South Carolina are the beneficiaries of their remarkable work as successive Secretaries of Commerce. I would argue that they were the two best Secretaries of Commerce in South Carolina history, given the businesses that they helped grow and the others that they brought to our state. This was in the headwind of the largest economic downturn since the Great Depression, and when you look at the numbers behind their efforts, they really do stand out as extraordinary. I know for instance that Boeing, and the thousands of jobs that have come with it, would not be in South Carolina were it not for their collective efforts.

It's also a reminder of how from tiny acorns, mighty oaks grow. It feels like yesterday that Bob walked in to my office with an article he had found in Fortune magazine about the new use of composites in commercial aircraft. It was hardly yesterday and there is much water under the bridge over the years that have followed, but I am most appreciative of all their work.

This is dangerous because each new idea that jumps into my head connects to yet another one. On this subject of cabinet members, I had a great conversation just a few weeks ago with Jim Schweitzer. He had been my Director of Public Safety when I was governor until I had to fire him as a consequence of bad actions by a highway patrol officer. It had been most unpleasant, as there is no way to put a red ribbon on these kinds of actions--but I had felt I really didn't have a choice, given my belief in the military model of holding people at the top of the conmmand structure responsible for actions taken within the unit. The long story short here is that I am thankful to people like Jim as well. He, and others like him, served ably for their chapter of service--and it was so nice to catch up and talk about the days gone by--and even tough moments in them.

The point in all of this is that time is a great healer and brings with it a level of humility in one's actions and attempts at service. We all do as best we can. Some days are glorious, others not . . . but it is the melding of all of them that temper us and give us wisdom as the years roll by. I am most thankful for the different people that God has placed in my life and for the wisdom and perspective that I have gained in our interactions.

Two, I am thankful to my God above. Over the years, I have grown to hold tightly to what's talked about in Romans 8:28. It says that God works not some, but all things, toward a bigger plan. That's a notion that we will all question at different points in our lives, but I am thankful for a God that knows how many hairs there are on my head and whether or not a sparrow falls to the ground. I respect friends who are reticent about the notion of God and faith but couldn't live my life without that belief that things are moving toward a divine end regardless of the daily ups and downs. Accordingly, I should thank not only the people who have been brought in to my life over politics but as well the people who helped raise and define me as a boy. Mom was ever-giving, creative, loved people, and always there; Dad never gave up. His big life lesson was on pushing through the inevitable obstacles that would come in life, and I am most thankful for all they did that helped wire me for the politics I have seen over the last 25 years.

Three, and finally, I ask you to remember the power of ideas--and how they can change the world. We are living in a weird time on this front right now. It's important that we go back to our roots as a reason-based republic. We seem to flirt with populism about every hundred years in this country, and it seems we are in our latest courtship given the era of Trump. But a cult of personality is never what our Founding Fathers intended. We in fact were to be a nation of laws and not men. Over my 25 years, I have come to revere what the Founding Fathers created here--along with the traditions and institutions that they established in support of this simple but sacred idea of being about laws and ideas rather than a nation subject to the whims of men.

It's part of the reason I have come to believe so passionately in limited government. I have seen first hand government's many inefficiencies, and any look at history screams the dangers of walking away from the Founding Fathers' inherent distrust in systems built on men rather than ideas and the institutions built to protect those ideas.

So, along with the many things that I have enumerated above, my simple parting wisdom is that we remember what Benjamin Franklin said as he left the Constitutional Convention--that we had been given a republic, if we could keep it.

This will require vigilance on all of our parts.

It will mean not spending what we don't have. Math always works. Professors Reinhart and Rogoff spoke eloquently to this theme in their book ``This Time Is Different.'' Over the 800 years of financial history that they studied, it never was different. In every instance, the civilization in question found itself confronting the same math that our country now faces, and the politicians inevitably answered ``this time is different'' when talking about the math behind their debt burden. The political answer brought with it the seeds of destruction, and if we simply accept the political answer of more spending--that this administration and past administrations have proffered, we will face the same fate of those now extinct civilizations.

I believe that we are marching our way toward the most predictable financial and economic crisis in the history of our republic. If we don't change course soon, markets will do it for us, and the consequences will be damning with regard to future inflation, the value of the dollar, the worth of our savings, and ultimately our way of life. More than anything, these last 25 years have been about trying in some small way to affect the trajectory of government spending. It has at times been a most lonely battle, but I am thankful that people like Justin Amash will still be here in Congress to carry the flag forward in this eternal battle between government's growth and liberty, between freedom and security, and between the soothing promises of populism and real math.

Hayek warned us of the moment we are now living in America. In his book ``The Road to Serfdom,'' he talks about how open political systems become more and more difficult and cumbersome with the passage of time. This we all know. It's again part of what makes me believe so strongly in conservative philosophy and the importance of limiting government. Part of making government more efficient simply means reducing its size. Open political systems are never designed for efficiency, they are designed to give each one of us a voice--and that process of democracy is hard. It means we all have to roll up our sleeves and give just a little to find the compromises necessary to move things forward.

What's valuable about Hayek's writing is the other half of the story. Because as open political systems become cumbersome and inefficient, inevitably a strong man comes along and offers easy promises. He says that he can take care of it for us. People desperate for a change accept his offer. They have to give up a few freedoms in the equation to get more security. It doesn't work out so well, as Hayek's book in this instance is about the rise of Hitler in post-WWI German history.

I want to be clear and explicit that I am not likening Trump to Hitler, but the forces at play could lead to a future Hitler-like character if we don't watch out. It must be remembered that another thing that Benjamin Franklin said was that he who trades his freedom for security, deserves neither. Indeed, how true.

So my parting wisdom again is this:

As a country, we have to get back to math that works. We are riding on the Titanic as it now stands. This will end tragically for all of us, if we don't turn our spending habits around. Paul Kennedy wrote an interesting book a few years ago titled ``The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,'' and again the dynamics that he talked about were once again simply tied to math.

We can't throw the baby out with the bathwater with regard to institutions and traditions that have served our country well for more than 200 years. If we have no faith in our institutions and the people that populate them, our system breaks down.

We must embrace the truth, and it will set us free. Open political systems cannot survive in a post-truth world. While none of us are perfect, and there will always be grey around some areas of truth, we cannot accept chronic streams of distruth. If everything is subjective, there is nothing to debate. If, on the other hand, there is objective truth, and I can approach it from the right while you approach it from a perspective more to the left, then we can join in debate. Without truth out in the middle, there is no starting point and the reasoned debate that an open political system relies on for its survival is strangled and dissipates.

A corollary to this is that we can't accept the idea of ``fake news.'' I have certainly had more than my share of bad stories of my time in politics. Some of them were indeed not designed to bring forward the truth but were rather attempts discovering the most sensational nugget or line regardless of its context. And context is key to understanding any new bit of information before us. But this does not make all news fake. In the former Soviet Union, they have truly fake news, and attempts to equate what's happening here with what happened there is most dangerous. There is a reason that the Founding Fathers enshrined the idea of a free and open press in the First Amendment. We should watch this carefully as the populist waves of today now come ashore.

Lest I turn what would have been my talk here into a book, I will mercifully call it quits to my thoughts for the day. In doing so, I want to again express my thanks to all who have helped me on this journey and to once again encourage your embrace of free markets, limited government, and the institutional forces so vital to perpetuating this remarkably fragile gift of individual liberty. As you consider my charge, I would ask that you have the courage to walk humbly in advancing the ideas that we might share. Indeed, Micah 6:8 said it best in suggesting that we are to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly. Godspeed in the journey.

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