Spending a ton of taxpayer dollars to get a half ton of taxpayers dollars

Published: November 26, 2007, 3:34 pm

Tags: around the state, u s congress

This has got to be one of the most absurd South Carolina stories I’ve read in a long time. And that’s saying a lot, because stories about this state are ALWAYS absurd. According to the Charlotte Observer, “dozens of taxpayer-funded local governments, agencies and other public entities around the state have spent $3.5 million over the past 18 months on Washington lobbyists.” And what do they get in return? About the same amount of money as — or sometimes even less than– they spent on the lobbyists in the first place. High five bureaucrats! Nationwide, cities, states and other public agencies are on track to spend $68 million on D.C. lobbyists in 2007, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington think tank. That would double the total spent on lobbying in 2000.S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford, a fiscal hawk who tried in vain this year to block hundreds of spending projects in the state budget, recently terminated a long-standing contract

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