FACING $966 MILLION BUDGET DEFICIT, COOPER DECIDES TO CREATE $124,000 FARM SUBSIDY

In case no one told the South Carolina General Assembly, we’re broke. Flat broke. We’re so broke that we just slashed 14 percent of the state budget and still ended up with a $966 million deficit.

So why, then, did Rep. Dan Cooper (R-Anderson) introduce a bill last week that would essentially use school children as guinea pigs for a new $124,200 farm subsidy program — well, $124,200 for the first year and $99,200 every year after that? And how the hell are we going to pay for it?

“Since we don’t have new money to spend, this was clearly something these folks were trying to pass to pacify people,” one political insider told The Palmetto Scoop. “The idea would be for this program to be funded when we did get the money.”

The bill would create a “farm to school program link” to “provide schools with fresh and minimally-processed farm commodities.” And while that sounds great, nearly 80 percent of the program’s budget ($79,200) goes to paying one administrative salary.

Sadly, it appears that the Barack Obama “sell your children down the river” liberal mindset has now reached South Carolina Republicans. That, of course, is assuming that these folks ever actually were Republicans.

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UPDATE: My apologies to Rep. Jeff Duncan for listing him as introducing and sponsoring this bill. Duncan wrote the financial impact statement, but he did not, in fact, introduce or sponsor this bill.