Dr. No, But …

Mark Sanford's bizarre rationale for redirecting South Carolina's stimulus money.

By Christopher Beam
Posted Thursday, March 12, 2009, at 7:22 PM ET

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Republican governors are sure they don't want to spend stimulus money. They just can't agree which parts to reject. Or whether they're allowed to. Or why.

Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina announced this week that he wants to redirect $700 million that would be going toward education and health care and use it to pay down the state's debt. "In our opinion," he said, "that will do more to ensure our long-term economic strength, and to avoid our state's structural budget shortcomings, than would other contemplated uses of the funds."