Haley Issues 71 Budget Vetoes

Gov. Nikki Haley announced 71 line-item vetoes on the state's budget bills passed by the General Assembly on Tuesday.

The programs Haley opposed stretch from the S.C. Arts Commission to the Lieutenant Governor's Office Caregivers program to Medicaid to DHEC, and range from as little as $1 to $50,739,599.

Haley singled out Proviso 118.17B, which transfers more than $50 million into the General Fund from a non-recurring revenue source, in her veto message to legislators (available online here):

"It is impossible to argue that the budget that has arrived on my desk is truly balanced. The legislative appetite for new spending was so great this year that the General Appropriations Act has resorted to inserting this almost unprecedented line-item into the primary non-recurring revenue proviso. This passage effectively launders $50.7 million of non-recurring funds into Part 1A of the budget, where they have been spent in the General Fund as if those resources were truly sustainable. The reality is that they are not.

"The Office of State Budget has produced an analysis that conservatively projects that the impact of this budget's annualizations[sic] will be $192 million in FY 2014-15. That's $192 million worth of additional promises that this budget is already making against next year's money — even before we know whether or not those revenues will actually materialize.

"It's dangerous, it's irresponsible, and it's wrong."