"I reckon he's a hypocrite," the Democrat [State Senator Minority Leader John Land] said. "He goes before the Christian right and professes to be one thing and yet his conduct is something else. He goes before the people of the state and talks about his fiscal conservatism. But yet when you see him in action, he's going first class and spending the state taxpayers' money."
That quote sums up the entire Mark Sanford debacle pretty well. Over the last month, we have seen Sanford slowly exposed as a lying hypocrite who cheated on his wife and used taxpayer money to fly lavishly while admonishing other state officials for their spending habits. In all, Sanford spent $37,600 of taxpayer's money for his trips in which he flew first and business class while his staffers flew coach for a fraction of the cost.
Remember when Sanford said that the stimulus was an inefficient use of taxpayer's money? I guess paying for his trips was a better use of it. After all, who doesn't want to pay for their governor to travel abroad in style? For a man who took pride in his frugality and even once bragged about sleeping in a cot to save money, this seems out of character. Par the course for a hypocrite like Mark Sanford.
As for the details of his travels, he hasn't exactly been forthcoming with details regarding his trips to Argentina. His staff is only releasing emails from his state account and in many of these released emails, he directs people to email him at his Comcast account. Hopefully, the state can subpoena the Comcast account as part of their investigation into his spending habits.
All in all, Sanford has only reimbursed the state for $3,300 of his travel expenses. Hopefully the State of South Carolina can get some more of that money back so they can use it to benefit its citizens and not their hypocritical governor.
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