Tonight Governor Mark Sanford delivered his seventh annual address to our state and addressed five key areas towards making a better South Carolina for our citizens: more competitive business climate, restructuring government, government transparency, spending limits, and educational choices.
In doing so, he also had several comments that I hope the leaders of our state heard tonight.
“Your obligation is not to me, or to your leadership, or to your political party – it is to the people who sent you here and to the ideas and principles that propelled your candidacy.”
Can we commit to the notion of “yes, we can” on just a couple of things this year key to bettering the lives of so many here in South Carolina?”
“…my hope and prayer is that we will find ways as Republicans and Democrats, as representatives from the Coast, Midlands, and Upstate – as South Carolinians – to come together to better the lives of people in our state.”
“…the state of our state is that we have both enormous challenges and opportunities before us.”
“Our differences are in the past, and from my perspective, bygones are bygones – and all that matters is what we do from this day forward”.
If we, as members of the House and Senate, are going to overcome these challenges our state faces (and I believe we will), we must be the statesmen we were elected to be.
I’ve seen alot in my four short years (and quite a bit this past year) but I believe we must put behind us the long rooted chasms that exist between the House and the Senate – and the Legislative Branch and Executive Branch – if we are to truly have positive impacts on the lives of our citizens.
Can it happen overnight? Probably not. But we can START to make it happen tonight.