Columbia, S.C. ? At a time when other states are clamoring for cash, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is saying no thanks.

The newly minted head of the Republican Governors Association is carving out an identity as the anti-bailout governor, speaking against calls for more money from Washington for new state public works spending, lifesaving dollars for the auto industry and even stimulus checks.

At a time when the nation sinks deeper into a recession, state budgets everywhere are growing greater holes and unemployment rates are soaring, Sanford knows he doesn’t have many people rallying around him. But he doesn’t care.

“I find myself in a lonely position,” he said in an op-ed column in The Wall Street Journal last month. “While many states and local governments are lining up for a bailout from Congress, I went to Washington recently to oppose such bailouts. I may be the only governor to do so.”

Fiscal restraint

Sanford, a trim, 48-year-old former real estate investor who requires his sons to memorize a family constitution, clashes often with the Republicans who control both chambers of his state Legislature, once famously carrying two piglets to the door of the House chamber in opposition to what he said was pork-barrel spending. He fought lawmakers’ spending increase proposals long before the housing crisis hit, warning of a looming recession.

He’s loudly decried the $700 billion bailout of the financial services industry and the proposed bailout of the auto industry. He spoke against a proposed $150 billion economic stimulus proposal this fall and against one by fellow governors to provide billions for state infrastructure projects. His rationale has been consistent: More debt is not the answer, and the nation is already sinking in it.

“(W)e must be wary of the moral hazard present in the idea of bailing out the private or public sector,” he wrote to President-elect Barack Obama during a meeting of the nation’s governors earlier this month.

Bailouts ‘frightening’

Sanford said Wednesday that bailouts sap people of their initiative, “which is the ultimate economic stimulus.”

“If it turns out that no matter what you spend as a state or what you spend as a business or a municipality, it doesn’t matter, we’ll bail you out, then why should anyone at a personal or business level be circumspect?” he told The Associated Press. “It’s a total gut check of where we are as a civilization. It’s frightening what the federal government is doing.”

It’s not that South Carolina is doing better than most states. The state’s unemployment rate hit 8 percent in October, a 25-yearhigh and the fourth-highest in the nation. Economists project it will worsen substantially next year. Currently, South Carolina is paying out more than $14 million a week in benefits.

But Sanford is even balking, at least for now, at asking for a federal loan for his state’s unemployment benefits, which otherwise will run out of money at the end of the year.

While the dispute is the latest chapter of a long-running fight with the state’s unemployment department — Sanford doesn’t believe its statistics on unemployment are accurate and wants another financial audit of the agency — the standoff threatens to halt weekly payments of up to $326 for about 77,000 people.

State taps line of credit

South Carolina did tap a $15 million line of credit from the federal government, but the governor has yet to ask for the $147 million needed to get the state through the end of March. Michigan and Indiana already have borrowed federal money, the U.S. Labor Department said, and the National Association for State Workforce Agencies expects 30 states will see their benefit funds evaporate in the next 12 months because of the high numbers of people seeking help.

Federal Labor Department spokespeople said it would be unprecedented for a state to fail to arrange for money to pay the benefits. The state has no emergency funding mechanism for the benefits.