In South Carolina, a discrepancy on federal spending (LA Times) [View all]

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In South Carolina, a discrepancy on federal spending

Campaigning Republicans draw cheers with their calls for cuts to government programs. But the state benefits from such programs to a greater extent than many others.

By Alana Semuels, Los Angeles Times
January 14, 2012, 7:55 p.m.

Reporting from Beaufort, S.C.— When Rick Santorum stood in front of voters at a yacht club in this small town and pledged to slash government spending, especially entitlement programs, Nancy Garvin knew she had found her candidate.

Garvin, 54, said she was sick of seeing government squander money through agencies that don't do anything, and wants expenditures cut "in half."

"Washington is throwing money away through a lot of wasteful spending," she said, sitting at a picnic table beneath trees draped in graying Spanish moss.

But Garvin, whose husband, a carpenter, has been out of work for four years, depends on the very government she wants to see cut back. She collects disability insurance — it is what she and her husband have survived on as he's looked for work. Her mother is on Social Security. Garvin herself used to work as a nurse at a hospital where many patients paid for services through Medicaid, another program using federal money.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-south-carolina-federal-spending-20120114,0,698798.story