Transcript
Gov. Mark Sanford: If you look at that notion of competitiveness, what I'm really getting at is, I think that every state out there really needs to think of themselves as a country. Some of you all are probably from Texas, so I guess, you know, it probably comes natural for some of you. But for those of us in South Carolina and those of us in most states, I mean that is not the first thing that comes to mind. So if you look at South Carolina, we're $150 -- $160 billion in GDP, and that puts us a little bit below let's say Finland, it put us a little bit below Ireland, it put us a little bit below Venezuela; it put us a little bit above UAE, Dubai, a lot of stuff going on there, it put us above New Zealand, not a lot of stuff going on there, that's not a good example, it put us above Kuwait, it put us above Slovakia. I mean it put us there as a lonely spot across this pool of six and a half billion people, not competing with Georgia and North Carolina anymore, but literally competing with somebody on the opposite world.
What that means is a complete paradigm shift from the standpoint of being a policy-maker, because if you're still worried about competing with Georgia and Alabama, you're in real trouble. We've got to look at things differently in ordering things, and that's a real problem in, for instance, our political system, because we have a very inward looking political system.
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