To put it mildly, the South Carolina state government faces an unusual problem: what to do about $1.8bn found in a state bank account when no one knows how it got there, how it should be spent or even whether it really exists.
Discussing the problem, the Republican governor, Henry McMaster, made a play for political understatement of the year.
“There’s something wrong somewhere,” McMaster told reporters, adding: “We don’t know why it’s there, what it’s supposed to be used for, how long it’s been there – that’s a problem.”
Last year, the state comptroller resigned after the discovery of a 10-year, $3.5bn accounting error. State lawmakers say the $1.8bn sum could be related to that scandal, the New York Times reported. Or it may not be. No one knows.
Working out the truth is not proving easy, particularly because the new comptroller, Brian Gaines, a Democrat, is fighting with the state treasurer, Curtis Loftis Jr, a Republican, over where the $1.8bn came from and what to do about it.
You slide that money over here and let me trade the market, I can make it disappears.
No seriously, I could lose $1.8bn in a day, I’m really bad at this.
I could easily turn $1b in $460 million.
There’s a joke in racing:
How do you win a small fortune in racing?
You start with a large fortune.
Put it all into NFTs!
maybe they could use it to fund social programs and help their citizens?
Weird way to spell “Squander it on tax breaks and dodgy contracts to cronies in exchange for political support.”
Sounds like a perfect sum for one nice sports stadium for a rich team to play in.
You mean repaint an existing one, build a really shitty temporary one (laundering the money through a company you set up in advance), demolish it when the painting is done, then pocket the remainder?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Moldovan_bank_fraud_scandal
In 2014, $1 billion disappeared from three Moldovan banks: Banca de Economii, Unibank and Banca Socială.
The total loss from the scheme was equivalent to 12% of Moldova’s GDP.
You’re doing it wrong, Moldova. You want the money to magically appear, not magically disappear.
Clearly the money time traveled 10 years into the future into South Carolina’s bank account.
That was mine please may I have it back?
Sure, just tell me your credit card number, expiration date, and the 3 funky numbers on the back
You probably need the name of his first grade teacher and favorite vacation spot
South Carolina House passes state’s $13B budget as Republicans argue what government should do
So that’s more than 13% of the annual state budget. That’s an awful lot of money to have just fallen between the seat cushions somehow, even in relative terms.
