Last updated on 2017-08-13
Every candidate running for Governor and for South Dakota’s lone House seat should be ready to answer this question: How will you protect South Dakota from Donald Trump?
“Dead on arrival” as the ineducable Trump’s budget may be, his reverse-Robin-Hood budget can still instruct us of the economic damage the Manhattan magnate would do to South Dakota if he were king.
The White House’s “Major Savings and Reforms” budget document says Trump would eliminate funding for the USDA’s Rural Business and Cooperative Service, Rural Water and Waste Disposal Program Account, and Single Family Housing Direct Loans.
Rural Business and Cooperative Services, says the White House, “lack program evaluation” and “have not been able to demonstrate that they meet the broader goals of reducing rural poverty, out-migration, or unemployment.” The White House says its “tax, regulatory, and infrastructure policies are expected” [passive voice—by whom? witch doctors?] “to be more effective at improving rural economies and job growth.
The Trump budget says USDA’s Rural Water and Waste Disposal program can go because it duplicates the EPA’s state revolving funds. Trump thus cuts $498 million from USDA and hopes an agency he’s cutting by 31% can fill the gap.
The Trump budget eliminates USDA’s direct loans to single-family homebuyers because, says the White House, private lenders can float all the loans rural homebuyers need. The White House also says that “rural areas once isolated from easy access to credit have shrunk as broadband internet access and correspondent lending have grown.” Of course, six million rural Americans got broadband thanks to USDA Rural Development programs.
USDA’s Rural Development office in South Dakota offers this report of funding activity in South Dakota over the past several years:
$423 million in federal investment in South Dakota via USDA in 2016, part of $3.12 billion total during the Obama Administration. That’s not even farm subsidies, disaster payments or crop insurance; that’s just Rural Development.
I’ve placed red stars next to the items that appear to be under the Rural Business and Cooperative Service, the Rural Water and Waste Disposal Program Account, and the Single-Family Housing Direct Loans. I invite corrections from readers more knowledgeable about USDA’s Rural Development efforts, but by my count, the Trump budget approach to Rural Development would have meant $87 million less in federal dollars for South Dakota in 2016 and $528 million less over the last eight years.
If we thought that these Rural Development investments were good for South Dakota but Trump took them away, we could try to fund them ourselves. But $87 million a year would wipe out the sales tax dollars we struggled to raise for teacher pay last year. We’d have to come up with a significant new stream of revenue for a budget already groaning against sluggish economic activity, or we’d have to do without. Either way, the Trump budget would deny us a significant chunk of external, federal economic stimulus.
So, Billie Sutton, Kristi Noem, Marty Jackley, and fellow candidates—if the Republican Congress does adopt the Republican President’s anti-rural budget priorities, what will you do to protect South Dakota homebuyers, business owners, and communities from losing tens of millions of dollars in federal rural development funding?
I wonder how much the tax..er toll will be from Sioux Falls to Rapid City? “His (trumps) administration has said it wants states to expand the use of tolling on interstate highways.” I wonder, is this what is meant by tax and spend? Of course the toll booths would be automatic to keep out those pesky government workers, can’t have that.
That looks to me like if South Dakota wants the Interstate infrastructure upgraded, South Dakota will pay for it, what could go wrong there the peanut gallery wonders?
This will have a huge negative effect on rural America whether it be a low population state like South Dakota or greater Minnesota. If they are concerned about medium to small towns dwindling now they will really lose population now. Food deserts have already been a concern but USDA is a great deal with financing affordable housing based on income and assets nice and livable housing stock since there are a number of houses in these smaller towns that are have been not maintained and would require too much work unless it was basically a cash buyer due to limited economic opportunities and low wages. Business loans, grants various projects all thru USDA. People just do not realize just how much USDA does but the majority South Dakotans voted and much of rural America voted for Trump along with a GOP congress so this is what they essentially wanted.
Cory, Thanks for digging out this info. I am still wondering why anybody who wasn’t filthy rich in a rural area ever voted for a billionaire expecting that jerk would do anything but screw rural America. The trickle-down economic mythology has never worked and never will. It certainly won’t work in South Dakota.
Cory, you are so very perfectly on the money with every word of this blog post.
Just exactly what would Donald Trump have to do to loose the rural vote? What would/does it take?
Obama’s Admin was really good to Agriculture and rural development. Trump just takes Republican policies to the extreme, and +80% of conservatives (+30% of total voters) are extreme enough to support it. The GOP ain’t what it used to be.
The president is just asking rural welfare states to practice the rugged self-reliance that they vote for every time they elect a republican. The only difference is that the republicans never really meant it when they said they were going to cut government. States like Minnesota will be fine with Trump’s cuts because they already send more to the federal government than they receive back, and they have a huge budget surplus. States like South Dakota will have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps like Minnesota already has.
Another reason why we need to legalize recreational cannabis in this state. We need a major new revenue source to offset all the federal cuts. It’s about the money!
I’m going to prioritize fighting the Trump/GOP budget cuts and protecting useful federal programs over legalizing recreational cannabis.
Adam, I get the feeling that Trump has moved past his claim that he could “stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody” and not lose voters. He now appears to find it more thrilling to see if he can shoot the budget and mug millions of rural Americans and not lose their votes.
The good news today is that the Trump budget is likely go in the dump where it belongs.
Trump’s agenda has been derailed at every turn.
The only piece of major legislation it has passed is getting congress to repeal and replace Obamacare with every indication it will go nowhere in the senate.
This week will add more headaches for Trump with former FBI director Comey preparing to publicly testify in the senate.
Special Council Mueller is prepared to expand his investigation to include Monafort as well is both the Attorney General and the Assistant Attorney General.
With all of the investigations going on, where will the GOP find the time to complete any part of their hateful agenda?
I would say that the loss of revenue is more of the “chronic wasting disease” that we have seen here In South Dakota in the last 40 years at least. The advent of Fox news availability plus the code talking cult republican, has wasted the voters minds here. In the meantime, the young folks leave as there is nothing for them to do here but hope you can inherit the place and its debt. Billie Sutton will start the process of the cure.
Roger, let’s hope you’re right. I feel like McConnell and Boehner in 2011, thinking obstruction is the only way to save our country from a dangerous President… but the funny thing is, Trump and the Republicans are managing to obstruct themselves, without Democrats controlling any branch of government.
To ensure Trump remains obstructed, Douglas, we need to make sure those Trump voters see more and more information like this portion of Trump’s anti-rural budget. Some Trumpists will cling to Il Duce and their Archie Bunker prejudices to the bitter end, but some can still be convinced by Trump’s own words that he is not a worthy or even functional President.
Ror, that professed self-reliance puts the SDGOP in a real bind. I enjoy tightening the straps.
Speaking of obstructing, today Donald Trump accused Democrats of obstruction in refusing to confirm his ambassadors and other high level confirmations.
The odd thing is that Trump has sent only a few names for ambassadorships to the senate for confirmation and has left other appointees unnamed as of yet.
If Trump wants his political positions filled he has to do the elementary thing by nominating them first.
I don’t understand how Mr. Trump can unleash what they call Tweet Storms in the media and how these affect everybody? If presidents can do this why did not Mr. Obama do so as frequently?
$3 million a trip? $97,000 for jared or his boys to go hunting ect……..
“Trump is not shy about engaging in the same type of jet-setting that he and other Republicans heavily criticized Obama for throughout his presidency.
“The habitual vacationer, @BarackObama, is now in Hawaii. This vacation is costing taxpayers $4 milion +++ while there is 20% unemployment,” Trump wrote on Twitter in December 2011 (when the unemployment rate was actually 8.5 percent).
“President @BarackObama’s vacation is costing taxpayers millions of dollars——Unbelievable!” Trump opined again on Twitter a few days later.
That July, he took aim at the first lady: “With 15% US real unemployment and a 16T debt, @Michelle Obama’s luxurious Aspen vacation – her 16th – cost us over $1M.” (The unemployment rate at the time was actually 8.2 percent.)”
Some one said trump golfs 30 times since inauguration at his resorts. free greens fees for the president. :) fly the beast every week end in the C-5 while melena and guests are in No. 1. cost? we just bought a puppy named melana :) perhaps the republican poster can tell us actual weekend golf cost figures. Wuff? http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-mar-lago-taxpayers-234562
Daugaard’s latest budget is a billion? O discipline which Obama displayedbama was not an idiot like trump who is overwhelmed by the complexity of his new job and ejaculates tweets to relieve stress. may wanna talk to your lawyer first, bucko don, but that would require intelligent
discipline which Obama displayed at every step….
trump is a f**king cowboy in the worst sense and is all the rest of the world has ever thought of the US– bull in a china shop military brut.
sorry to take up room here, this is what I was responding to….
He went golfing. Again. For the 23rd time — or 21 more times than the black guy at the same point in their respective terms. The black guy golfed in the area, costing tax payers no extra $$$. When Trump golfs, it takes an aircraft, a convoy, and an extra 3.3 million tax payer dollars. Trumps voters, who complained CONSTANTLY and whined CONSTANTLY about the black guy golfing, are silent on Trumps golfing. America is funny…but not the ha-ha variety.
Like · Reply · 11 · Jun 4, 2017 10:58am
Terri DeBruler · Works at Self-Employed
try real facts on the cost, not MSM made up ones……
http://www.salon.com/2017/06/04/scott-pruitt-just-got-debunked-by-climate-scientists_partner/