District 8’s legislators sound notably passive in the face of the dreary budget outlook offered by Governor Dennis Daugaard. Like the Governor, instead of offering vision and leadership, Republican Reps. Leslie Heinemann and Marli Wiese and Senator Jordan Youngberg just shrug at South Dakota’s economic stagnation and hope forces beyond their control will solve our problems:
None of the legislators believes direct action will be taken to increase state revenue.
Youngberg indicated the state’s best hope is continued economic development. Wiese is looking for increases in the amount of sales tax collected.
“We are waiting to see if the courts will force out-of-state companies to start collecting sales taxes as Amazon is voluntarily doing,” Wiese said. “This seems to be a fairness issue when it comes to those outside our state’s borders not collecting it as in-state retailers do.”
Heinemann’s position is similar to Youngberg’s.
“I don’t know if there’s a lot of interest in finding new revenues,” he said. “[The governor] is hoping the economy will grow at a more stellar rate than predicted.”
…Youngberg emphasized the need to remain hopeful.
“We just have to hang tight,” he said [Mary Gales Askren, “Dist. 8 Legislators Affirm Budget Proposal,” Madison Daily Leader, 2017.12.08].
Yes, hang tight—like you do when you’re out in the field and the tractor wheel starts to wobble. You don’t get off and tighten the nuts; you hope the wind and stubble nudge those nuts clockwise and just keep plowing.
Rookie appointee Rep. Wiese also cribs a threadbare talking point that seems not to apply to Governor Daugaard’s last budget:
“I’m pleased with our state’s determination to not use one-time budget reserves for ongoing expenses, then not be available when a true emergency occurs,” Wiese said [Askren, 2017.12.09].
The Governor’s budget slides show $2.98 million in emergency special appropriations included in the potential FY2018 deficit of $33.70 million, but he’s proposing draining the reserve by $7.21 million. We must be using some one-time budget reserves for ongoing expenses:
I propose to transfer $7.2 million from the budget reserve. That will still keep our reserve at 10% but uses the excess – that $7.2 million and that will be used to cover most of our FY2018 shortfall in state aid to education [Governor Dennis Daugaard, transcript of FY2019 budget address, 2017.12.06].
State aid to education—that’s the biggest ongoing item in South Dakota’s budget, and this year, Governor Daugaard says we have to spend reserve dollars to cover it.
Not only can District 8 legislators not propose some fiscal vision to solve revenue stagnation, but Rep. Wiese apparently can’t even read the slides or listen to the speech and see that, son of a gun, we are spending one-time money on ongoing expenses.
Is Rep. Wiese clueless, or is she borrowing a page from Trump’s playbook and trying to propagandize the public into believing an alternate reality?
WWMD? What would Minnesota do? They’d put some “new idea” Democrats in charge, reach out to “Blue Business” with an opportunity to invest in the New South Dakota. One with a viable safety net for when layoffs are necessary. One with a friendly attitude towards newcomers. One with a central government, group joining, we all work together and we’ll all prosper plan.
Wiese may have drifted off during the hard numbers of the speech and tuned back in only on page 20, the concluding page, where Governor Daugaard made this statement carefully crafted statement:
Note that the “ongoing expenses… fully supported by only ongoing revenue” applies only to FY2019. His pronouns then get fuzzy:
“honestly balancing our budget” seems to include the FY2018 deficit-backfilling with one-time money. Yet to maintain strict factuality, it appears that ending “with” phrase can refer only to the FY2019 budget.