Kristi Noem is campaigning like a Democrat.
You’ll recall that on Sunday, I reported on the record-high travel expenses the Attorney General’s office incurred in FY2017. I noted the South Dakota Democratic Party’s suggestion that the increased travel expenses could signal that A.G. Marty Jackley is using taxpayer dollars to support his campaign for governor. Jackley said on KELO Radio this week Oh, no, heavens no!
“Politically to make those suggestions, is just that. It’s political,” Jackley said. “They should have got their facts straight.”
Jackley says the costs are related to their statewide involvement. The cost of vehicles, and the work the South Dakota forensic lab does is attributed to the costs [Tom Savage, “Jackley Criticized for Travel Costs,” KELO Radio, 2018.01.09].
Yesterday Jackley’s primary opponent for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, Congresswoman Kristi Noem, joined in making that political suggestion:
Among those liking Noem’s Jackley-tweak are Rep. John Wiik (R-4/Big Stone City) and former legislator, now SD Right to Life president Fred Deutsch.
For perspective, the average travel budget for Jackley’s office over the last nine full fiscal years has been about $52,700. According to the most recent Congressional budget data available (2017 Q3 report), in the first nine months of 2017, Noem spent about $74,300 on travel. So who’s spending like a Democrat?
(smile) Isn’t it rich of Ms Noem, to throw this out, as she travels around while an elected congresswoman (spending South Dakotans hard earned money) – campaigning for SD governor?
Jackley accuses the mere suggestion as being “political.” By trivializing the accusation in this way, he has refused to answer it. This seems like corruption to me.
For the record, I am not a South Dakota democrat, and I am not running against Jackley. I just grumble about corruption in South Dakota, wishing that the situation would get better over time.
A person who was truly innocent might release travel logs or other documentation to show how, during his campaigning, he was using personal transportation, and taking personal leave, or his personal travel budget (just for him) is consistent with previous years, or some other type of thing that would help to exonerate him from the claim. Instead, Jackley has decided to attack those who have raised questions by accusing those individuals of political motivation. Does that not seem very political of him?
Also he hopes to marginalize the questions themselves in this way. To me this continues to seem corrupt.
Jackley is spending like a Democrat. Noem is behaving like the big-spending Republican she is. Remember, Jackley’s travel budget is for an office with lots of employees. Noem’s travel budget is primarily for Noem herself.
No, she’s not a good steward of public money. She just voted to increase the deficit by over $1 trillion. We can’t afford someone that reckless and irresponsible running South Dakota government.
Rorschach, I am no big fan of Noem. We should all remember that under 8 years of Obama he doubled our national debt.
Congress controls the purse strings, not the Potus. Congress sez yes or no to spending bills and raising taxes to pay for them.
Cutting taxes lowers tax revenues to pay bills so the United States had to borrow more and more to pay the bills.
Having said that, A major recession requires huge influx of monies to jump start the economy. Had not Obama spent that money this country would be in even deeper debt than we are now. At least the economy was coming back and most economic indicators were on the upswing, the DOW hit record highs just before the Russian pawn took over last year.
It’s true Greg that both parties like to spend money on various things. I would argue that Democrats are more responsible because they generally favor paying for spending through tax revenues while Republicans generally favor borrowing to pay for spending. Frequently Republicans argue that their spending will be fully, or mostly, covered by increased economic activity. That has never been borne out, as I can recall. Republicans made some variations of that argument for their most recent tax cut, yet most wold admit that the only reason new deficits are limited to $1 trillion (added to preexisting deficits) under the Republican tax bill is because of the fact tax cuts on the middle class are temporary. If Republicans succeed in making those temporary tax cuts permanent down the road, the deficit grows far more than the $1 trillion forecast for the presently passed bill.
Back to Noem specifically. Jackley should call her out for spending more on travel than his entire staff spends combined. Only through her irresponsible Washington DC viewpoint could she ever send out the above message.
Jackley and Noem should definitely call each other out, every day… but they should wait until after Session is done, so I can keep up with all the bills first, then turn to their tit-for-tat.