Video: Local Repubs Applaud Noem’s Ho-Hum Budget; Novstrup Promises Better Broadband!

The first citizen question at yesterday’s Aberdeen crackerbarrel came from Julie Johnson… who, you know, as a registered lobbyist this year for the South Dakota Society of Human Resource Managers and the Bicycle Product Suppliers Association, gets paid to go to Pierre and ask legislators questions, so does she really need to jump in front of everyone back home to hog the mic for the first crackerbarrel question?

Anyway, Julie Johnson raced to the mic to throw a softball, asking five Republican legislators what they think of Republican Governor Kristi Noem’s first budget—a “monumental development,” as Johnson called it.

Good grief: there’s nothing monumental about a lazy budget that mostly tweaks the hard work Dennis Daugaard did last month.

But with no Democrats at the mic, we won’t hear anything about what’s missing from the Noem budget. Cue the Republican talking points:

Sorry, I missed Representative Kaleb Weis’s ditto at the end. Really, just six seconds of saying that, in ten minutes, the other four legislators said everything that was worth mentioning in a 343-page document. More like, the other Republicans covered all of the talking points Kristi’s advisors gave us, and I can’t and don’t dare think of anything original to say.

The only news in these responses may be Senator Al Novstrup’s (R-3/Aberdeen) promise that there are some new super-secret broadband policies in the chute and that “a year from now many of you will have Internet access better than you have today.” Let’s watch for that… and just how much socialism Al and pals have to vote for to make that happen here on the dusty plains.

The only thing close to a reminder of the substandard problem-solving you get for picking Kristi Noem instead of Billie Sutton came from Representative Drew Dennert (R-3/Aberdeen), who noted that Representative Steven McCleerey (D-1/Sisseton) has a plan—House Bill 1060—to put eight million more dollars into nursing homes (backed with another $10.8 million of federal money), but Governor Noem can only find five million, which Rep. Dennert says will “definitely go a long long ways in support of the nursing homes” but which, as a good party boy, he can’t bring himself to say won’t go as long a ways as Rep. McCleerey’s better bill.

That’s Governor Noem’s budget, monumental only in the scope of spin Republicans must do to pin a blue ribbon on her pale effort. (What, Kennedy couldn’t write a bolder budget than this?)