Hey! Governor Kristi Noem vetoed another bill… and it’s not the hemp bill! (At tonight’s count, that one, House Bill 1008, is still sitting ominously on the Governor’s desk, along with fifteen other bills.) Governor Noem has stamped VETO on Senate Bill 75, which would have raised the cost of hunting and fishing $10 for South Dakotans and $25 for visitors.
But alas! The Governor makes no grand stand for her conservative base in declaring a fatwa on new taxes in the time of coronavirus. She’s not resisting the call to make a basic subsistence activity cost more for unemployed South Dakotans who can’t afford the protein slabs the meatpackers are gouging us on at the grocery store.
No, no, she’s just issuing a boring old style-and-form veto. It turns out legislators got one digit wrong:
Senate Bill 75 requires a person over age 18 to purchase a habitat stamp when purchasing a hunting or fishing license. During the legislative process, an amendment was added by the House Agriculture and Natural Resources committee that, in part, was intended to exempt disabled resident hunters and resident hunters held as prisoners of war from purchasing the habitat stamp. To carry this out, however, the Enrolled Bill errors [sic] in cross-referencing the combination license statute at “§ 41-6-10.1” instead of the disabled and POW hunter statute at “§ 41-6-10.2” [Gov. Kristi Noem, veto letter to SB 75, 2020.03.23].
Governor Noem says she is “not opposed” to this tax increase and hopes it becomes law.
Solution for South Dakota’s problems. What do you know? Something as simple as helping people with their basic needs.
“In its “phase two” bill, Congress temporarily increased the share of Medicaid costs borne by the federal government — but not by nearly as much as is needed, and not even by as much as it did in response to the Great Recession. Which is a shame, given that Medicaid is such a useful vehicle for distributing federal funds to states even when there isn’t a public health emergency.
“The fastest, most efficient way to get money out to the states is through Medicaid, because there’s a whole mechanism already that allows for that all in place,” said Scott Pattison, former executive director of both the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers.” Washington Post 3.26.20
Nope, too obvious of a solution. Why take care of our state budget and still provide services when it’s much easier to just pull the legs off a grasshopper and watch it struggle. Great sense of humor and solidarity these republicans have.