Lee Strubinger reports that South Dakota “is sitting on $1.25 billion in federal relief money.” Governor Kristi Noem is claiming that the feds won’t let her spend the money the way she wants… which apparently is to backfill her shoddy state budget the way she wants without Legislative oversight.
$1.25 billion to help people weather coronavirus, and we’re just sitting on it? Holy cow! Bill Janklow would have spent three quarters of that already and been on the horn to Washington demanding more!
What are we waiting for? I’m looking at the guidance from Treasury, and it appears Governor Noem could spend that money right now on major coronavirus priorities that would provide immediate help to South Dakotans:
- Reassign staff, hire new workers, and pay overtime to clear whatever backlog exists in unemployment claims.
- Hire new staff to do more outreach and identify and help more workers in need of benefits due to the coronavirus recession.
- Spend $100 million to hire 100 people in every county to serve as public health crews, disinfecting playgrounds and other public facilities, stitching and distributing and other personal protective equipment, installing plexiglass shields to protect receptionists and other workers at public offices, and rendering whatever other concrete aid we can think of to keep the public and public employees healthy.
- Disburse $100 million to the Department of Education right now to support summer-long research and development of online education modules and provide materials and training to local school districts.
- Disburse another $100 million to local school districts to expand local online education services.
- Spend $50 million to acquire and distribute 100,000 mobile wi-fi hotspots with one-year subscriptions to local libraries, needy families, and other useful venues to ensure every South Dakotan has broadband access that allows them to learn and work from wherever they live.
We still have a public health emergency. Let’s use it, and use that money!
Authoritarian rule is fragile rule. Oligarchies create fragile government, fragile economies, and education systems. Noem and the incurious, subservient legislature are an emerging case study.
Nassim Taleb wrote, Antifragile, Things that Gain from Disorder. Consider, https://fs.blog/2014/04/antifragile-a-definition/
“Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better. This property is behind everything that has changed with time: evolution, culture, ideas, revolutions, political systems, technological innovation, cultural and economic success, corporate survival, good recipes (say, chicken soup or steak tartare with a drop of cognac), the rise of cities, cultures, legal systems, equatorial forests, bacterial resistance … even our own existence as a species on this planet. And antifragility determines the boundary between what is living and organic (or complex), say, the human body, and what is inert, say, a physical object like the stapler on your desk.”
Oligarchies created a fragile agriculture-industrial complex. Consider that when “farmers” plant only 1-2 crops, no longer rotate crops, that when meat processing consolidates to enormous sites, etc., they create fragile systems extremely susceptible to internal and external shocks.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/hedge-fund-blames-us-meat-processing-oligopoly-for-excessive-concentration-reduced-competition-anda-decline-in-resilience-2020-05-08?mod=home-page
Authoritarians ignore “sheithole” states.
https://www.newsweek.com/man-pushes-bmw-river-1453835
Dude got a new BMW for 22nd birthday and pushed it into river because he wanted a Jaguar. How far from the river is Noem? Asking for a friend.
And this is why Noem doesn’t think she needs a “Special Session” of the legislature to do a budget – I’m certain she has plans, and she doesn’t want any arguments. Or publicity. Or comments. Or oversight.
John, bravo! Very good link and goes to prove that getting big in the food supply business means a danger to national security. Big beef, Big chicken and Big pork monopoly’s need to be broken for anti-trust issues. Producers would be better served with more outlets for their products.
The nxt big thing. Excess profits tax. Keystone, SD; Sanford; Subsidized reopened meat packing; Amazon, Fox News, ect. The Atlantic, Mike Davis April 1, 2020
She’s just trying to figure out a way to grift it like her hero.
Give the money back Gov and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. that is what my kids done when they got better paying jobs out of state.Amazing you have conservative values ,but your right at the trough waiting for the money.
John’s comment is superb, spot on and accurate. That’s exactly the problem we have and the wealthy and greedy have created it.
Cory’s suggestions for how to spend the $ are excellent steps. Therein lies the problem for Kruel Kristi. She wants steps that please her and her sugar daddy, Dimwitted Doofus.
Suggestions like mine would only come up if the Legislature convened and if the Legislature had a functional bipartisan balance. Even if they convene, there is a strong possibility they’ll rubber-stamp whatever plan their Dear Leader puts forward.
Oh, and please complete all the annual road construction, maintenance, and bridge replacement soonest.
You know that running a criminal organization takes time and focus.
Remember the 120 million dollars from Mikes EB5 fiasco that went missing?
Poor old Mr. Benda covered for that.
You don’t suppose the Noems and the
Arnold clan are needing a little more time to skim a bit of cream first do you?
I wouldn’t put it past them ….