Governor Kristi Noem is finally getting around to spending some of the $1.25 billion South Dakota received from Uncle Sam to respond to pandemic needs. But she still isn’t giving us a firm plan, and she’s still trying to keep some for her own budget whims:
The Republican governor said she will be putting the funds toward health care, small businesses, education and local governments, while holding some back in the hope she gets the go-ahead from the federal government to use it to make up for revenue loss. Vice President Mike Pence told governors on a call Tuesday that sharing the money with city and county governments is a “great priority of the administration.”
Noem did not go into many details on her spending plan, saying she would release more soon. She said two weeks ago she planned to allow local governments to tap into the funds but has held onto the $1.25 billion while she lobbied the White House to allow her to use it to fill gaps in the state budget.
“We’d like to deploy some of those funds as soon as possible because we know that counties and cities are incurring costs,” she told reporters on Tuesday [Stephen Groves, “Noem Previews Plan to Spend $1.25 Billion Coronavirus Relief,” AP, 2020.05.26].
Noem continues to miss a crucial point. The sooner she spends that federal aid, the sooner she can mitigate both coronavirus itself and the economic impacts that threaten to drag down state revenues. Hire a few thousand temperature-takers and contact-tracers, contain covid-19 even faster, get people back to work sooner and more safely, and you won’t need to misappropriate as much if any federal coronavirus cash to cover your budget.
Kristi has said from the beginning that at least 200,000 South Dakotans will get the virus, and she’s going to make sure that happens. Until then, why spend money?
i have a question, whose bank is this money being stored & who picks up the interest ?
Has congress been notified that South Dakota is in non compliance with the funding rules? Also, as Mr. kammerer asks, where is the money located? What republican banking interest is holding the $1.25 BILLION in taxpayer money? What is the vig, the juice, on the money stored? A feller can talk like that because we are dealing with the mob here, so interest needs to be called what it is to this bunch.
Can’t trust anyone in the GOP with $. They’re fiscal fools.
Better spend some of it….
Last updated: May 27, 2020, 23:52 GMT
United States
Coronavirus Cases:
1,745,663
Deaths:
102,095
All of Queen NOem’s noise is a ruse. Health insurance is gonna go up 400 per cent they say. Also, those 2 million folks are gonna have a pre existing condition that will deny them the health insurance that will probably be out there once the supreme republican court kills the ACA. Unemployment at 30% and no health insurance. Better vote Blue, even here, these clowns are selling us out.
Pennington County will triple Covid19 in the next two weeks. It’s gonna be bad across South Dakota folks, real bad. We need to hire workers to test test test. Queen NOem has the money for the resources to do just that, why does she want to kill us.
“Experts at Monument Health have determined that COVID-19 cases will surpass more than 775 cases in the next two weeks, and the area will see its peak infection rate change from early July to late June.
“COVID-19 is real and projected to grow rapidly in our region over the coming weeks,” said Dan Daly, spokesman for Monument Health.
Cases West River reached 273 total COVID-19 cases and 179 of those are active cases, according to the latest data from the state health department. The bulk of the cases are in Pennington County, with 172 total cases, 3 deaths and 134 active cases.” Rapid City Journal 5.27.20
The GOP is sharing a superbly effective method for keeping COVID-19 numbers down nationwide. They don’t report them all. They lie about how many cases they have. It’s very effective. Undoubtedly Kruel Kristi will play along to keep Daddy Donny Dum$hit happy.
Thx for the updated info jerry. Yikes. Seth Tupper hits home runs.
Rachel Maddow is really ticked off that cavalier GOP keeps killing people with no accountability. Excellent reporting.
Rounds’s NY Post (China lied) and Newrepublic cites in the TV ad are odd. The Post is a rag and the Indian publication is criticized for its biased misleading reporting I think.
Trump is looking worse by the day for election.