Understanding Kristi Noem’s priorities requires looking at just two bills, House Bill 1282 and House Bill 1279.
HB 1282 proposes the $5 million our Governor wants so she can fly around the country to her political events on a comfier plane.
HB 1279 proposes the $900,000 our Governor wants so her flunkies can develop the South Dakota-flavored K-12 history and civics curriculum she says our riotous children and failing teachers so desperately need.
In pure dollar terms, Kristi’s airborne comfort is worth 5.6 times more than the yearly democratic education of thousands of tender youths.
In pure value terms, neither project is worth the proposed appropriations, which could be better spent on hiring contact tracers, vaccine deliverers, and educators to get us through the ongoing pandemic.
Both bills await hearing before House Appropriations, whose members we can hope are busy figuring out the big picture of the real budget and what they’ll do to sustain the general welfare before they dig down to Noem’s self-serving window-dressing expenditures.
Related Money Where Our Mouth Is: In the midst of a pandemic that has demonstrated the importance of building robust online education, House Bill 1283 proposes $200,000, the cost of the tail fins of Kristi’s new plane, to update the South Dakota virtual school website, registration, and reporting system.
I’m progressive, but I am also fiscally conservative. I can see a plane being necessary for some GF&P, DENR, Ag Department work. I can see flying Assistant AGs, crime lab folks around for important cases. And an occasional trip by a Governor to an in-state or rare out-of-state conference, hearing or meeting is not a sin, but what Kristi does is way, way out my sense of what fiscal conservatism means. She spends money like a drunken sailor, based on nothing but her sense of entitlement. Evita Peron, though a spendthrift, at least had the sense to make sure the underclass was cared for. It seems Kristi’s main concern is flying herself around on the taxpayers dime to hobnob with the elite, who are happy to grease her palms after she performs some sort of political fellatio. I don’t think you need a new state plane, but if you do, maybe downsizing it and regulating its use by the Governor would be in order. Maybe others have a more liberal definition of what it means to be fiscally conservative. I’d like to hear it. How do commonsense conservatives justify Kristi’s spending priorities?
Until there is more transparency in her travel a new airplanes NOT justified. With Kristy it is all about and her future goals. Another Ted Cruz. Sneaking around, worshiping a lying, cheating and very dishonest trump. SD is just step for her.
Let’s look at the SDSU president’s plane usage. He’s got far more air miles on the taxpayer’s dime than Kristi and he gets paid far more. But you won’t address that, right?
The purpose of an efficient state airplane/pilots is to save valuable exec/professional time. Her ego exceeds any talent. Such politicians need to be “checked”. She’ll burn up the forest, risk lives and pollute the water in a second. She hides entourage expense. One Donald Trump is too many. Discuss Education, you say?