Governor Kristi Noem continues to flog her talking point that “South Dakota has the strongest economy in America,” even though she has yet to point to any quantitative measure that proves that point. South Dakota’s per-capita budget surplus is smaller and its per-capita reliance on federal coronavirus aid is larger than some neighboring states’. On Thursday. Noem tweeted South Dakota’s unemployment rate of 2.7% as evidence that “Our state’s economy continues to be the best in the nation,” but New Hampshire ties us for unemployment, and five states have lower jobless rates.
Even the Governor’s own Bureau of Finance and Management recognizes that South Dakota does not have the strongest economy in America. According to the BFM’s Supplemental Slides to the FY2023 Budget Address (not the colorful, kid-in-a-candy-store slides the Governor presented on December 7 to justify her federally fueled spending binge, but the real spreadsheets with detailed numbers, the kind real Governor Dennis “Grandpa Cheap” Daugaard focused on when he did budgets), South Dakota’s economic performance is below average this year and will be below average next year:
BFM expects South Dakota’s GDP to grow 1.1 percentage points less than the national economy this year and 2.0 percentage points below the national economy’s rate in 2022.
So South Dakota isn’t just lagging behind sixteen states and D.C. on per-capita GDP. In the Governor’s own budget assumptions, South Dakota is underperforming the national average for economic growth and will continue to underperform next year. Noem’s own budgeters are telling us we don’t have the strongest economy in America.
Alternative facts are the pathway to alternative realities.
Doesn’t have to be true to be a GQP talking point. Just has to look good on a bumper sticker.
US GDP in 20230 was -3,5% which included 4th quarter growth from Holiday sales and a change in leadership via election.
Well, there’s the bullcrap politicians put out, economic forecasts and reality. Let’s not confuse the three.
When lying it becomes vitally important for the Governor to use all her powers to repress dissent because the truth is the strongest enemy of the lie.
By extrapolation, the truth is thus the greatest enemy of the State of South Dakota.
It’s sad that if South Dakota residents want truthful, resourced information, they have to use the internet to visit Dakota Free Press, South Dakota Standard and South Dakota News Watch. There are some enterprising, hard working reporters left with SDPB, KELO and the Rapid City Journal, but that circle is shrinking and replaced by scribes without sufficient proofing and editors. This leaves the masses largely uninformed and disengaged from their state and local governments.
Noem is a slouch. Wasteful. Narcissistic. Unfocused. Disinterested in governing because that involves a four-lettered word, W-O-R-K.
If the state of the SDDP were not so awful, an election that may see John Thune retiring, two-faced, Trump coward Dusty Johnson in a primary, and the ever-stellar Noem and killer Jason Ravnsborg on the ballot (25 cents says he’ll survive attempts to impeach him and Jackley will bounce), 2022 could be a big year for picking up seats in South Dakota.
Come on, Kalifornia will always bail you out.
Well…look at our demographics. We are an elderly, low to moderate income state. Much of our consumer economy is based on Social Security payments.
Count the Natives in the employment data and the 2.7% goes right out the window. Face it, we are a failed state with failed leadership. Great work Cory in pointing her falsehoods out.
Jerry makes a good point that, however strong South Dakota’s economy may be, that strength doe not produce benefits equally for all communities. The trust experts and Kristi’s lawyers may be enjoying boom times, but Indians and working folks looking for affordable child care and workplaces that don’t jeopardize their health probably aren’t feeling that swell.
The Indian culture is really the only valid culture in your state.
– The white culture has a foundation of theft, deception, and lies.
– The majority of Russian immigrant’s descendants haven’t moved past the “human outcast” baggage they carried from the Volga River basin, across the Atlantic to some of the most inhospitable climate in America.
– As with all minority immigrant groups, their first group action was to find another outcast group and formerly declare themselves to be above Indians on the greased totem pole of acclimation and worthy of white acceptance.
– Standing upon the necks of Indians was their perceived ticket to “fitting in”.
Noem’s plan was 600,000 to be infected by Covid. Omicron will get us there faster.
That’s her plan? 170K infected , 430K to go.
Why has not Democratic Party or Libertarian Party challenged that Plan.
No ideas. No opposition to Noem.
“Theft, deception, and lies”—that’s the subtitle for Noem’s budget.
ABC, we could sue some vocal opposition candidates to drive home the message of Noem’s budget hypocrisy and her pandemic recklessness. Our economy would be stronger if South Dakota took pandemic precautions seriously and worked to get us out from under the economic burden of continuing coronavirus infections, hospitalizations, and death.