Governor Kristi Noem has failed yet again to intervene in what her past public statements would lead us to believe are dangerous socialist measures that will drive inflation in South Dakota.
This time, Governor Noem is letting the South Dakota Aeronautics put up $710,000 in state funds to open the door for $12.1 million in Federal Aviation Administration grants to improve airports across the state:
Jon Becker briefed the commission on each of the 30 projects. He is an aeronautics planning engineer for the state Department of Transportation.
The airports include Aberdeen, Bison, Britton, Brookings, Chamberlain, Custer, DeSmet, Faulkton, Faith, Highmore, Madison, Parkston, Philip, Rosebud, Sisseton, Sturgis, Tea, Wall, Watertown, Wessington Springs and Yankton [Bob Mercer, “State Panel Will Help Fund Projects at 21 SD Airports,” KELO-TV, 2023.05.25].
Basically, you could not fly into, out of, or across South Dakota without Uncle Sam literally paving the way.
Recall that Governor Noem said taking a $3M grant would make inflation worse. Under that pretense, she rejected federal money to study climate-change mitigation. Now Governor Noem is letting the state take seven times that amount from Uncle Sam, thus posing the risk of making inflation seven times worse than that climate-change grant would have. And on top of that, the spending she’s allowing will increase air travel and make climate change worse.
Such are the hypocritical and End-Times-hastening priorities of South Dakota’s Republican leadership.
An elected Republican incompetent dope running a state of 900,000. Theme of the GOP
I’m all in on airports. South Dakota is only about 50 years behind the rest of the nation in transportation policy, including air access to much of the state. 12 million won’t pour much concrete or string many lights in 30 airports. Governor Noem has her head in the sand nearly all the town. What’s more, she’s proud of it.
Should be..Governor Noem has her head in the sand nearly all the time.
I live way in the southwest part of SD so I’m relatively close to Chadron, NE; people in this region who aren’t idiots travel to Dawes County to fly from Boutique Airport to Denver International for a fraction of the cost from Rapid City. At least they did three years ago; haven’t checked lately.
Good for South Dakota. The majority of USA feels that improving the air traffic and airports is a darned good use of our money. And don’t forget, liberal state residents reach into our paychecks every month to help conservative states pay their way. We don’t bitch. Why do you think you have a right to, Governor Noem?
Oops, my bad. I meant Boutique Air. BOUTIQUE AIR.
Everyone likes airplanes. Except Mr. H.
https://YouTube.com/watch?v=RbEzkbcnOiU
Recall that in 1997 South Dakota got $23 million for going without Amtrak service so then-Gov. Bill Janklow funneled much of it into the Governor’s Club and in 2007 Gov. Mike Rounds spent some of it on an airplane for his personal use. Now, Gov. Noem is using it to campaign for issues and candidates for the extreme white wing of the Republican Party. So today, South Dakota is the only state where Charles Koch has been able to thwart passenger rail and the only state in the continental United States without a proposed Amtrak station.
Yes, socialized agriculture, socialized dairies, socialized cheese, socialized livestock production, a socialized timber industry, socialized air service, socialized freight rail, a socialized nursing home industry, a socialized internet, socialized gas well remediation and now a socialized water system are all fine with Republicans in South Dakota but then they insist single-payer medical insurance is socialized medicine.
https://sdexcellence.org/Clyde_Ice_1979
SoDak is a great place to fly airplanes, long as the weather is good. Fair amount of first hand experience. UND has a sought after world class aviation education/training program with worse weather. Maybe somebody should tell the Board of Regents to think about that……
Generalizations are kinda stoopid Grudz, even in jest. I haven’t flown commercially since 2005, and I’m eternally grateful and ineffably smug about it. I was just becoming aware of the emissions “issues” and was horrified later to think I flew to Waco and back merely to protest George Wanker Bush’s war crimes.
I refuse to endure any more manspreaders, Karen moms bashing me mental stowing and retrieving baby strollers, shrieking, snotty, stinking, incontinent spawn, drunks, gropers, drunken gropers, unexplained four hour delays, and cretins with bad head colds and no hankies. Fun flight from RAP to DIA.
But, hey, we all walked away from the landings.