This is why I don’t blog as much about the state legislature, it’s like a freaking broken record. They do this every year. (notice the cartoon is from 2009)Waste enormous amounts of time on guns and abortion without really addressing the budget;
The South Dakota Legislature’s budget-writing committee has delayed a decision on how much revenue to expect for the rest of the current year and the budget year that begins July 1.
The Joint Appropriations Committee had planned to make a formal decision Monday. But House Appropriations Chairman Fred Romkema of Spearfish says the decision is delayed until at least Tuesday because the Legislature has not settled the fate of some other bills that could affect revenue collections.
The committee later this week will put the finishing touches on the spending plan so the Legislature can pass the budget by Friday, the end of the main run of this year’s legislative session.
Gov. Dennis Daugaard has proposed a $4.1 billion state budget, with $1.3 billion to come from state tax funds.
Oh, but they had time to thumb their noses at voters with this proposal;
A comprehensive South Dakota economic development fund proposed by state legislators would be paid for with contractors excise tax collections and money from unclaimed property.
Republican Sen. Corey Brown, of Gettysburg, outlined the Building South Dakota Fund to the House State Affairs Committee on Monday. The panel voted unanimously to move the bill to the House floor.
The measure was introduced at a bipartisan news conference last week. It would focus on providing tax breaks for large projects that the state otherwise might not attract. It also would provide money for training workers and helping communities build the infrastructure needed to encourage development.
Republicans and Democrats have worked for the past two months to find a compromise plan.
The bill received supportive testimony from nearly two dozen people.
At least it is not coming out of the general fund, and supported by contractors, BUT voters clearly told them last November, NO HANDOUTS TO LARGE CORPORATIONS, and what do they do? Well at least job training is included, but I have a feeling that will be trickle down. You know, if the state was attracting businesses that paid living wages, I would be all for these incentives.
The South Dakota state legislature is the reality of a one party state. It is merely an exercise in legislative futility, where the scripted agenda over guns and abortion hide the other real issues as well as allowing the powers that be to make those tough decision which from time to time have to be made without any thorough legislative deliberation.
Even the thought of a bi-partisan initiative threatens the powers that be and it is not in their interest to allow or promote such legislative vitality.
Same shit, different session. I actually wonder if term limits are a small part of the problem. I grew up in Pierre during the 70s and 80s – the party leadership consisted of people like Joe Barnett, George Shanard, Roger McKellips, Jim Dunn, and Lars Herseth. There was more decorum and more control – the obvious yahoos were not allowed to flood the floor with idiotic bills (sure, there were a few, but not like today) and run their yaps in front of the media. House and Senate leaders had the clout to stand up to the governor – I still remember times that the GOP heads would even spar with Billy J. every once in a while. Now, term limits have rendered most legislative elections as nothing more than popularity contests and allowed too much power to move to the 2nd Floor and state gov’t flunkies. The “leadership” is powerless to stop the nutcases from running amok. (Sigh) Rinse, lather, repeat…
Staggers has told me stories about voting against Janks, and how other serving legislators have asked him how he could do it. He pretty much said, “I am not scared of Bill.”
The Democrats were both a relevant state party and a congressional party back in the 1970s.
Janklow’s first eight years were more controlling than his last eight years, but his first eight were to some degree challenged by the remnants of the Democrat’s 1970s era relevance, whereas his last eight benefited from the absence of a state Democratic Party relevance, which gave the appearance of his dominance more credence than deserved during his latter reign.
Staggers served during the last eight year Janklow reign where internal challenges to his agenda were not as frightening of an action as could have been perceived in his first eight years. Why? I will allege there were certain personalities to affect outcome for Janklow’s in his first reign which were missing in the last eight year stretch.