South Dakota & Sioux Falls POLITICAL TIDBITS

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It appears that former state legislator, Clarence Kooistra is considering running for the Sioux Falls AT LARGE city council seat left vacant by Pat Costello. I think Clarence is a fair politician, and I wish him luck if he decides to run.

Today on KCPO’s political comedy show, The FACTS(?) SD State Senate Assistant Majority Leader, Representative Kristi Noem was the guest.

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She talked about balancing the state budget in 2010 while meeting with the Republican Caucus. Kristi was good at avoiding her stance on about 9 million issues facing our state during the show, but, she said something that stood out; one of the plans considered for saving the state money is lowering the poverty level so fewer people could qualify for state programs. While I agree we should work to give the poor a hand-up instead of a hand-out, I think this is a terrible time to be cutting food stamps and other assistance. Leave it to Republicans to F’ck the poor while continuing to handout useless million dollar contracts to private industry for everything from tourism to financial services.

The SD GOP needs to take a good hard look in the mirror and ask themselves, “Am I a Rat Fink?”

What Recession?

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Let’s put our rose colored glasses on, raise water and sewer rates, raise retail taxes, raise property taxes, raise vehicle registration, and over budget for deficit spending in 2010. We’ll pull out;

The foundation commissioned a national poll that surveyed 4,004 people between June 18 and July 13, including 400 South Dakotans. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Among its key findings:

– 29 percent of respondents in South Dakota said they had problems paying their mortgage, rent or heating bills.

-  44 percent said they’ve cut back on the amount they spend on food; 45 percent have cut back on saving for retirement.

-  And 22 percent have had a friend or relative stay with them because of a lack of money.

“That 22 percent may be the single most striking figure in the survey data for me,” said Kevin Walker, Northwest’s chief executive officer. “That tells me one out of five South Dakotans have provided emergency or transitional shelter. That really brings home the impact of the recession on families and communities.”

Having trouble keeping up? Stop whining and move in with a friend, we gotta city to build God Dammit!