Permit me the pleasure of citing Cato Institute budget analyst Tad DeHaven on why Congresswoman Kristi Noem is a complete hypocrite.

On Wednesday, the House considered an amendment by Kansas Republican Rep. Mike Pompeo to eliminate funding for the federal Economic Development Administration. Rep. Noem showed her big-government roots by voting to kill the amendment and keep corporate welfare alive:

Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD), for example, voted against the Pompeo amendment. But in a column she penned in April, Noem said “Our debt crisis is a result of Washington spending money it doesn’t have and letting our children and grandchildren pick up the tab.” Noem favors a Balance Budget Amendment and says that “Our government must come together and make the tough decisions to secure our nation’s prosperous future.” Really? Noem says tough decisions need to be made but she can’t even get behind the elimination of the EDA. Talk about chutzpah.

Noem and 85 other Republicans also voted against Rep. Ben Quayle’s (R-AZ) amendment that would have defunded a new corporate welfare program asked for by President Obama in his fiscal 2013 budget proposal. Thanks to the 86 Republicans in the House, instead of terminating programs, taxpayers will get a new one called the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia program [Tad DeHaven, "Republicans Help Save the Economic Development Administration," Cato@Liberty, 2012.05.09].

That’s not some cranky South Dakota liberal talking. That’s a Cato Institute conservative, someone with no dog in South Dakota politics.

Ask a real, thinking conservative, and he’ll tell you that Kristi is no conservative. She’s nothing but a climber, dedicated to power, not principle.

In other news, still no word on when Noem’s family will stop suckling at the government teat of farm subsidies and federal crop insurance.

Update 21:53 MDT: Interesting: Rep. Noem missed the vote to tinker with last year’s budget sequestration deal and avert cuts from the military by slashing billions from Medicaid, federal worker benefits, and food assistance for low-income Americans.

Verifications Inc. surprised 140 of its South Dakota employees yesterday by telling them they will lose their jobs by November:

According to Verifications employee Becky Jacobson, employees in Mitchell were asked to attend a mandatory meeting Thursday, at which they were informed of the closures.

“It was horrible,” said another employee who asked to remain anonymous. “We walked into the room and there were Kleenex boxes on the table, so we knew.”

Mitchell employees were shown a video of Verifications President and CEO Curt Marks announcing the closures, Jacobson said.

“There was a lot of crying,” she said of the reactions. “It seems like we had been kept in the dark” [Chris Mueller, "Verifications Closing Mitchell and Aberdeen Locations," Mitchell Daily Republic, 2012.04.26].

Note that the bosses could have driven over from corporate headquarters in Wayzata, Minnesota, to break the news and maybe offer their thanks and their apologies in person. But no: to declare 140 South Dakotans a hindrance to the company’s profits, corporate sends videos and boxes of Kleenex. Not exactly an expression of the company’s Values of Solidarity, Commitment, and Courage.

Spread some irony on your toast: on its Testimonials page, Verifications cites unnamed clients as lauding their employee background-check and drug-testing services thus:

“I hate surprises. VI is proactive, not reactive.”

“It’s simple why we’re with VI: they never give us a reason to leave.”

South Dakota didn’t give Verifications any reason to leave. We actually worked pretty hard to bring them here, using state and local loan funds to build the Mitchell facility Verifications leases. We appear to have made similar efforts ten years ago for Verifications in Aberdeen. The company simply found cheaper labor in Arizona, India, and the Philippines.

These closings come on top of layoffs in Aberdeen last year of 15 employees who became obsolete because of technology.

Three weeks after applications closed, we still haven’t heard from the Lake Area Improvement Corporation whom it will pick to direct economic development efforts in and around Madison.

As we eagerly await the golden child to reverse previous LAIC exec Dwaine Chapel’s failures, Madison residents may wish to note the City of Sioux Falls’s advertisement for an economic development coordinator. Where Madison lets its economic development honcho operate in a quasi-public corporation that keeps its records secret and can’t be held directly accountable by taxpayers, the City of Sioux Falls makes its economic development coordinator a city employee.

Sioux Falls also pays that person half of what Madison’s economic development chief gets. Dwaine Chapel pulled down six figures for not doing much. The Sioux Falls economic development coordinator gets up to $2,135 bi-weekly, or just over $51K annually.

Jeepers: the LAIC should have been getting tons of applications.

The Sioux Falls economic development coordinator is also expected to make “downtown development… a key focus.”

So if Madison were to adopt the Sioux Falls approach, the city would get more accountable economic development efforts for half the price. And we’d do something about downtown.

Meridian Bridge, Yankton, South Dakota, April 15, 2012, municipal webcam shot

Nathan Johnson posts brilliantly on the importance of preserving a community’s history and its landmarks. He celebrates the conversion of Yankton’s Meridian Bridge into a unique pedestrian trail:

…while there are a few people who still complain it is a rust bucket, I hear almost universal praise for what an asset it is to the community.

I’ve been on the bridge in rain, snow and wind — early in the morning and late at night — and I am almost never alone. The community has largely embraced the bridge and uses it equally for exercise and for taking in the breathtaking views the structure offers [Nathan Johnson, "Why the Meridian Bridge Had to Be Preserved," An Inland Voyage, 2012.04.12].

Johnson highlights the unique characteristics of the reworked Meridian Bridge—where else can you walk from one state to another on a double-decker, pedestrian-only bridge? Johnson ties that uniquity to an essay by urban development expert Edward T. McMahon, who says character is key to an economically vibrant city:

If I have learned anything from my career in urban planning, it is this: a community’s appeal drives economic prosperity….

…[T]he most important factors that create emotional bonds between people and their community were not jobs and the economy, but rather “physical beauty, opportunities for socializing and a city’s openness to all people.” …[C]ommunities with the highest levels of attachment also had the highest rates of gross domestic product growth and the strongest economies [Edward T. McMahon, "Character Is Key to an Economically Vibrant City," The Atlantic Cities, 2012.04.11].

As Johnson points out, the Meridian Bridge touches all three of those criteria. Strollers get wonderful views of the river and the city. They can meet neighbors and visitors. The bridge symbolizes openness in its basic function as a connector and in its new function as a strictly pedestrian bridge: instead of racing across while boxed into cars, people can cross, stop, stand and take ownership of the structure and the river on their own two feet. Those characteristics make the Meridian Bridge a vital part of Yankton’s future.

What structures does your town have the fit that bill? Remember, they can’t just be old structures that people can look at and say “remember when…?” They have to be places that still play an active role in the community, places people can use. How well is your town keeping its historic structures integrated into the living heart and soul of your community?

South Dakota employers are struggling to fill 10,000 skilled jobs. The lack of workers is costing businesses like Trail King in Mitchell and Sioux Steel in Sioux Falls the chance to fill more orders and make more money.

What’s holding back our economic development? Low wages and low organized labor leverage:

One factor making it harder to attract workers are wages that rank among the lowest in the country, said Bill Adamson, an associate professor of economics at South Dakota State University.

South Dakota was second to last among states, behind Mississippi, for its average weekly wage in the third quarter of 2011, paying $684. That was just over half of the figure for the highest, Connecticut, at $1,118 a week, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Greater competition for workers isn’t enough to lift South Dakota’s wages because of factors that have kept them down for decades, including low union membership and a small population and modest cost of living, said Reynold F. Nesiba, an associate professor of economics at Augustana College in Sioux Falls.

“There is something to be said for work ethic and culture,” said Nesiba. “People in South Dakota don’t do much protesting or organizing. Instead, they get second and third jobs to pay their bills” [Jennifer Oldham, "Worker Shortage Dogs Trail King as S.D. Jobs Go Beggine," BusinessWeek, 2012.04.09].

The latest data I find at BLS pegs South Dakota’s median hourly wage at $13.78 and mean hourly wage at $17.01. Nationwide, the median hourly wage is $16.57 and the mean hourly wage is $21.74. South Dakota’s median wage is 83% of the national median; our mean is 78% of the comparable national figure. In Q4 2011, South Dakota’s cost of living was 99.4% of the national average.

You know all those stories about how strong labor unions propelled middle-class prosperity and economic growth in the 1950s? “Right-to-work” (read: “Right-to-fire-your-sorry-butt”) state South Dakota appears determined to serve as the flagship example of the inverse, that if you don’t have strong unions, you don’t have a strong middle class or economic growth.

As my commenters eagerly point out, it’s election day in Madison! Residents have five candidates from whom to choose for two city commission spots.

From the press I enjoy from my safe vantage point in Spearfish, it strikes me that the best two men to help run my hometown are incumbent commissioner Nick Abraham and newcomer Jeremiah Corbin. As noted in previous posts, Abraham and Corbin have done the best job articulating nuts-and-bolts policy positions that indicate specific actions they would take to improve Madison.

The responses excerpted by KJAM to a question on new ideas epitomize this distinction. Abraham suggested using the city’s revolving loan fund downtown revitalization. Corbin floated using a tax increment finance (TIF) district for the same purpose. Mike Waldner offered no new idea but said he’d champion “anything that supports quality of life and economic development,” principles we can hardly disagree with but which don’t constitute an answer to the specific question about new ideas. Similarly, Pat Mullen expressed reasonable fiscal caution, but watching our budget isn’t a “new idea” either.

Downtown development is one of the most pressing issues facing Madison. The city has ignored the physical and commercial health of Main Street in favor of its peripheral industrial parks and the Washington Avenue TIF district. The city has resisted using downtown for new cultural events. Visitors want a walkable downtown, and they gauge the quality of a community by what they find on Main Street. At the heart of Madison, they currently find a big vacant Masonic temple, several crumbling buildings with boarded up windows, and a dearth of retail stores.

Rebuilding a thriving city center as a destination for shoppers and tourists could be one of the most fruitful changes Madison could make. Nick Abraham and Jeremiah Corbin sound most tuned in to taking specific action to make downtown revitalization happen. Vote for them, and then hold them accountable for following through.

Mike Knutson at Reimagine Rural notes that Rebecca Ryan is keynoting the  SD Governors Office for Economic Development Annual Conference. (Hey, she can’t do worse than Kristi Noem at the NDGOP convention.) Ryan appears well tuned to the idea that making your local economy grow is much less about the traditional metrics of low taxes and corporate incentives and much more about creating a vibrant culture and quality of life that will attract the creative class (see also NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg,  “Cities must be cool, creative and in control,” Financial Times, March 27, 2012).

Along those lines, I follow Knutson’s link to a December 2008 Wisconsin survey of local high school students, college students, and young professionals on what attracts them to communities. Given a list of 31 items, here are the qualities they chose as the most attractive:

High School Students: 

1. Affordable
2. Jobs
3. Place for Family
4. Public Schools
5. Safe Streets
6. Low Taxes
7. Walkable Streets
8. People My Age
9. Beach/Waterfront
10. Nightlife

College Students: 

1. Affordable
2. Safe Streets
3. Place for Family
4. Public Schools
5. Jobs
6. Low Taxes
7. Walkable Streets
8. Beach/Waterfront
9. Scenic Beauty
10. Friends/Family

Young Professionals:

1. Safe Streets
2. Place for Family
3. Affordable
4. Public Schools
5. Scenic Beauty
6. Sense of Community
7. Walkable Streets
8. Low Traffic
9. Friends/Family
10. Beach/Waterfront

YP Natives:

1. Safe Streets
2. Place for Family
3. Affordable
4. Public Schools
5. Jobs
6. Friends/Family
7. Low Taxes
8. Scenic Beauty
9. Walkable Streets
10. Low Traffic

YP Boomerangers:

1. Safe Streets
2. Affordable
3. Place for Family
4. Scenic Beauty
5. Public Schools
6. Sense of Community
7. Friends/Family
8. Walkable Streets
9. Beach/Waterfront
10. Low Traffic

YP Transplants:

1. Safe Streets
2. Place for Family
3. Scenic Beauty
4. Affordable
5. Public Schools
6. Sense of Community
7. Low Traffic
8. Concern for Environment
9. Trails/Parks
10. Walkable Streets

Interestingly, low taxes figure highest among those with least direct experience of taxes, the high school and college students. The only young professionals who mention low taxes in the top 10 are the young professionals native to the area. Three of the top items for young professionals—safe streets, walkable streets, and good public schools—require more investment of tax dollars.

So it would seem that, at least among the Wisconsin population surveyed here, attracting young talent requires something more than South Dakota’s “low-tax no-tax” cheerleading… and probably more than sending Ag Secretary Walt Bones out to twist arms in favor of every stinky feedlot. Let’s see if the Governor’s Office of Economic Development gets that message.

Update 17:41 MDT: Back at you: my friend The Displaced Plainsman contributes to the discussion of attracting talent to rural communities by mentioning another key quality of life: the chance to be creative. I wonder: is high-plains libertarian tolerance enough (that crazy artist can do what he wants in his barn, as long as he doesn’t bother me), or does real talent recruitment require communitarian encouragement?

I want to be suspicious of Governor Dennis Daugaard. Anybody who campaigns for office saying there is not budget crisis then turns around after winning and argues we have to slash the state budget ten percent warrants some suspicion.

I am thus looking at the Governor’s veto of House Bill 1228 and trying to figure out if doing the people’s business or taking a whack at us Lefties.

HB 1228 offered tax refunds for the construction of big wind farms (building costs over $50 million) and environmental upgrades at big power plants (300 megawatts or more). This bill was the compromise that kept House Republicans from pressing a scheme that would have negated the upcoming referendum on Governor Daugaard’s larger economic development tax refund program.

Governor Daugaard cited that referral in his veto message, saying the Legislature should not monkey with big corporate tax refunds until the voters have made clear via Referred Law 14 their will on such economic development policies. The Governor also nodded to fairness for smaller wind energy projects: he cites a proposed 20-megawatt wind farm that evidently wouldn’t meet the $50-million threshold for the tax refund.

On the fiscally wonky side, Governor Daugaard brands HB 1228 unacceptable in its lack of a fiscal note. He sees HB 1228 sending millions of dollars out of state to ratepayers getting electricty from the Big Stone power plant in northeast South Dakota. He also complains that the bill was a “continuous appropriation,” not a tax break, and thus should have been passed by a two-thirds vote rather than a simple majority (which is all HB 1228 got in the Senate). The Governor’s veto means HB 1228 will need a two-thirds vote tomorrow to survive.

The Governor offers rational reasons for his veto. I am again relieved to see that he will respect the referendum process, even when he’s “disgusted” by it. But is the Governor’s referendum respect an excuse to take a swipe at the green priorities of the Dems who referred the Governor’s corporate welfare plan? And can we count on the Governor to stand up for fairness for small-scale renewable energy producers with policies like net-metering?

The Governor’s fiscal argument also smells just a little bit. There is only one fiscal note posted for the 2011 Legislative session, and that fiscal note is not for the Governor’s large project refund plan (2011′s HB 1230). The Governor also signed all sorts of bills this year that had no fiscal note. He supported modifying his own education reform bill this session to avoid a two-thirds new-appropriations vote, even though his HB 1234 supposedly obligates the state to invest $15 million more a year in teachers. Is that a “continuous appropriation”?

I admit that my suspicion of the Daugaard agenda may have me stretching for quibbles. On pure policy consistency, we may do better to follow the principle of the veto of HB 1228 across our economic policies: require all businesses to pay their fair share of taxes, regardless of size, industry, or closed-door wheeling and dealing with the likes of Russ Olson.

But let’s see what you think of this veto, dear readers… and let’s see what our legislators say tomorrow during Veto Day in Pierre.