Perry Groten reports that Governor Dennis Daugaard and his chums at the National Governors' Association meeting in Washington, D.C., are warning Congress not to gum up the works of the economic recovery:
At their annual winter meeting in the nation's capital, the nation's governors are asking lawmakers to prevent a government shutdown, abstain from spending cuts that dramatically will affect states and end even preliminary discussions about allowing states to declare bankruptcy.
As Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, head of the National Governors Association, puts it "Anything that Congress does that will undermine our recovery is quite troublesome to us." She says "We don't need a hiccup now in our recovery," adding "We are fragile" [Perry Groten, "Govs to Feds: Don't Harm Recovery," KELOLand.com, 2011.02.27].
Governor Daugaard must be preaching an odd form of self-reliance to his fellow state execs: if you want to sandbag an economic recovery right, you have to do it yourselves:
Deep spending cuts by state and local governments pose a growing threat to an economy that is already grappling with high unemployment, depressed home prices and the surging cost of oil.
Lawmakers at state capitols and city halls are slashing jobs and programs, arguing that some pain now is better than a lot more later. But the cuts are coming at a price — weaker growth at the national level.
The clearest sign to date was a report Friday on U.S. gross domestic product for the final three months of 2010. The government lowered its growth estimate, pointing to larger-than-expected cuts by state and local governments. The report suggested that worsening state budget problems could hold back the recovery by putting more people out of work and reducing consumer spending [Michael Sandler and Jeannine Aversa, "State and Local Budget Cuts Are Slowing U.S. Economy," AP via Yahoo News, 2011.02.25].
Governor Daugaard, take your own advice. Your budget cuts will cut jobs and consumer spending around the state. Don't endanger South Dakota's economic growth for an arbitrary fiscal goal. Ditch the cuts, spend reserves, and seek other alternatives to keep South Dakotans on the job.
Update 21:00 CST: Possibly related: Liz Sidoti, "GOP Governors Undermine Obama Agenda in States," AP vie RealClearPolitics, 2011.02.07.
With the pending crash...nothing anybody does is going to make a difference...just pretend everything is going to be alright...act as if nothing will happen...the feds, the state and everybody has been doing that for years...keep delusion alive!
Does it bother anyone else that the governor is in Washington instead of being in Pierre working on our budget with the legislature?
Think of DD as Silvio on holiday.
Michael-- Why would he be working on our budget with the legislature? He's already made up his minds and his minions will not fail him.
There seems to be a clear and admitted goal of the governors to gut medicaid and put seniors, impoverished children and those that are the most vulnerable in the cross hairs of their policies.
Along with that there is the busting and demoralizing of public employees, both with unions and without unions. They see no downside in demonizing those that provide government services and prefer to treat people as mere commodities. The upside for them is they turn the middle class on itself splitting the majority of voters.
To sweeten the pot, they want to consolidate power in the governors office to oversee state contracts and medicare policies and spending.
That makes sense financially and politically as no actual political friends and donors will be hurt in the process.
Oh yeah, and they'll each sweeten the pot for business and potential business with tax breaks, exemptions and financial gifts to attract new business...at the expense of those that are being impacted.
Bottom line is they are making choices. Choices to cut education and medicaid and the choice to give business taxpayer money.
Lastly as the flooding hits this spring they will all ask for federal disaster dollars from the man they love to hate.
Wow, Jana, talk about disaster capitalism; guess one way to purge non-point pollution is beg for federal assistance to flush it into the Gulf.
Stumbled onto this looking for how the Bureau of Prisons ensures funding sources for the states.