The Rapid City Journal makes the absurd claim that the passage of Senate Bill 235, the bipartisan omnibus economic development bill known as "Building South Dakota," means South Dakota has discovered the ideal policy response to economic development:
It was a long time in negotiations, but Building South Dakota should end the debate over the best way to provide incentives to build the state's economy [editorial, Rapid City Journal, 2013.03.12].
End the debate? Randy Rasmussen et al. apparently put their mouths on autopilot. SB 235 is a pragmatic piece of legislation passed to address political needs of the moment. It does settle any debate. It does not preclude our questioning its constitutionality, morality, or effectiveness.
Senate Bill 235 makes one thing clear: South Dakota Republicans are addicted to corporate welfare. It is their weakness. If South Dakota Democrats can hold corporate welfare hostage (as Dems did in 2011 by putting the last big SDGOP corporate welfare program on the ballot, where it failed to pass muster with voters statewide), they can drag the Republicans into making some decent, accountable social policy.
Of course, now that we Dems have mostly officially thrown in with the GOP on SB 235, we'll have to find another ball with which to play GOP keep-away.
Democrats are going to be eating the crap falling out of the "bipartisanship" they fell into. Now, when that crap hits the fan, the GOP will say, "Yah, but the Democrats supported it too." Daugaard is already setting the state with is lauding of legislative bipartisanship in newspapers willing to print his propaganda.
They(Republican leadership) already used that good will in the last week of the session to their advantage to go on their spending spree including the $7 million of general funds put into Building SD. The Dems were hoping their cooperation would build up good will to do more for education and medicaid. The republicans went off on their own merry way the last few days of the session spending money like drunken soldiers.
Interesting that more Republicans resisted GDD's blandishments than democrats.
Interesting that the democrats were more susceptible to GDD's blandishments than the Republicans.
I think this new law was designed to take the place of 1.2.3.4 and with that Common Sense Sentinel Law will distract people from the funding issues. I think it was designed even by young Messrs. Fredricks and Hunhoff to keep the eye off the ball. Brilliant. It's a reminder to not tax people for your special whining interests. It does seem like there was less whining this year in the paper. I think next year it goes back to the normal raises for schools.
These republicants govern like emotional charlatans wholly lacking peer-reviewed empirical evidence their divined schemes work. There is no evidence the race to the bottom of corporate welfare benefits the citizens. There is no evidence that lower tax rates stimulate economic growth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/business/effectiveness-of-tax-cuts-on-lifting-the-economy-is-unproved.html?ref=business&_r=2&pagewanted=all&