Last updated on 2014.01.14
Madville Times' Senior/Founding Blogger listened to Governor Dennis Daugaard's State of the State speech yesterday afternoon and heard the message loud and clear that the top priority for this administration is maintaining a strong "business climate" in the state of South Dakota. Hoping the Legislature will let the Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED) continue playing rainmaker, Daugaard is all about economic development this year, as he has been pretty much every year.
I heard the same "Go, Go, GOED!!" message in the speech, but I also heard a confounding counter-message as Daugaard described the hard times our West River ranchers have endured after losing tens of thousands of animals in a record-setting early-winter storm.
The Governor cited a conversation he had earlier in the week with a "friend from Union Center."** This paragon of South Dakota Values reminded his buddy Denny about the admirable independence of our state's ranchers in the face of disaster, proudly averring that, "The next rancher to demand a government handout will be the first."
Now, Daugaard's story may have simply been a sort of throw-away, nobody-can-disagree-with-that platitude meant to honor hard-working South Dakotans who could certainly use as much encouragement as we can give them. I have trouble viewing the independence-as-the-prime-virtue ethos of the celebrated American West as anything other than apocryphal, but I recognize that particular brand of skepticism puts me in a distinct minority in South Dakota.
What I have even more trouble reconciling—and this might put me in an even more distinct minority—is how the Governor can laud the intrepid risk-taking inherent in Great Plains ranching and simultaneously advocate creating a business environment that makes outside corporate investment as cushy as possible.
At minute 67 of the State of the State address, Daugaard tells us that "South Dakota works in so many ways because of our values," and cites the spirit of shunning handouts as one of those values. But back at minute 27, he talked about a past, present, and future of spending hundreds of thousands of government dollars on a different sort of handout. This sort of handout is the kind that leads businesses to begin and continue their relationship with our fair state completely dependent on government incentives as they make their contributions to our economy.
I agree with our Governor that shared values of hard work and community contribute to making South Dakota great. However, these values are absent from legislative priorities that focus more on bribing businesses with tax breaks from the "Building South Dakota Fund" than on being a caring steward of the South Dakota that's already been built.
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**Blatant gossipmongering questions: (1) Could this "friend from Union Center" be rancher, District 29 Senator, and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Larry Rhoden? (2) If so, is there something to be read from the popular sitting governor choosing to quote only one of the five candidates vying for his party's nomination in a contentious primary, in effect endorsing the folksy South Dakota-approved wisdom of that one candidate? (3) If so, is there something further to be read from that same popular sitting governor who's quoting only one candidate in his address quoting the candidate who's NOT his former boss?
So Rhoden has a five point plan to fix Washington that only has three points and then adds five more later on? Sounds like Karl Rove math. Also he is independent and doesn't take government handouts,except for farm subsidies?
"The Governor cited a conversation he had earlier in the week with a "friend from Union Center."** This paragon of South Dakota Values reminded his buddy Denny about the admirable independence of our state's ranchers in the face of disaster, proudly averring that, "The next rancher to demand a government handout will be the first."
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/08/20876196-shutdown-worsens=historic-blizzard-that-killed-tens-of-thousands-of-south-dakota-cattle?lite
"Shutdown worsens historic blizzard that kills tens of thousands of South Dakota cattle"
From the article, "As many as 75,000 cattle have perished since the storm slammed the western part of the state Thursday through Saturday with snowfall that set records for the entire month of October in just three days, state and industry officials said."
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/12/01/donated-cattle-sent-to-south-dakota-following-freak-blizzard-that-killed/
"A month after a freak blizzard dumped up to 4 feet of snow in western South Dakota, killing about 14,000 cattle"
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/10/us/south-dakota-blizzard-kills-herds-cattle/
"But ranchers say they are the real victims. The storm left many of them in ruins, and now Washington is leaving them out in the cold."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2013/10/14/south-dakota-ranchers-reeling-from-cattle-losses/2980793/
"Ferguson said the vast majority of ranchers don't have insurance covering storm-related damage.
"It's cost-prohibitive for a producer," he said Sunday in an interview with The Associated Press. "Unless you're a really big operator, you can't afford to pay for the insurance."
Cattle ranchers dealing with weather-related losses would typically turn to the federal Livestock Indemnity Program, but that farm bill provision has expired and its future is in flux due to congressional gridlock and the continuing federal shutdown.
"We're an independent, pretty self-sufficient bunch, but we need help," Ferguson said."
Well they may not have been demanding a government handout, but with the immediate, first overdramatizing of the amount of dead cattle and then the effects with national media attention and of course no mention in the media of why there was no farm bill to protect them from such losses, (and when you stop and think about it, why should there have been, what government program insures the rest of us for anything other than medicare for which we paid and those on the right now want to abolish) because their darling along with a few other people in Congress were demanding that the food assistance program in the farm bill be removed.
(How did I get that paragraph into one long sentence? I hope it made sense to others.)
According to EWG, Larry Rhoden received $38,784 in farm subsidies, mostly disaster payments, between 1995 and 2012. His brother John has drawn $44,155. As one would expect of West River operations, they're small fry compared to East River's Noem-Arnold family.
Toby is spot on here. In a fundraising pitch to Democrats yesterday, Rep. Bernie Hunhoff (D-18/Yankton) offered a counterpoint slate of policies that he says would do wonders for workforce development:
—Prenatal care for infants born into the poorest families
—Accessible early childhood education
—Stronger K-12 schools
—More affordable college and technical education, and
—Medicaid expansion, so 48,000 working South Dakotans have access to affordable health insurance.
Unless I missed it, Governor Daugaard addressed on the fourth point in any substantive way. He addressed support for K-12 only glancingly in his obligatory mention of Common Core, saying he doesn't want that debate to undermine our commitment to rigorous standards, but not offering any policy initiative for supporting the schools. Daugaard's speech treated everything else as instrumental to the overarching goal of economic development.
Glad you mentioned Common Core, Cory. I was at a family gathering, at which two of my relatives who are teachers clarified for the rest of us what Common Core does. It only means that each school is teaching the same part of a curriculum in the same school year. In other words, if my child is getting multiplication this year, and I move to another city or State, I need not worry that they will have missed long division, that was taught in the new school instead of multiplication during that year. Those talking about a new way of teaching math are talking about a different form of curriculum not the Common Core.
I stopped listening when he quoted President Calvin Coolidge. Does the Heritage Foundation write his speeches? When will he start quoting Nixon?
I was pretty disappointed by the comment about South Dakotan income:
"In the third quarter last year, personal income growth compared to the same quarter in 2012 was the highest in the nation. We have reached another important milestone as well, as our per capita income now exceeds the national average. Numbers available for 2012 indicate that the average South Dakotan earns about 3.8 percent more than the average American," Daugaard said.
It's true- our per capita income for 2012 was $43,659 (US was $42,693), but we dropped from 12th place in 2011 (at $44,217) to 18th place in 2012. Our per capita income dropped $560 and he's touting it.
Moreover, since the MEDIAN household income for South Dakotans is $46,456, (compared to the US Median of $55,030), more than half of our families still make less than half of all American families. That tells us the gains in per capita income are ill distributed amongst us.
I dislike cherry picking data that makes us think we're sitting prettier than we are. I still believe South Dakota is an awesome place to live, and you can get ahead if you set your mind & back to it, but we shouldn't deceive ourselves.
All I see here is St. Dennis reassuring the Main Street Facists down at the Chamber of Commerce that everything is wonderful and they needn't pay no nevermind to them angry mobs with the pitchforks and torches. The gravy train will run on schedule and the troughs will be kept full. The cry of the RINO: "Business as usual; business as usual!"
Wow, Cranky you remind me of an ex-President, "Give 'em hell, Harry".
A Rassmussen poll taken in Sept. '13 gave 70% as the number of respondents that believed Big Gov & Big Biz were colluding against the citizenry. Only 13% said not and the remaining 17% were not sure.
I don't see a lot of difference here by party either. History shows us that the mordida flows mostly to whatever pack of criminals has their foot on the country's neck at the moment with lesser amounts to the "other" party as a retainer of sorts against their eventual ascension.
"I still believe South Dakota is an awesome place to live ... but we shouldn't deceive ourselves." Exactly, Wayne B.! I become concerned on several levels when rhetoric of how awesome South Dakota is--like the rhetoric we have particularly heard a lot of as we've watched neighbors come to each others' rescue in disaster settings like October's blizzard and more recent cold-weather crises--takes the ever-so-slight turn into saying no outsiders can possibly understand how awesome we are.
I sometimes think that it's falsely inflating our awesomeness that leads to a series of semi-successful-but-not-really-amazing initiatives like Daugaard's economic development efforts from a couple of years ago. If all we do is focus on the "business climate" [read "lax corporate taxation and regulation] without acknowledging the work we have to do to make the "cultural climate" or "community climate" sustainable in ways like what Bernie Hunhoff lays out, we're not looking at the whole picture and not going to generate the results Denny's looking for.
I recorded Daugaard, but haven't run the disc yet. I heard him claiming he was slashing outdated rules and regulations and then he appeared to give an example of driver licenses or vehicle licenses reducing the time required, etc.
That was not a problem of too many laws or even too few laws or obsolete laws, it was poor computer programming.
I guess I will have to sit through the whole works and take notes. Because right now, it appears a Republican governor can spout complete utter nonsense and our crackshot press lets it go right by them.
Is there a website that has the full text of the guv's speech? I am nearly deaf and can't follow audio or videos . Written words are much funner to pick apart.
Cranky Old Dude- http://conservatives4palin.com/2014/01/huckabee-outlaw-term-rino-gop.html
Hucksterbee wants to ban the word because it questions wingnut purity. He probably should have said "White Rinos",but they are an endangered species in both Africa and the US.
I find a good SD governor website with transcripts of the state of the state here, Mike.
http://sd.gov/governor/speeches.aspx
I found a website (I meant).
Many thanks,Jenny.
You're welcome, glad to help!
Mike, I'm not deaf, but I prefer blogging from transcripts, too. Much easier to search and study.
Yes, Jenny, thanks much for connecting us to the transcript. I had looked on that page (and at several media outlets) Tuesday night as I was writing this post, but the info wasn't up yet. Glad to have confirmation that the turnaround for the Governor's speeches page is relatively quick.
I'm more disappointed that the Argus clearly has a transcript of the speech from which to make a catchy little "word cloud" but hasn't seen fit to actually post the text of the speech yet.
No doubt, T! I think Montgomery was using the draft to pre-write tweets! Either that or my SDPB radio feed was about 60 seconds behind the live speech.