Category: Uncategorized

(Editor’s note – another important piece of legislation from Senator Rounds to make sure that local banks can loan money to prospective homeowners -PP)

Rounds Introduces Bill to Provide Regulatory Relief for Community Financial Institutions

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) today introduced the Home Mortgage Disclosure Adjustment Act. This bill would provide regulatory relief for community banks and credit unions by exempting them from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) revised Regulation C final rule, which amends the 1975 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA).

“More and more of our community banks and credit unions in South Dakota have stopped offering mortgage lending services simply because they can’t afford to comply with the costly, time-consuming requirements of regulations coming out of Washington,” said Rounds. “Regulations like the revised HMDA rule force community banks and credit unions to divert resources away from providing financial services to their communities and instead direct them to comply with onerous regulations. My bill will alleviate compliance hurdles facing many of our community banks and credit unions and allow them to do what they do best—serve their customers and strengthen our communities.”

HMDA was enacted in 1975. The act requires certain financial institutions to provide the public, and public officials, with mortgage data to determine if financial institutions are properly serving the communities in which they are located. Following the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, rulemaking authority for HMDA was transferred to the CFPB. The CFPB revised HMDA to require community banks and credit unions to collect nearly 50 unique data points on loan applications and share that information with the federal government.

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Adjustment Act would raise the thresholds for the number of closed- and open-end loans a financial institution can originate before being subject to HMDA reporting requirements. This would allow more community financial institutions to be exempt from the HMDA rule. The bill would raise the number of closed-end loans financial institutions can originate from 25 to 100 per calendar year. It would increase the number of open-end lines of credit from 100 to 200.

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There’s a definite choice in candidates for Legislative District 3 this year. On one hand, you have some of the most whack-job liberal leftists that the Democrat party has to offer. On the other hand (the one you don’t want to chop off), you have solid, stable candidates representative of the community – a business owner, a law enforcement officer, and a farmer/rancher. 

Mark your calendars, and RSVP for the event by clicking here.

If there’s any complaint over the event – they should be asking for more from attendees! The races are that important!

Put it on your schedule, and RSVP today.

From the Argus:

“Emily Wanless, a political science professor at Augustana University, said unlike Rounds and Noem, he (Thune) is up for re-election and is in a prominent leadership position in the Senate.”

Read that here.

Getting people to realize that she’s actually running for Congress might be one of those things for Paula Hawks to add to her “to do” list.

There were a couple of pieces on eBay recently that once I saw them – they had to be mine. And this has to be my favorite.

Thomas Matthew Berry was the 14th Governor of South Dakota. Berry, a Democrat from Belvidere, South Dakota. Elected governor twice, in 1932 and 1934, as Governor, he acted as Federal Relief Administrator and helped secure federal aid during the great depression.

According to Wikipedia…

He called the legislature into special session to legalize 3.2 percent beer and again to enact unemployment insurance. During his tenure, state property tax was abolished, replaced by gross income tax which was replaced by a state sales tax.

Read it here.

Berry ran for a third term in 1936 but faced Les Jensen, and a Republican Party that wasn’t going to go gently into the night as you can tell by this GOP sponsored flyer, which took aim at the myth that Berry had taken an ax to state government, noting instead that he’d simply carved up the state as political pie:

And, the rest is history. Les Jensen won the election.   In fact, Les Jensen has been in the news quite a bit recently, as he’s received an update to his Gubernatorial portrait.

South Dakota Ends Fiscal Year With Another Surplus

PIERRE, S.D. –  South Dakota state government closed the 2016 budget year on June 30 marking the fifth consecutive year with a surplus, Gov. Dennis Daugaard announced today. The state general fund budget for Fiscal Year 2016 ended with both lower expenditures and higher revenues than budgeted.

The majority of the surplus was a result of state agencies demonstrating fiscal restraint.  State agencies spent $10.4 million, or 0.74 percent, less than appropriated. Additionally, revenue for Fiscal Year 2016 exceeded estimates adopted by the Legislature last March by $3.6 million, or 0.24 percent. In total, the state’s budget for Fiscal Year 2016 ended with  a $14.1 million surplus.

“This marks the fifth year in a row that we have maintained structural balance in our budget. This was my number one priority when I took office,” Gov. Daugaard said. “Even with our revenue stream being soft the past few months, all areas of state government were able to spend fewer tax dollars than appropriated to contribute to the budget surplus. Finishing Fiscal Year 2016 in the black puts South Dakota’s budget in a positive position as we begin the 2017 fiscal year.” (Audio)

State agencies again remained within their appropriated budgets in FY2016. Collectively, the three branches of state government spent $10,427,398 less than appropriated. This reversion includes $2.4 million across all state government due to a decrease in the state paid health insurance rate; $2 million from the Board of Regents due to lower utility expenditures; $1.3 million from the Department of Human Services related to lower than anticipated operating expenditures and vacancies at the South Dakota Develomental Center; and $1 million from the Department of Social Services due to nominal variances in the utilization of services.

South Dakota’s sales and use tax receipts, the state’s largest revenue source, finished the fiscal year 0.71 percent below budgeted levels, but grew 2.91 percent compared to the prior year. Collections from the sales and use tax accounted for 58 percent of total general fund receipts in fiscal year 2016.

Sources of revenue with notable increases came from the bank franchise tax, severance taxes and insurance company tax, which grew 22.4 percent, 13.6 percent and 6 percent, respectively, over FY2015. Ongoing receipts to the general fund totaled $1,438,386,820 which grew 4.1 percent compared to the previous year. Total state general fund receipts were $1,496,940,642 for the recently ended fiscal year.

South Dakota state government ended FY2016 by transferring $14.1 million to the Budget Reserve Fund, as required by law. The state’s Budget Reserve Fund now has a $113,379,805  balance and the General Revenue Replacement Fund has a $44,000,048 balance.

The combination of those two funds, totaling $157,379,853, represents a combined reserve of 10.8 percent of total general fund spending for FY2016.

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Congress Sends Thune’s Pro-Security Aviation Bill to the President’s Desk

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, released the following statement on the Senate’s bipartisan passage of his FAA Extension, Safety, and Security Act of 2016 by a vote of 89-4.

The bill, which will provide important, time-sensitive safety and security improvements to the U.S. aviation system, awaits the president’s signature before the Federal Aviation Administration’s reauthorization deadline on Friday.

“Today, Congress passed the most significant airport security reform bill in a decade,” said Thune. “Reforms in our bill will help protect air travelers in South Dakota and around the country, and it will help ensure that attacks like those in Brussels and Istanbul do not happen in American airports. I’m proud of the Commerce Committee’s work in leading this effort, and I look forward to seeing the president sign this bill into law before the end of the week.”

To learn more about the bill and the committee’s work on this issue, please visit www.commerce.senate.gov/faa.

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Thune Leads Senate REBOOT Members in Introducing Legislation to Improve Meaningful Use Program

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Pat Roberts (R-Kans.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) today introduced the Electronic Health Record (EHR) Regulatory Relief Act (S. 3173), legislation that would provide regulatory flexibility and hardship relief to providers and hospitals operating under the meaningful use program.

“Health information technology, especially the advancements in electronic health records, is an integral part of the future of America’s health care delivery system,” said Thune. “Our bill ensures that unnecessary regulatory burdens do not continue to negatively affect providers’ ability to leverage technology to improve patient care. I’m thankful for the administration’s willingness to provide constructive feedback and engage with Senate REBOOT members on this important piece of legislation.”

“This legislation will help ease the burden of the meaningful use program for doctors and hospitals who have told me they want to spend more time caring for patients instead of trying to comply with government regulations,” said Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander. “Specifically, it will give hospitals the same flexibility that Congress passed for doctors with overwhelming bipartisan support last April, and it will give doctors and hospitals the certainty of law that the 90-day reporting window for meaningful use proposed by CMS earlier this month is here to stay. I look forward to Senate passage of this legislation as we continue to work to pull the electronic medical records system out of the ditch, transforming it into something that doctors and hospitals look forward to rather than dread.”

“As doctors and hospitals continue the transition to effectively using Electronic Health Records, it is important that regulations do not get in the way of patient care,” said Enzi. “This legislation would ensure that health care providers can use electronic medical records as a patient care tool and continue to incentivize adoption of new technologies. The future of health information technology is bright, but we cannot let the weight of unworkable regulations burden that progress.”

“Leveraging health information technology holds the promise of improving patient care and better utilizing taxpayer funds,” said Roberts. However, the prescriptive nature of the meaningful use program has made it nearly unworkable for our doctors and hospitals. I am proud we have found some reasonable ways to provide much needed regulatory relief to the program and allow our health care professionals to spend more timing focusing on what they do best – caring for patients.”

“One-size-fits-all regulation is jeopardizing the full potential for electronic health records to improve care for North Carolinians,” said Burr. “I’m pleased to be working with my colleagues to advance common-sense policy that will provide flexibility and better support North Carolina’s hospitals and doctors in what’s most important—providing quality care to North Carolinians.”

“As a doctor, I know firsthand how bureaucratic hurdles can interfere with patient care,” said Cassidy. “This legislation will reduce those regulatory burdens on providers, allowing them to better serve patients.”

The senators’ legislation would shorten the reporting period for eligible physicians and hospitals from 365 days to 90 days, relax the all-or-nothing nature of the current program requirements, and extend the ability for eligible providers and hospitals to apply for a hardship exception from the meaningful use requirements.

In April, the senators wrote to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt to request input on a draft bill, and with the feedback they received, developed the version that was introduced today.

Click here for a summary document and here for legislative text.

Thune, Alexander, Enzi, Roberts, and Burr are original members of the Senate’s health IT working group, Re-examining the Strategies Needed to Successfully Adopt Health IT (REBOOT). In 2013, the senators released a white paper in which they outlined their concerns with current federal health IT policy, including increased health care costs, lack of momentum toward interoperability, potential waste and abuse, patient privacy, and long-term sustainability.

The white paper was part of a broader effort to solicit feedback from the administration and foster an ongoing conversation on improving the health IT program with the stakeholder community, including health care providers, technology vendors, and others.

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Thune, Cardin Introduce Bill to Improve and Modernize S Corporations

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.), members of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, today introduced the S Corporation Modernization Act of 2016 (S. 3181), legislation that would make several pro-growth reforms to help S corporations operate more easily, which would improve their ability to raise capital. S corporations were created in 1958, must be domestically owned, and are limited to 100 shareholders. This type of business has grown in popularity, particularly among small businesses, because of its simplicity and flexibility. S corporations are the most common form of business structure in America, with more than 4 million in existence today. Despite their popularity, relatively few reforms have been made to S corporations since their creation, which is why the Thune-Cardin bill would help modernize this part of the tax code.

“Family owned small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy and can be located in every corner of the country,” said Thune. “Small towns and rural communities are oftentimes the ideal location for these small- and medium-sized businesses, which is why making these common-sense reforms to S corporations is so important to South Dakota. There’s broad bipartisan agreement that our tax code is wildly outdated, and making these kinds of incremental changes is an important step in the right direction.”

“S corporation businesses are critical to the well-being of the Maryland economy and account for more than half of our state’s private-sector workforce,” said Cardin. “Unfortunately, our federal tax code has not kept up with the increasingly important role that these types of companies play,” said Cardin.  “The S Corporation Modernization Act contains much-needed changes to the tax treatment of S corporations, allowing them to better attract capital, create jobs, and make charitable investments in their communities.”

This is the first time since 2009 that the S Corporation Modernization Act, of which Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) is also a cosponsor, has been introduced in the Senate. U.S. Reps. Dave Reichert (R-Wash) and Ron Kind (D-Wis.) have introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives.

Highlights of the S Corporation Modernization Act

Expansion of Qualifying Beneficiaries of an Electing Small Business Trust

o   This provision allows a non-resident alien to be a qualified beneficiary of an Electing Small Business Trust (ESBT), which is a certain type of trust allowed to own shares in an S corporation. Currently, only U.S. citizens or U.S. residents can own S corporation shares. This provision does not change the direct ownership requirement, but it allows a non-resident alien to get the benefits of S corporation ownership by being a beneficiary of the ESBT, while ensuring that any applicable taxes are collected by the ESBT.

• Modifications to Passive Income Rules

o   The tax code includes an additional tax on S corporations that have previously converted from C corporations if more than 25 percent of the S corporation’s income is passive in nature (such as rents, royalties, and interest). The provision implements a 2001 recommendation by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) that this threshold be increased to 60 percent and that the rules be altered so than an S corporation paying this tax does not lose its S corporation status.

• S Corporation IRA Shareholders

o   This provision permits any S corporation bank to have IRA shareholders. Current law limits IRA ownership of S corporation banks to only those S corporation banks with stock held by an IRA as of October 22, 2004. As under current law, the IRA would be required to pay Unrelated Business Income Tax on its share of S corporation income. A significant percentage of banks are currently organized as S corporations.

• Charitable Contributions for Electing Small Business Trusts

o   ESBTs are allowed to own S corporation stock, but are not allowed a charitable deduction for certain donations to charitable organizations. Individual S corporation owners are allowed the charitable deduction. This provision would allow ESBTs to claim the deduction.

• Basis Parity for S Corporation Assets

o   This provision would provide a basis adjustment for S corporation assets, but do so in a way that would not require tracking the basis of individual assets, which would be complex and time consuming. Instead, upon the death of a shareholder, the S corporation would get a 15-year amortization deduction attributable to the percentage of S corporation assets owned by the deceased owner.

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So, I keep struggling with the possibility of switching, as I’m not happy with my PC continuing to lock up. Is it a power issue? Is it heat? Who knows. I’m simply tiring of dealing with it.  And to add insult to injury, my Real Estate office PC – which is quite important to me to have running – happened to take the opportunity to absolutely die in the middle of a Win10 update.

As in died so badly that I need to take a day and re-install everything from scratch.

So, one PC down hard. One ailing enough to require attention. Something has got to change. The question is… to what?

My current configuration is (roughly)  as follows…

CPU: AMD FX-8350
MOBO: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3
RAM: 16gb DDR3 Ram
Video: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
PS: Corsair HX650  (circa 2012)
Plus, 2 optical drives, about 5 Hard Drives, and a SATA add in card.
And for monitors, a 28 inch Samsung 4k UE590 and a 27 inch Samsung SynchMaster T27B350

It could be I’m asking too much of that 4 year old 650 Watt power supply, but regardless, it leaves me facing the question of whether to put $500 – 1000 into a PC that I’ll have to build for an i7 CPU, or do I drop $1800 into a MAC (including Apple care). I do have my eye on a refurbished MAC with the following specs..

Refurbished 27-inch iMac 3.2GHz Quad-core Intel Core i5 with Retina 5K display (Originally released October 2015)
27-inch (diagonal) Retina 5K display with IPS technology; 5120‑by‑2880 resolution
8GB memory
1TB hard drive
AMD Radeon R9 M380
Built-in FaceTime HD camera
(and I think I can hook my 4k monitor into the MAC for use as a second monitor)

As a PC guy, I’ve always looked at MACs as underpowered, but there’s something to be said for just working.  If I go PC, I’ll probably start largely from scratch, with the exception of the video card and some useful parts. If I go MAC, it’s a whole other story.

I had my finger on the “buy” button today for the MAC, but…. jeez. That price….. And those specs.   That’s what I was running 4 years ago!

But, those machines are pretty dominant in the graphic art industries.