The Associated Press has an article today about how far South Dakota Democrats are in the hole. And includes a few thoughts from Republican party leaders on maintaining the mandate the voters have given us:
Gov. Dennis Daugaard, who was sworn in along with state legislators Saturday, advised Republicans to “act with courage and to do things that may be risky politically” because South Dakota residents respect politicians who vote in keeping with their values.
and…
“The things that we’ve done in the past did not work in this election, and I don’t think they’re going to,” Barth said. “The party is so, so feeble that now we fight harder than ever with each other as opposed to fighting to win together.”
and…
“Sometimes you catch the wind, and sometimes the wind is in your face,” Thune said, remembering his 524-vote defeat in 2002 and the tough race that brought him to the Senate in 2004. “It feels good to be part of a movement.”
He said if Republican candidates listen to their constituents and, at least at the federal level, remember their roots, the eye-popping margins could be sustained.
“Act with courage” and “Listen to constituents.” Pretty good advice.
You have made incredible progress!
Still lowest paid teachers in the country.
Educated young leaving the state as fast as they can.
One of the biggest welfare states in the US.
Infrastructure crumbling but no way to pay because hard-line owners of the party fight any way to pay.
….and on and on, ad nauseam.
Great progress. You should brag some more about it!
–low teacher pay tends to correlate with high student achievement
–in-state migration TO SD outpaces out-state migration; exceeds MN
–Obama’s growing federal debt of 17 trillion indicates EVERY state is a welfare state
–infrastructure? no highway bridge in SD fell like the one in MN; can’t build new infrastructure like Keystone XL because of Obama
on and on go the facts…
Nice try at deflection.
Your teacher pay comment: total bull excrement
Student migration: No citation, but completely ignoring the fact of brain drain in South Dakota.
South Dakota receives back much, much more than sent in – that money is confiscated from states like California which gets back about 65% or so of what it sends in. In a country of welfare states, South Dakota is one of the biggest welfare recipients.
I guess the fact that you claim no highway bridge has fallen lets the legislators off the hook? A huge percentage of bridges in South Dakota are horrible shape – and that is much more important to South Dakotans than the pipeline.
You’re great at focusing on Minnesota and the hated Obama, who is probably going to go down in history as being instrumental in saving America. How about focusing on South Dakota and looking at these problems head-on. Unless you don’t have the intellectual ability. We’ll all understand if that is the case.
South Dakota is home to large amounts of Native American land (including some of the poorest counties in the country), as well as large national parks and Mt. Rushmore. For a state with such a low population, those two factors alone skew the numbers. There is also Ellsworth Air Force Base.
These three factors — Indian reservations, national parks, and a military base — coupled with a low population, play the major part in making South Dakota appear to be heavily-subsidized by the federal government.
actually the list that everyone cites is a percentage comparison list which really distorts the issue because there’s no state-to-state comparison to provide context. so a 40% federal dollar figure on south dakota’s total budget doesn’t have any relationship whatsoever to a 20% federal dollar figure on north dakota’s total budget. the real factor there is south dakota’s lower overall state budget. alaska has the lowest percentage of federal dollars in their total state budget, but per person they receive the most federal dollars of any state in the nation. south dakota’s presence on the list everyone’s passing around has no meaning unless you put more numbers and context to it.
well the democrats certainly didn’t have any answers. except to post screeds like the one at the start of this comment list.
oh wait, they had answers. tantrums and lawsuits.
What should we do to raise money to fix roads and highways?
um, it’s being done? that’s a trick question isn’t it.
We should revamp the federal highway find to fund highways…
instead of using 25% of the federal highway fund to fund non-highways.
Wow. Job done.
Good riddance to the dems. We did not need you, we do not want you. All the best ideas are Republican, and we do not need to reach across the aisle for any “answers” or “solutions”. As a matter of fact, democrats have no ideas worth listening to at all. Thank God, as he was a Republican.