I got busy working on things yesterday, and forgot to acknowledge that an election was held in conjunction with the budget address yesterday.

State Representative Steve Haugaard was elected to serve as the House Speaker Pro Tempore to replace Don Haggar, who resigned from the legislature to serve as the Executive Director for the South Dakota chapter of Americans for Prosperity.

If Steve continues to serve past the next election, he is in line to be the next Speaker of the House.

Congratulations Representative Haugaard!

Governor Dennis Daugaard will be making his next to last budget address this morning without a lot of hints other than telling the associated press that money is tight:

Daugaard said that officials will have to “tighten our belt” for the current budget year and be “very judicious” with the money available for 2019. Daugaard said that he will not be recommending cuts, but rather reducing the projected growth of some state expenses.

Read that here.

What’s the budget proposal going to contain? Governor Daugaard had made the point a few days ago to talk about how medical services are taxed… which seems a somewhat unexpected and ominous point to make in the run up to the budget:

Gov. Dennis Daugaard plans to talk about that situation and a variety of others Tuesday, when he delivers the annual budget speech to the Legislature.

“It’s one of the points we’re going to make on weakened sales tax,” Liza Clark, the governor’s commissioner of budget and finance, said Thursday.

Noem Earns Seat on Tax Reform Conference Committee

Washington, D.C. – Rep. Kristi Noem was today named to the Tax Reform Conference Committee, a small group of lawmakers who have been tasked with completing tax reform negotiations.

“There’s almost no federal policy that has a bigger impact on families’ day-to-day lives than the tax code,” said Noem. “In tax reform, we’re talking about giving folks a break at those critical life milestones, such as when they grow their family, buy a home, start a business, or pass that business down to their children. We’re also talking about improving things on a broader scale so wages rise and more jobs open up in our hometowns. While there are differences between the two versions, I’m optimistic we’re coming at this with a united front, striving for the same vision of stronger families and a stronger future for all Americans.”

Noem’s entry into public service came after her family was hit by the Death Tax following a farm accident that took her dad’s life. Noem went on to serve in the South Dakota State Legislature where she was appointed to the House Taxation Committee. Following her election to the U.S. House, Noem served on a series of committees, including the House Agriculture Committee where she successfully negotiated the 2014 Farm Bill as a member of that Conference Committee. In 2015, Noem earned a seat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, the first South Dakotan in history to do so.

Today, Noem is a leading voice in support of the Death Tax repeal. Earlier this year, conservative, anti-tax leader Grover Norquist explained Noem’s “hard work and persistence has made our progress to date possible and is our greatest asset in the serious fight to kill the Death Tax once and for all.” The House’s tax reform proposal includes a full and permanent repeal of the Death Tax, which is based on Noem’s legislation.

Additionally, Noem, a mother to three, has become the leading advocate for a pro-family tax policy, working closely with the administration to dramatically increase the Child Tax Credit and related family provisions. She also fought to save the Child Care Credit, an important provision to a state like South Dakota in which more than 80 percent of moms work.

Noem has also championed the exclusion of the Indian Health Service’s Student Loan Repayment program from tax as well as pro-agriculture provisions relating to interest deductibility and expensing.

###

Apparently about a month ago, Republican Candidate for Governor Terry LaFleur engaged “New Age Consultants” out of St. Louis Missouri to conduct a poll for his race for Governor, and released the results to the public. What the poll results show is that the Republican contest is it’s a neck and neck race within the margin of error.

Unfortunately, it’s between Republican Candidates Marty Jackley and Kristi Noem (No Lora Hubbel?).

If the primary election for Governor were held today and your choices were: Marty J. Jackley, Terry LaFleur or Kristi Noem, for whom would you vote? [ROTATE]
a. Marty J. Jackley – 24%
b. Kristi Noem – 22%
c. Terry LaFleur – 3%
d. I am undecided. – 51%

I’m not familiar with the consulting firm LaFleur appears to have engaged for his campaign who he says conducted the poll. All I can find on the person running it is that he was at Best Buy and Office Max before he started his consulting firm about 7- 8 years ago.

I’m just going to stop there. I’m not sure what more that you can say about any of it.

Stay tuned.

Republican Candidate for Governor Terry Lee LaFleur made an announcement last week that he now has an endorsement for his candidacy as part of his bonafides.

An endorsement of a guy they made a movie about twenty years ago:

I’m not sure how this endorsement helps LaFleur capture the Republican nomination for Governor. Your guess is as good as mine.

The question bigger than “who is Patch Adams supporting in the 2018 South Dakota Republican primary?” is “can LaFleur collect a sufficient number of signatures for placement on the ballot?”  GIven that LaFleur’s activities of running for the office have been sporadic at best, I’m kind of a doubting thomas on that question.

Signature collection begins in less than 30 days. LaFleur might be excited that Patch Adams is fired up for him, but if he wants to get on the ballot, it might be a good idea to work on some South Dakotans too.

Gubernatorial Candidate Marty Jackley has a well attended hometown fundraiser in Sturgis this past Thursday night, as you can see from a photo of the event at the Loud American Roadhouse in Sturgis, SD.

(Try the beef tips if you ever get there. They’re not bad.)

From the Argus Leader, the state is going to try to unload the surplus property it calls STAR Academy once more after failing to find someone to bid on it the first time:

The governor’s office has decided to hold a second public auction of the 173-acre former STAR Academy property near Custer, the Rapid City Journal reported . The auction is scheduled for Jan. 4 at the Custer County Courthouse.

The first public auction was held Oct. 18, but failed to draw interest from the three bidders in attendance. The minimum reserve bid was set at $2.34 million.

The state’s School and Public Lands Commissioner Ryan Brunner said the second auction’s initial bid will need to be the same amount.

Read it all here.

Anyone have a couple million laying around that they want to dump into old state buildings?

Behind-the-Scenes Work in the Senate
By Sen. John Thune

If you tune in to a cable news show, you’ll likely find members of Congress, pundits, and other analysts dissecting the latest stories of the day or providing their perspective on why a certain policy would be good or bad for the American people. If you flip over to C-SPAN, you might find a similar scene. While it’s certainly not primetime, edge-of-your-seat television, it does offer Americans an important glimpse into the democratic process.

Sometimes, though, rather than watching a heated debate between Republicans and Democrats, a loyal C-SPAN viewer might instead discover an empty Senate or House chamber with classical music filling the otherwise quiet airwaves. Such a scene doesn’t mean members of Congress aren’t hard at work – quite the opposite, actually. A lot of the work that’s done in Congress is accomplished behind the scenes in the various committees on which we serve.

In the Senate alone, there are 20 committees, 68 subcommittees, and four joint committees. All of them play a distinct and integral role in writing legislation and providing oversight of the executive branch. The Senate is in the personnel business, too. The committees vet and the Senate confirms the president’s nominees to posts in the executive and judicial branches of the federal government. All that to say, without committees, it would be very difficult to get our work done for the American people.

I serve on three committees in the 115^th Congress: the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee; the Finance Committee; and the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, of which I serve as chairman. These committee assignments put me in a unique position to deliver positive results on the issues that matter most to South Dakotans.

Planes, trains, and automobiles – that’s a quick and easy way to describe a large portion of the issues we oversee in the Commerce Committee. In a state that depends on all forms of transportation, leading this committee gives me the chance to highlight South Dakota and all of its particular needs. With the committee’s involvement in advancing 21^st Century technology, I’m hoping South Dakota can be at the forefront on issues like autonomous vehicle and 5G mobile broadband technologies.

The benefit of serving on the Agriculture Committee is an obvious one. Agriculture is the top industry in South Dakota, and it helps put food on dining room tables around the state, country, and world. With the 2018 farm bill right around the corner, the Agriculture Committee is going to be working hard to get a bill on the president’s desk next year. I’ve gotten a head start and have already introduced multiple individual farm bill proposals that would improve current programs in different titles of the bill. I’m planning to introduce additional proposals throughout this process, too.

The Finance Committee has been the epicenter for a number of the Senate’s major legislative initiatives this year, most notably the effort to pass a pro-growth tax reform bill to help middle-income South Dakota families keep more of their hard-earned paycheck. The government takes too large of a bite out of family budgets, which is why tax reform is needed now more than ever.

Every day that I serve in the Senate is a humbling one, and the opportunity to pursue opportunities like these on behalf of South Dakotans through my committee work makes my job even more fulfilling. 

###

Making Good on our Promise
By U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.)

For too long, American families and businesses have been stuck with a complicated, costly tax code that has hindered economic growth and prosperity. Since being sworn into the Senate in 2015, reforming the code that will provide much-needed tax relief for South Dakota families has been one of my top priorities. Now that the Senate passed its version of tax reform, we are closer than ever to making tax relief a reality.

It has been more than 30 years since our tax code has been reformed. Since then, other countries have lowered their rates to become more successful in an increasingly competitive global market. Meanwhile, our tax rate has barely changed, but the tax code has grown more than 40,000 pages in length. It’s no wonder growth has been stagnant for the past decade – averaging just 1.5 percent, half the post-World War II average. We simply cannot afford to continue with the status quo.

Fortunately, the economy has begun to bounce back. Second-quarter growth increased to 3.3 percent this year, and the stock market is stronger than ever. Part of that growth stems from the American people expecting to see a tax cut soon, so they feel more confident investing in the economy once again. The Senate’s Tax Cut and Jobs Act will keep the momentum going and allow more Americans to keep more of their paycheck and spend that money how they see fit. Based on the Senate Finance Committee’s bill, an average American family of four making around $73,000 would see a tax cut of around $2,200. This results in real money that families won’t have to pay to the government and can use however they want.

The tax reform bill passed by the Senate takes meaningful steps to reform our tax code in a manner that will allow businesses to flourish again and families to keep more of their hard-earned dollars. It will provide more jobs, bigger paychecks and a fairer tax system, especially to lower- and middle-income Americans who haven’t seen a pay raise in nearly a decade. Under our bill, businesses will have the stability they need to confidently grow their companies, hire more workers, increase wages and reinvest back into the economy.

Reforming the tax code will create a healthy, more vibrant economy that we can pass onto our kids and grandkids, and greatly improve the quality of life for South Dakotans. Our tax reform bill must now be reconciled with the House-passed version, where final differences will be worked out. I’m confident we can get this across the finish line and to the president’s desk in a timely manner. We are less than nine years away from America’s 250th birthday in 2026. A commonsense tax structure that reduces taxes and unleashes the full potential of our economy is a vital component in reaching our goal of relieving American families from the federal government’s heavy hand.

###