From the Argus Leader, Senator Thune appears to have negotiated a significant increase in funding for Ag & Rail in SD:
South Dakota stands to be a major beneficiary of a new transportation bill making its way through Congress this week, with agriculture and rail among the biggest winners.
The bill, crafted by House and Senate negotiators including Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., would provide $305 billion nationwide for highways, bridges and transit over five years. The bill boosts highway spending by 15 percent and transit spending by 18 percent over its duration. South Dakota would receive $133 million more during the new five-year bill compared to current funding levels, according to the House Transportation Committee.
(Of course, I’m sure South Dakota democrats would have commented… but they still don’t have a candidate. Not that anyone would stand a snowball’s chance in hades at this late point.)
Woo! Red State Welfare!
Welfare recipients (Obamavoters) use the public roads too, so why do you hate them? Also, I do believe that public roads are used by people from other states. Try to use an apples-to-apples comparison next time, harebrain.
PC – let’s make sure everyone is healthy, fed, and educated before we plow more money into bridges to nowhere, yeah?
Or perhaps a more worthwhile question might be: Why is South Dakota entitled to more federal money back than what we put in?
Crossgrain, it’s not that South Dakota is entitled to the money, although many of our prominent citizens have that mentality of entitlement.
The Feds have known for a very long time that South Dakota would fold as an entity if they don’t get the welfare. And even though the welfare is a massive amount compared to the state budget, it is just a tiny drop of even the war department budget.
So really, it’s cheaper to give the welfare to South Dakota and not worry about having to occupy the area in the event of a radical takeover. Sad but true.
Im fiscal but this don’t count.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Thune’s digging in the pork barrel.
If anything the Dems should be praising Thune for finding a way to bring some funding to SD. Everyone should.
Only if it’s free money for food stamps and other entitlement programs-those things ensure votes for socialists/democrats, so they are worthwhile while roads, etc, that promote commerce are not. You need to get into the Democrat mind(less)set to understand their thinking.
So, you’re advocating letting children starve so business can have better roads?
WRONG again Anonymous! If your statement was true, South Dakota would not have the corrupt Republican government.
Think about your grade-school level statement for just a moment.
South Dakota has a complete Republican congressional delegation.
South Dakota has a corrupt state government completely controlled by Republicans.
So it appears that the welfare coming in does stimulate votes from the real welfare queens and kings – agriculture and highway construction.
You can spew what you want, but the numbers tell the real story.
South Dakota’s two major industries, Ag and tourism, are greatly dependent upon Federal funding. This transportation bill directly benefits our tourism interests and we should all remember that the next time we read a conservative on this blog site complaining about the Federal deficit and our general fiscal policies.
If this bill were part of a balanced budget, I would celebrate it, but we all know that that is not the case. It is more pork and more debt for which we are all going to pay the price at some future date.