South Dakota legislators have a lot of bullets to bite

Gordon Garnos

AT ISSUE: Biting the bullet is an old expression out West River way, but most South Dakotans should know that it means “get tough,” or “face reality,” or similar meanings. I was told the expression was if a cowboy got shot and had to have the bullet removed, or if he got bit by a rattle snake, he was told to put a bullet in his mouth and bite down hard while the first bullet was being removed or while the poison was being sucked out to help relieve the pain. Well, believe it or not, the 2010 session of the South Dakota Legislature isn’t very far away. Neither is a mountain of financial problems our legislators are going to have to face this session, even if 2010 is an election year. In other words, our legislators have a lot of bullets to bite if they are going to get anywhere come January.

WHEN IT COMES to the South Dakota Legislature and its upcoming 2010 session there seems to be a lot more questions about money, or the lack of it, than answers awaiting the legislative members and our Governor.

As we have written in recent columns, do our legislators have any answers for the question of where to get the necessary funding? Some $240 million is needed to play catch up on the construction and maintenance of our state’s highways and bridges. Several ideas are being floated by the South Dakota¹s Transportation Commission, but how far will they go, as far as the Legislature is concerned, is very hard to tell.

An estimated $150 million is predicted as the deficit in our state government’s general budget. Are there any ideas on how to get that replaced without having to dip into the state’s reserve funds? Again, I haven’t heard of any suggestions that don’t call for a tax of one kind or another. A state income tax is still a very dirty word, but one we may have to be saying and later praying for forgiveness.

THE SOUTH DAKOTA Retirement Fund has not had a good past two or three years . How can the public pension fund get back some $1.2 billion it has lost in recent times because of the recession and poor stock market? Its trustees have come up with some general suggestions, but any one of them they recommend has to be approved by the Legislature. There may be some hope here, but don’t count on any of them until the Governor signs the bill into law.

Another question our legislators need to find an answer for deals with the state’s unemployment compensation insurance. Because of the recession and the state’s growing unemployment numbers. At this point, starting this month, it looks like an emergency surtax is being hoisted on all employers of the state. But will that bring up the necessary funding needed to pay our unemployed workers and still add to the kitty for South Dakota’s unemployment compensation insurance program ?

ALTOGETHER, OUR 105 legislators and our Governor have to make decisions on millions of dollars, decisions they failed to make during the last session, putting them on the shelf until the 2010 session. How many of them will make it through the session? That is a multi-million dollar question that won’t be answered until March 29, Veto Day, when our legislators return to Pierre to close the books on the session’s business.

Questions also now being asked involves who to blame for this mess? Obviously, the economy has to take a big hit. But blame also has to be laid at the feet of inattention and inaction by previous legislative sessions, particularly the last one. Political gamesmanship has to be part of the problem. So does over-optimism for the state’s various taxes and fees to bring in more money than they have so far. Some even blame Governor Rounds for not using stronger leadership up to now. All of this, of course, has been magnified by South Dakota’s down right bad luck in the past couple of years.

AT THE SAME TIME, the state’s stimulus funds received from big brother in Washington have helped a great deal. They have served as a bridge, but with the flood of financial problems facing the state, I’m not sure how much more that bridge may be able to take.

The way capital correspondent Bob Mercer recently put in one of his columns showing the enormity of the state’s financial problem, “Starting today (Sept. 19) the Legislature and the Governor would need to find about $1 million a day, in either cuts or more revenue, in order to bring the budget into balance by mid-March. That’s about $200 apiece for every child, woman and man in South Dakota – or about 60 cents a day.”

In other words, in pure South Dakota vernacular, that’s a lot of bullets to bite. Will our legislators be able to relieve the pain, at least somewhat, by solving at least some of our state’s financial problems? They sound worse than either getting shot or a snake bite….

Gordon Garnos was long-time editor of the Watertown Public Opinion, retiring after 39 years with that newspaper. Garnos, a lifelong resident of South Dakota except for his military service in the U.S. Air Force, was born and raised in Presho.

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