Is SD’s anti-union, right-to-work, low wages hurting us?

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Well in the rankings business, it is;

“Most states point with great pride to the quality and availability of their workers, as well as government-sponsored programs to train them,” CNBC’s report said.

It rated states based on:

  • The education level of their workforce.
  • The number of available employees.
  • The states’ demonstrated ability to retain college-educated workers.
  • The concentration of STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — workers, increasingly in demand by business.

“We measure workforce productivity based on each state’s economic output per job,” it continued. “We look at the relative success of each state’s worker training programs in placing their participants in jobs. We also consider union membership and the states’ right-to-work laws. While organized labor contends that a union workforce is a quality workforce, that argument, more often than not, does not resonate with business.”

South Dakota ranked a somewhat concerning No. 39 in this category. It can’t be based on productivity, which is always strong, so I’m guessing our low unemployment and potentially comparatively low educational attainment might have hurt us.

I truly think more organized labor will turn these numbers around.

I told you so?

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epa0899l

I’m still spitting nails

This is the first of several stories we will be reading about how the Governor’s moronic, ignorant and mostly selfish plan to increase teacher pay falls short;

The legislation promised to give teachers significant raises and give South Dakota schools the ability to compete. But now that districts are doing the math, the Governor’s plan isn’t adding up.

I knew from the beginning, from the dirty track record of Rounds and Daugaard when it came to education funding, that his half-penny increase was a ploy to test the waters of a sales tax increase. Don’t we remember the same promises about Video Lottery?

While the half-penny increase will affect all of our wallets, you will soon see the funding to teachers diluted and the money basically going to property tax relief for the largest property owners in the state.

I warned of the precedent.

It’s easy to point our fingers at the Republicans for acting like a flock of sheep (well, not all of them), but it is the Democrats whose chickenshit votes to push this over a 2/3rds majority that really screwed the chicken on this one, when they all knew that there is millions in the education trust fund that could fill the gap of teacher pay WITHOUT RAISING TAXES!

What a mess, and the worst part about it is we will all be paying more for a broken plan that hasn’t even been implemented yet.

 

HB1182 passes senate, one of the most ignorant decisions the State Legislature has ever made

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I have been following the state legislature for many years, and passing a regressive sales tax increase to give raises to one sector of public employment is probably one of the worst things I have seen our state legislature do in recent memory (besides all the social issues).

I won’t rant about all the other options we had to increase teacher pay without raising taxes, we have seen those options (there are hundreds). One of the best that was actually presented to me a few years ago by representative Hunhoff (who voted yes) was pulling from our gigantic state reserves. We didn’t hear much from Hunhoff on that idea this session. He must have forgotten about it.

So what happened? The only ones voting against this were the cheap skates of the legislature, who would vote against any tax increase. But what about the other Republicans? Are they so scared of property tax and and income tax that they voted to tax the poorest of our society more? Most likely.

But the big losers in this debate? The SD Democratic party. For years they cry about the food tax and general regression of sales taxes to begin with, and when they had a chance to stand up to this and present their own plan they suddenly turn into a gigantic flock of chickenshits.

It doesn’t surprise me our doofus of a governor would concoct such an ignorant plan, I just never imagined 2/3 of our legislature was this moronic to go along with it.

I’ll pray for you tonight.

Interesting comment on using sales taxes to fund education

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A South DaCola foot soldier found this comment (I believe on Argusleader.com). Just like video lottery, will the promises be broken on education funding?

Rick Kriebel ·

Rapid City, South Dakota

The big problem is that the tax revenue grows three times faster than the state allows school funding to grow,,, The Blue ribbon task farce recommended keeping the inflation up to 3% limitation,,, here is what that causes,,,

Using the trends of the last 5 years – sales taxes have grown at 5.34% per year and k-12 funding has increased by about 1.9% per year, and assuming the schools get 75 million of the half penny.

Assuming these trends continue for the next 10 years,,,

1) The 109 million dollar tax will grow to 183 million.

2) The schools will only receive 91 million of the 183 million tax increase.

3) Leaving 92 million, more than half ! – for our fiscally conservative Rinos’ to spend after just 10 years.

4) by 20 years – the tax grows to about 310 million – schools will get about 110 million and the Rinos’ will have a dainty 200 million dollar slush fund, nearly TWICE AS MUCH as the schools will be getting,,

5) By 10 years or less the schools wiil be broke because of the “inflation up to 3%” limitation and the schools will be screaming for more money and us poor taxpayers will be on FB and blogs asking

WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THAT SALES TAX MONEY THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO GO TO EDUCATION

This is as simple as fool me once, fool me twice !!