Guest Column: Gerry Lange -- Why I'm Running

Take the asterisk off Gerry Lange's name: he's filed those petitions for the District 8 House race. He's the first District 8 candidate to hit the Secretary of State's candidate list.

Now there are plenty of Republicans and even some Dems scratching their heads and wondering why Gerry would want to bother. He served in the Legislature for seven terms, then got turned out pretty handily last time. Why not just sit back and enjoy retirement and his huge family?

Let Gerry himself answer that question:

Feb. 20, 2008 WHY I’M RUNNING AGAIN FOR THE HOUSE
by Gerry Lange

The fact that the Rounds Administration orchestrated a thirty-thousand dollar campaign to “shut me up” last election tells me that my sixteen-year crusade for tax reform and better education funding, must have gotten to them. Like the problems left unsolved, I’m not going away either!

Here are three quick reasons why I’m “resurrecting from the dead.” School funding; open government; and economic development.

Even the Sioux Falls Chamber now agrees that we’ve got find a way to boost education. So why is the Rounds Administration asking for over three million dollars to fight the schools’ law suit? Secondly, what has the Governor to hide that makes him so nervous about allowing the press to see public documents? Third, why did Arctic Cat leave Madison; and why did Daktronics expand in Minnesota? Why are we so slow in developing wind energy?

After thirty years of one-party rule, isn’t it time to hold the party in power responsible? The problem is best summed up by Julian Bond’s observation after the Democrats lost in 2002. “When the shameless compete with the spineless, the shameless always win.” It seems to me that most Democrats in South Dakota today are “spineless” preferring to “solve” funding issues by spending one-time money out of the various reserve “trust’ accounts or slimming down “big government” in Pierre. The funding shift can’t happen without at least a two-thirds majority vote, so it just won’t happen, yet it makes for good talking points. Right now, only a couple of other states try to get by without some form of income tax. Here, it can be done without scaring the “W-2” employees. People with investment profits could help support education through a tax on the federal 1099 form. As in most other states, corporations in South Dakota could also add another100 million to education with a modest 6% tax. Following other states, with enlightened leadership in Pierre, we could move off “dead last in everything!”