That stimulus money must have fixed the South Dakota budget crisis! After rediscovering his support for Birth to 3 and the South Dakota Arts Council, Governor Rounds has made the final declaration that the crisis is over: he's leaving the state! After the dire state fiscal situation compelled the Governor to skip a governors' confab in nearby Omaha and the Presidential Inauguration, Governor Rounds is flying to Washington this weekend for the winter meeting of the National Governors Association.
Never mind that we don't have a budget yet, or that no legislation has passed yet to address the structural deficit. Everything is just fine, say the governor's actions.
Whew! Looks like I can submit those travel requests for academic conferences after all. Hooray!
Hmmmm. The U.S. is facing the BIGGEST CRISIS EVER (according to the Prez) and we GOTTA HAVE THIS STIMULUS BILL RIGHT NOW!!!
ReplyDeleteSo they pass it, and the Prez takes a leisurely weekend and Monday off, and flies to Denver to sign it.
But Rounds can't go to a Governor's conference because....
Hmmmm....
And BTW, I am not a Rounds fan (for likely different reasons than yours). It's just that you are stretching it with this one. There are a lot of more important reasons to beat up on him. Must be a slow blog day.
ReplyDeleteOh, mbk, I never said anything of the sort. I'm not even stretching. The governor made a big deal in December about how the state just didn't have the money for things like out-of-state travel. He canceled trips of his own to save money. Apparently now we have the money.
ReplyDelete[If you were paying attention, you'd note that I too questioned why we were waiting a whole weekend to sign the stimulus bill. But Obama will never win with you: had he signed it immediately, you'd be here screaming that Obama didn't read the bill or didn't give the public time to scrutinize it... which I've heard was exactly what he wanted to leave time for, review and transparency. Oh well.]
and "slow blog day"? It was still worth your time... :-D
ReplyDelete"Do as I Say, Not as I Do"...Well, I guess he has to represent us sometime, somewhere other than within our borders. Maybe he'll get inspired and actually come back to earth on his budget proposals.
ReplyDeleteSorry, didn't see that one. Didn't know you devoted one line of an otherwise fawning post to wondering why he didn't sign it sooner. My bad.
ReplyDeleteBTW, the "transparency" and all that stuff should have happened before Obama and Congress rammed it through. Not after.
No travel means NO TRAVEL. Sell the airplanes...ALL OF THEM!
ReplyDeleteIf we are going to be a backwater state lets start getting rid of fat.
That's right, the Governor declared no travel in his origional budget. However, I wondered how long it would be before Rounds would decide he had to travel out of state.
ReplyDeleteCAH:
ReplyDeleteJust to clarify, the travel lockout only applies to state funds. All federal (NSF) funds are exempt from this edict. I assume whoever you're working for has an NSF grant to support you.
This was actually an issue on my campus with an email train being sent to the entire faculty email list and quite a bit of argument back and forth. Inevitably, it came down to the state restricting the work they had contracted with the federal government to do. Overhead that the state charges come with quite a few strings.
Not to go off-topic, but this is important. You are in education, so what just happened? This guy has a thoughtful perspective the situation here
ReplyDeletehttp://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=PluckPersona&U=ef66512df9764b458799bf3868487e22&plckPersonaPage=BlogViewPost&plckUserId=ef66512df9764b458799bf3868487e22&plckPostId=Blog%3aef66512df9764b458799bf3868487e22Post%3af34ff075-97bd-457e-9079-806ce86fb791&plckController=PersonaBlog&plckScript=personaScript&plckElementId=personaDest
and then I find out it's a totally different plan -
http://www.globegazette.com/articles/2009/02/20/breaking_news/doc499f639bd0f83532819078.txt
What do you think about this situation ? Is this a good direction for the college ?
Deficit doesn't stop O from gadding here and there in his "spread the fear" campaign about the economy. Guess Rounds' one trip to the governors' conference might be acceptable so he can learn how all these millions of my money (oops, my bad, not mine, theirs) is to be spent and how many hoops we have to jump thru and mortgage our state future for to get. O doesn't seem to be concerned about the country's lack of money or His carbon footprints. Why should the rest of us?
ReplyDelete