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Thursday, February 28, 2008

Rounds Loses Abdallah's Vote... and Who Else's?

Senator Gene Abdallah is on SDPB Dakota Midday, and he is making a pretty stern last-ditch argument for restoring the $2 million Governor Rounds has cut from the Highway Patrol budget. Party loyalty be darned, he's letting Governor Rounds have it with every argument he can pull out. Among Abdallah's points:
  1. Abdallah says Governor Rounds came to the legislature five years ago and asked for three years of subsidy for the State Fair. Says Abdallah, the governor said that if the State Fair didn't turn things around in three years, they could pull the plug. We're in year 5 of the subsidy, which Abdallah says he didn't vote for.
  2. Abdallah questions why the Governor can tell the Legislature to watch the bottom line, but then let's a huge deficit in the gas tax collections sneak up on him.
  3. Abdallah criticizes the state's purchases of expensive airplanes.

Governor Rounds has apparently lost a lot of support from the law enforcement community. He's exerting a lot of energy criticizing school superintendents in their hometown papers -- just icing on the bitter cake for educators who already have enough reason to oppose the Governor. Just curious -- what happened to that really nice smiley guy who beat mean old Barnett and Kirby? And is this the kind of political momentum a potential GOP challenger to Tim Johnson wants to have?

1 comment:

  1. Please tell me where the Leadership is with Governor Rounds?

    Had he wanted buy-in of his $2 Million reduction in Highway Patrol funding, he should have met with law enforcement and explained why he felt delaying vehicle purchases and cutting some overtime would not affect safety in our State, rather than let Abdallah go public first.

    If he truly believed 2.5% was fair for K-12 Education Funding rather than the 3.8% that was proposed by his own party leadership, he should have made his case before it became a public spectacle.

    Governor Rounds has not proven to be a leader, nor has he shown vision for our State. He simply regurgitates old Janklow policies and claims them as his own, or he reacts to circumstances.

    It is time we ask him where he expects our State to be in three, five and ten years. That takes leadership.

    ReplyDelete

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