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Lift the income requirements to qualify for the Governor's House Program to $85,000 or less in a one- or two-person household to, or $95,000 or less in a household of three or more. With home prices rising across the state, the income qualifications need to rise accordingly.
Participants' net worth should be lifted to less than $175,000—or $125,000 in liquid assets—for applicants age 61 or younger.
Have a net worth of less than $350,000—or $175,000 in liquid assets—for applicants age 62 or older.
One cannot expect to stagnate the qualifications when home pricing is skyrocketing.
Petitioners should be required to gather 5% of the qualified electors within ALL 66 counties of South Dakota, based on the total number of votes cast for governor at the last preceding gubernatorial elections. Currently, initiated measure petitioners mainly collect signatures in high urban areas, leaving out vast swaths of qualified electors in our rural counties without a voice on an initiated measure. I would support a change to the initiated measure process that would include the collection of signatures in all 66 counties.
Maintaining our election integrity is of utmost importance in a democratic republic form of government. When election security and integrity are called into question, faith in governmental institutions is eroded quickly. Our elections must operate with the highest level of integrity. County auditors should be mandated to have precinct poll workers from each party and all poll books reconciled for accuracy before turning in the ballot box to the county auditor. Request for absentee ballots are to be made by the voter in writing; however, all absentee ballots should be mailed to a central or regional voting center, safeguarded, and then distributed to the county auditor on Election Day for verification and counting purposes only.
Access to quality childcare is a personal choice. The government should not be mandating to parents what is considered quality childcare. People have differing opinions as to its accessibility or what is considered quality childcare. Job opportunities within the private sector that offer incentives for quality childcare are preferred, assuming the business can afford to offer childcare as part of its hiring model.
The challenge I see is how rural South Dakotans have been neglected by those in our urban centers. The elected officials within our urban areas have no idea of the challenges that small-town municipalities, school districts, and county governments have in maintaining budgets or resources that are disproportional to the revenue stream or quality of governmental services offered. It is a fact that urban areas take advantage of sales tax revenue generated by those living within our rural areas. I believe a percentage of those revenues and resources need to flow back to our rural areas of South Dakota so that all South Dakotans within our 66 counties thrive.
South Dakota Government approved $200 million of state and federal funds for loans and grants that were not spent. The next year Governor Noem warned that funding might "go unused" for reasons that she provided. I heard state legislators say the funding needed to be used to meet an expected housing shortage due to people moving into the state. Legislators appeared to be gleeful in announcing a giveaway that landlords attending the meeting lined up to benefit from. It seemed that affordable housing was back-burner. I think state government should refrain from using taxpayer funding that is repeatedly echoed as "free money," which is reflexively construed by taxpayers as vote buying. That inflates housing prices.
Initiatives and referendums must be a discussion held exclusively between citizens of the state without influence by lobbies, corporations, unions and also funding beyond South Dakota borders. The process must not be allowed to erode and replace rule of law with political theater. Voters should refrain from enabling themselves to become overly generous with the taxpayer treasury, stretching it beyond limits as expressed within the State Constitution. Voters should refrain from enabling themselves to diminish Constitutional Bill of Rights in risk to losing those rights for any great length of time. Our Nation is a Constitutional Republic that promotes mob rule through voting and that is dangerous.
Election Chain of Custody must be transparently audited by the Executive and Legislative Branches of government. The Judiciary must not reject citizens having cause to redress government. Currently, checks and balances between branches of government are nonexistent and also nonresponsive to citizens seeking to shine light on trespasses by willing government actors and seedy characters against Election Chain of Custody. The spectrum of trespasses against election security and integrity are well documented by citizen groups of South Dakota who are being shunned as troublemakers for identifying deviations of law by the very government offices trusted with enforcing laws. Government offices are enabling trespasses against State Sovereignty.
To make childcare affordable, childcare businesses and contributors to childcare business should be incentivized through itemized tax deductions (that do not require meeting a threshold to qualify for the deduction) for (1) childcare businesses, (2) parents or guardians seeking childcare for children under 13, and (3) contributors to childcare businesses.
Government should prohibit mandating standardizing social programming of children in childcare. Establish a menu of itemized tax deductions for contributors to childcare providers for recruitment, retention and training for employees. Provide tax deductions for education. Eliminate tax on food.
South Dakota is a welfare state, a Domestic Dependent of the United States Congress and its bureaucratic corps. This is the greatest challenge for South Dakotans. More than half the state budget comes from the federal government, having scope of work that intrudes on State Sovereignty. The South Dakota Government is volunteering to become subjected to federal control. South Dakota is wavering States' Rights to achieve dependency on the federal government. It's bewildering to me that South Dakota government desires to become like an Indian Reservation while knowing about negative and devastating demographics of Indian Reservations. The State should restrain itself from overregulating productivity and innovation spring from its citizens.
