South Dakota Editorial Roundup

Federal money would give state time to make decisions

We don’t like the idea of the federal government going deeper into debt in order to provide state governments with more money to cover their financial shortfalls. But we also don’t like the idea of forgoing our state’s share of that money, because we will all have to help repay it, whether or not we accept it.

So we agree with Gov. Mike Rounds and those legislators who want to accept the money rather than make cuts in the 2011 budget for state government in South Dakota. But we also want the Legislature to proceed with the cuts that were planned. The Legislature should pass the cuts this year and have them take effect for the 2012 budget.

That will allow state government departments, agencies and universities to spend the next 15 months deciding how to accomplish the cuts. ...

The governor is in his last year of office. That means whatever budget he proposes in December for 2012 normally would be meaningless. But if the Legislature puts in law this year the cuts that must be made for 2012, the governor has the next eight months to put together his plan for accomplishing them.

Frankly, we think giving state departments more time is the prudent thing to do when it comes to significant cuts such as those the Legislature is considering. Making cuts now for the 2011 state budget that starts on July 1 of this year doesn’t provide sufficient time.

... Many Republican and Democratic legislators want permanent budget cuts. Many of the Republican and Democratic candidates for governor want permanent budget cuts. Our current governor would prefer to ride out the storm one more time using federal money and state reserves. That only delays the hard decisions.

Now is the time to make those decisions. We can use the governor’s approach to give time to the affected departments and agencies to come up with their plans for accomplishing the cuts. As carpenters have long proven, there is value in measuring twice and cutting once.

Aberdeen American News

U.S. Congress shows us its procedural side again

If nothing else, the health care reform debate in Washington has cultivated a question that transcends all political leanings: Where on earth does Congress come up with all these maddening procedural rules?

The most recent piece of technical peculiarity came to our attention last week when the so-called “deem and pass” rule was raised by House Democrats as a means of advancing the health care reform effort. ... Under the “deem and pass” procedure — which is referred to as a self-executing rule — if the U.S. House votes to approve a piece of legislation with such a rule attached, it can then deem a second bill as also approved without actually voting for it, as long as that second bill is specifically mentioned in the rule that is voted upon by lawmakers. The rule must be adopted for the debate on the first bill.

This irritating parliamentary wrinkle came up as House Democrats worked to pass the Senate version of the health care reform bill, thus allowing the measure to proceed to reconciliation, another parliamentary quirk that has been pulled into play to sidestep the threat of yet another, and quite overused, tactic: the Senate filibuster. ...

It makes Washington look like a maddening circus, where trick plays can advance or squelch major pieces of legislation, where one lawmaker can essentially hold the entire nation hostage by playing the right card at the right moment. It’s certainly one of the contributing factors to why Congress’s approval rating stood at 19 percent in one poll last week. It’s a showing based not only on what our lawmakers are doing, but also on what they aren’t doing. ...

Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan

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