While teacher pay and increasing health care coverage are both important issues, the most important issue to be tackled this legislative session must be government corruption. Over the last two years, we’ve seen the explosion of two major scandals, EB-5 and Gear Up. At last count, there are $120 million missing from the EB-5 funds; another $14 million from Gear Up, and nobody knows what happened to it. Those were our federal and state tax dollars that were stolen. That is $157.06 for every man, woman and child in South Dakota.
When the politicians in Pierre tell us all the things that we can’t afford, remember that $134,000,000. It was supposed to have increased the S.D. economy, educate hundreds of students, do an immense amount of good: but instead, it all went into somebody’s pocket. We just don’t know whose. But some people in this state milked those programs like a cow. There must be a serious, non-partisan, independent investigation of what happened.