Daugaard begins building his Big Government bureaucracy, Dusty Johnson to be the Chief

While Bob Mercer wonders if Dennis Daugaard will be the "Mr. Fix It" regarding the state budget, Daugaard announces his plans to build another expensive layer of government bureaucracy:

Rather than route most decisions through a chief of staff as Gov. Mike Rounds has done the past eight years, Gov.-elect Dennis Daugaard said he will have six people in his senior management team.

And Dusty Johnson was picked to head the team. The report also provided this important piece of information:

Daugaard was in San Diego and Colorado Springs for the past week attending training and orientation meetings held by the Republican Governors Association and the National Governors Association.

On November 1, Bob Mercer did a column on cronyism that included this:

One of the simmering controversies among members of the Legislature are taxpayerfunded trips for legislators to meetings of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a pro-business national organization that is largely funded by corporations.

Private sponsorships in large amounts also help underwrite national meetings of the National Governors Association, the Council of State Governments and the National Conference of State Legislatures that are attended by South Dakota officials and legislators.

Senator Mike Vehle has used taxpayer's money to attend Council of State Governments conferences. His campaign ads bragged about his role as "Co-Chair of Council of State Governments Midwest Economic Development Committee". In May 2009 I did a post that included Daugaard's Chief of Staff joining forces with Vehle to grow Davison County's government bureaucracy:

There’s always room for improvement, Davison County Commission Chairman Jerry Fischer said Tuesday, but things are running well in Davison County and no major changes are required.

That was the gist of Fischer’s response to recommendations made by the local planning group Focus 2020, which was represented at Tuesday’s commission meeting in the courthouse by state Sen. Mike Vehle and Public Utilities Commissioner Dusty Johnson. The two men, both Mitchell residents, are cochairmen of Focus 2020’s Government Structures Subcommittee. The subcommittee issued draft recommendations recently for the county that included hiring a "county mayor" to represent the county as a whole and holding evening instead of daytime meetings. Tuesday, Johnson and Vehle delivered presentations summarizing the recommendations.

The two Republicans are also pushing for Mitchell to add a city manager. I suspect these kinds of big government ideas come out of the National Governors Association and Council of State Governemnts.

The South Dakota GOP is being lead by big government advocates who get their marching orders from the National Governors Association and the Council for State Governments. Research shows their policy agenda to be in lockstep with Obama's far-left secular socialist agenda. While the GOP told South Dakota voters that Obama's stimulus was wrong headed, South Dakota's governemnt, lead by the GOP, was gladly spending it and hoping for more. 

It is sad to watch conservaitve Republicans being mislead by charismatic faux conservatives. The biggest lesson I learned during the District 20 Senate campaign was how little the GOP voters follow the policy positions of those they support. And for those who find out, they even go out of the way to hide the voting records that are an embarrassment to the principles of the party.

It was also disappointing to watch my conservative political allies idolize Dusty Johnson as he supported the far-left Mike Vehle and distanced himself from the real conservative in the race. For Dusty, power is more important than principles. And I congratulate him as he has gotten his wish. He is now the second most powerful man in South Dakota.

UPDATE: In today's Mitchell Daily Republic, Dusty Johnson is quoted;"It's not about being famous for me. It's about making South Dakota better." The political philosophy of the 2010 candidates for District 20 State Senate was clear. I adhere to the SDGOP platform, while Senator Vehle adheres to the secular socialist agenda that Barack Obama is pushing. So is Johnson saying the GOP platform is not in the best interest of South Dakota? He made it very clear to me on more than one occasion, he cares far more about GOP power than he does conservative principles of limited government and individual liberty. Perhaps the real agenda of the SDGOP is secular socialism, and they believe that is how we make South Dakota better. It would be nice to get this stuff out in the open so people would know, but that is not how the SDGOP works. They stay behind close doors and then deny conclusions people like me come to when we analyze their actions. It is sad that they even go behind close doors to discuss the South Dakota state budget. It is even more sad as they have expanded the control they have on the State.

Comments

[grudznick]

Mr. Sibby, you know I respect your opinions and share most of them that are political and not religious, but do you really want the Democrats to have power over the state legislatures and houses?

-grudznick

[Steve Sibson]

The Democrats already have power over us, but they are wearing Republican clothes.