In a news release issued during Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s budget address on Wednesday, Democratic leaders “welcomed Governor Dennis Daugaard’s acknowledgment that state spending must be cut.”
They expressed support for Daugaard’s cuts to the state bureaucracy. “Many are cuts we’ve proposed and supported for the past several years,” said House Minority Leader Bernie Hunhoff. “But we can’t support the governor’s goal to cut resources for school children, people with disabilities, and children and elderly with health problems.
The school and Medicaid budget cuts only pass the buck for these costs to local taxpayers in South Dakota,” Hunhoff said. “They will create higher property taxes, higher tuition in the tech schools and colleges, and higher health care costs for individuals and county governments.”
Democratic leaders in the state legislature say their budget plan, to be unveiled on Friday, will not cut education or health care for the poorest South Dakotans.