This interview originally aired on "In the Moment" on SDPB Radio.
Tom Dempster brings his political analysis to the latest episode of "In the Moment Statehouse." Dempster is a former South Dakota state senator.
He's been in Pierre for several state budget battles and shares his insights on the current budgetary debates.
Plus, we discuss taxes, school vouchers and the impacts of empty seats in the Legislature.
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The following transcript was auto-generated.
Lori Walsh:
Tom Dempster is a former South Dakota state senator and he is our Dakota Political Junkie for today. He's going to bring his unique perspective and insight to some of the issues in the Capitol's spotlight, including vouchers for public schools, the state budget, and of course those current vacancies.
He is seated with me across the table at SDPB's Kirby Family Studio. Welcome back. Thanks for being here.
Tom Dempster:
Absolutely delighted to be here. Thank you for the invitation.
Lori Walsh:
The budget is always a conversation in Pierre, and this year as we're seeing the long tail of COVID funding and federal funding.
Tom Dempster:
That extraordinarily long tail of COVID funding for sure. What percent of the state budget is it? 40%, 50%, 60%. It's crazy.
Lori Walsh:
So let's talk about what happens next. What are you seeing unwind with some of these budget conversations that's worth noting?
Tom Dempster:
Legacy is important, I think. And legacy itself has a really, really long tail. South Dakota has the fourth lowest state and local tax burden in the country, and precisely at a time when COVID funding is running out, precisely a time when we're unsure about an economy, we have people talking about eliminating the sales tax on food, which was a bomb drop, I think, from a grocery store. We have people talking about making the reduction in sales tax a permanent reduction.
And from my perspective, particularly how fiscally conservative South Dakota is, neither of those two measures leave a legacy that you would want, because it decreases the revenue of your future office holders and binds people to what could be a fairly miserable future in state government of trying to find revenue when there just isn't revenue.
As I had mentioned before, when I had the wonderful pleasure of being in the Senate, we had a chalkboard, and on the chalkboard were spenders and bleeders. And woe be it if you made that list of spenders, additional spending beyond what was done in the last previous budget, or bleeders, things that are done to reduce the power of the tax base.
These things are not bleeders from my perspective. These things potentially could be heart attacks. I think they're dangerous things to do and I think they do not leave a good legacy. Certainly good argument, certainly good reasons for them, but just not for me.
Lori Walsh:
The legacy is I cut taxes. That's the bumper sticker.
Tom Dempster:
That's exactly right, and the legacy is I cut taxes and I'm going to benefit from me having cut taxes.
Lori Walsh:
And I shrunk government.
Tom Dempster:
And I shrunk government at precisely a time when we're talking about absolute necessities of government, where the state government ought to be taking a role of helping to solve some of those problems.
Lori Walsh:
So what position does that put lawmakers in, because they also are fiscal conservatives, so you have a governor who maybe appreciates the legacy of saying, "I reduce taxes, I pushed to make those permanent. I helped keep money in the pockets of families, and smaller government is better in my book." We've heard her say before.
What you never want to hear is, "I'm the government, I'm here to help." So we know how she feels about this, but lawmakers are also the appropriators and are looking at this budget. Does that put them in a difficult position? Does it put them in opposition to the governor? Help us figure out what some of those conversations sound like?
Tom Dempster:
Well absolutely. That puts them in opposition to the government, or in opposition to the governor and good that it should, because that's your responsibility. There's always the belief that it's the governor's legislative session. It isn't at all. It's the people's legislative session, and the legislative session goes on its own. That's why the governor is escorted to the speaker's platform in the house, because the governor is invited by members of the Legislature to talk to the legislative body.
We've talked about this before, Lori. One of the fabulous things that I discovered when I spent my eight years in Pierre is by and large what you see with your people, what I saw with my people in the Senate were those attributes that you want to see. I saw the cardinal virtues, I saw justice, I saw wisdom. I saw temperance, I saw courage. All of those things that sometimes fight in opposition one another that people tried to be and tried to become. Woe be it if we have a government where the people don't have those cardinal virtues. Woe be it if we have people who hold office that do not possess those cardinal virtues. A longer discussion. It's a dangerous, dangerous time.
Lori Walsh:
Help me understand your thoughts on the vacancies in the State House right now and how we're starting to see them matter in a voting situation in getting legislation passed forward. But the governor wanting this advisory opinion from the state Supreme Court before she makes appointments.
It's a short session, as Lee Strubinger pointed out at the top of the hour. What's it like to go in with a shortage and to not really know when that might be resolved?
Tom Dempster:
Well, again, for sure, let's respect people with the deepest respect, who are willing to put themselves in conflict with one another in order to solve public problems. Let's be thankful that we have legislators that are willing to weather the weather, if you will, and drive in sub-zero temperatures and in blizzards in order to do this kind of work. let's also respect how ridiculous the Constitution is with the Jessica Castleberry issue, when all of a sudden you're supposed to take these burden of being in conflict with others while solving our problems and yet be at financial risk to yourself. That needs to change.
To have a couple of legislators, I mean for me, I would think it'd be very difficult to appoint new legislators today when they're at financial risk. Out of respect for the Legislature, that's something that has to be resolved. Yet at the same time, all those things notwithstanding, get people appointed to fill those spots. Don't wait for an advisory opinion from the Supreme Court, because who knows, it may never come.
Lori Walsh:
All right, let's talk about school vouchers. This is a program that started in a previous session, has been pretty popular, and the allotment for it or the appropriation for it. Lawmakers are asking, proponents are asking for more money to go to these vouchers and tax credits. Public schools have been opposed to this increase saying, "Well, where is the cap to this?" But yet they're a popular program. Help us understand what's happening here and the nuances of the debate.
Tom Dempster:
Outside of home schools, vouchers have never really taken a significant—
Lori Walsh:
Not really a voucher, right? We should be clear. It is a tax credit. It's not like an actual voucher.
Tom Dempster:
But it's a very narrow program. But when you look at vouchers and when you look at the University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman back in the '60s, of talking that parents should have the ability of having school choice made available to them, to pick and choose their schools and then access public funding in order to send them to the schools that they choose, that's the broader issue for sure. That's the broader issue that many, many states, I think there are 14, 15, 16, and the list is growing, that have a very significant voucher program that give people the ability, give parents the ability to choose and direct where they want their kids to go and where they want that funding to go.
I think South Dakota per pop or per student funding is about $10,000. The voucher people who believe in school choice for sure, the capacity of sending that $10,000 and their child to that school would have a very significant impact and they would argue a positive educational outcome. Obviously, SDEA, obviously the public school system adamantly opposes vouchers. They believe that that would significantly degrade the public school system, and I think by and large, they've been successful in that argument in the state of South Dakota.
Lori Walsh:
All right, what about this idea of tax base, because that takes us back to the beginning of our conversation that if you are providing credits for this, that that money is never really entering the public coffers for funding the government.
Tom Dempster:
Well, and I'm going to argue too, this would probably be relatively unpopular in my Republican circles, the state of South Dakota has the fourth lowest state and local taxation burden in the country. We have people who refuse to convene legislative, or convene a task force that say, "We have a child care crisis in the state of South Dakota. What are we going to do about it?" "Not my responsibility or not a responsibility of state government."
Indeed it is a problem, it is a responsibility of state government to do one of the most powerful things that they can do, and that's convene and talk about that and come to solutions where, in terms of economic development, in terms of people being able to be fully employed in the workforce, perhaps there should be more public resources being made available for sure in the pre-K area and probably for sure in the child care area.
At least be willing to have those conversations, which implies that you're also willing to have conversations about increasing the tax burden from maybe fourth lowest to maybe 10th lowest or 12th lowest or 15th lowest.
But back to our previous conversation, don't bind yourself in a state that by and large will almost never increase tax liability. Don't bind yourself to being fixed, particularly when you reduce tax burdens in a state that is already one of the lowest states in the country.
Lori Walsh:
How many bills might you have to have? I mean, I want to get at this idea that having the conversation and convening, as what lawmakers are charged with doing and what we honor them to do. But if we get 500, 600, 700 pieces of individual legislation, you got to convene pretty fast and prioritize in some ways. Would you say that taxes is one of those things that should rise to the top this session and maybe arguably every session? You got to make choices.
Tom Dempster:
Task forces and solving problems of child care, solving problems of pre-K, solving problems of prisons are really broad, tough issues where you need broad participation of public, of task forces, of other people involved in this session. The legislative session is probably not the time to do that. Legislative session is boot camp, where you're there for a month and a half to two months, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, whether you're there or not. That's everything against the fan and solve it and sort it out. That's the venue to ultimately come to a solution, but probably not to discuss all the opportunities that we have.
Lori Walsh:
The fan is on high.
Tom Dempster:
The fan is always on high. It's a wonderful process.
Lori Walsh:
Tom Dempster providing our analysis this week and a little bit of thoughts and opinions from him. Thanks so much for being here. We'll see you next time.
Tom Dempster:
Thanks, Lori.
