Say Anything Blog

I noticed a post over at FreeRepublicans.com which indicated that Governor Hoeven has raised spending over the amount requested for every single government agency in North Dakota.  I wasn’t sure I could believe that, certainly the Governor isn’t getting that carried away with spending ND’s massive budget surplus, so I downloaded a copy of the Governor’s budget and checked it out.

It turns out that the Governor is planning increased spending for nearly every single government agency in North Dakota.  I’ll summarize the increases in spending by category below, but if you want to see the increases by agency click the link above and start at page 17.

So, basically, Hoeven wants to spend $382 million over and above what state agencies requested in funding this year for a grand total spending increase of $580,528,644 over what was appropriated in the last budget. All while hyping a property tax “relief” plan that really doesn’t give North Dakotans any tax relief at all in that it just uses taxes citizens pay into the state to buy down taxes citizens pay on their property.

The higher education funding is especially interesting.  Many in the state have been complaining about tuition costs, so it seemed fitting that many of the state’s colleges requested less from the state level than they received in the last budget.  Yet Hoeven gave even these schools that requested less more funding than the received in the previous budget.

The guy is on an absolute spending spree, and that’s not what this state needs right now.  We are in the middle of economic boom times here in North Dakota, and what we need to keep those boom times going is not more government spending that will keep our taxes high.  What we need is real tax relief in the form of a refund check and a significant cut in the state’s income taxes.

Frankly, I couldn’t be more disappointed in Governor Hoeven.  I expect this sort of indiscriminate government spending from a Democrat, not a Republican.  Are some of these spending increases merited?  If you talk to government officials from the individual agencies they’ll probably tell you that the additional money they’ll be receiving is necessary, but from a citizens perspective I just can’t be convinced that every single state agency needs an increase in funding over and above that which was requested, an amount that was itself more what was allocated in the previous budget in most instances.