Comments on the DM & E Expansion
SD Politics is doing it’s usual yeoman work of keeping the light shining on…well…SD politics. (What a concept!)
A highlight that especially caught the Chief’s attention concerns the Janklow/Daschle alliance against the Dakota, Minnesota, and Eastern (DM & E) upgrade and expansion.
The Chief feels quite strongly that the DM&E expansion has truly monumental possibilities to enhance the economic atmosphere and infrastructure of the state (and others) if it’s allowed to go through.
A continuing refrain in the state are comments decrying the decline of small towns and rural counties, and the lack of economic development that might give Dakota kids a chance to find good jobs after they graduate…and thereby be able to stay in the state. Also, it is frequently noted that the prevailing wage scale for SD seems to be low.
HELLLLOOOO! Anybody out there know anything about economics? Building up transportation infrastructure is one of the best ways to stimulate further economic development. Lack of same inevitably results in an economic bottleneck that limits the possibilities for such growth.
An earlier SD example comes to the Chief’s mind. In the early 80’s, right after the Chief moved up to SD from St. Louis (with Mrs. Chief returning to her old homestead territory) there was a big kerfluffle about plans to build a high-capacity power line to carry electrical power from Manitoba down to Kansas for further distribution.
Checking out geography indicates that this would run across the state if it were built. The full force of the enviros, anti-corporate moonbats, and NIMBYs (Not In My Backyard) mobilized and threw up such a firestorm of legal entanglement that the project was abandoned, lest someone might look out their car window and see a powerline instead of empty prairie. The result now is that the state has a huge shortage of electrical power transmission capacity which is the limiting bottleneck to deveopment of the potential we have for wind turbine generation of power.
The short-sighted, reactionary, and frankly mercenary opposition of Janklow and Daschle to the DM&E expansion (which both supported when they were holding SD elective offices), if successful, will be a crippling blow to development of a healthier economic foundation as SD to move into the 21st century. We can either turn into an agricultural and tourism based “American 3rd world” economy, or just perhaps be something more than this.