LYNN BERGMAN: NORTH DAKOTA’S CONSERVATIVE ACTIVISM REAPING RESULTS
Number of State Employees has Leveled and Should Decline in the Future
I have maintained for several years that one of the most important barometers of state government growth is the number of state employees. The graph below reveals a leveling off of the number of state employees during the current biennium and predicts a downturn in the next biennium. For more detailed information, use the following link:
Legislative Conservatives, Governor & Agency Heads Deserve Praise
Give credit where credit is due…the last three legislative sessions have slowed the growth in the overall number of state government employees. So congratulations to the conservative legislators that have stemmed the tide of state government growth, despite being outnumbered by from 3:1 to 2:1 by RINOs and liberals in both houses of the legislature. Special praise should go to Governor Dalrymple and his agency heads for efficiently managing the number of state employees over a period of unprecedented growth. It is very unlikely that North Dakotans would be experiencing the prosperity we are currently enjoying without conservative manpower leadership in the governor’s office.
State Government must Continue Streamlining due to Technological Innovations
We all knew that the last decade’s technological innovations that have allowed private enterprise to greatly reduce staffing requirements per unit of output could eventually do the same for government. With our increasing conservative activism and monitoring of legislative activities, optimally efficient state government that reaps rewards for taxpayers may finally be within reach.
We Must Multiply Conservative Activism in North Dakota
Conservative activists throughout the state should take solace in this small but encouraging victory in the struggle for fiscal responsibility in our state. That struggle was precipitated in 2006 and since by a groundswell of conservative outrage that arose from irresponsible spending at the local level in most of North Dakota’s large population centers.
A Challenge to Conservatives
Our challenge in the months and years ahead is to affect the same kind of fiscal restraint (that appears likely on the state level in the near term) at the local level… where elected officials have asked assessors “How much growth in property value is there?” followed by their decision, “Let’s spend it!”
Conservatives from all over the state must converge on the next session of the legislature to insist that legislators impose limits on local spending, reduce and eventually eliminate all exemptions to the property tax, and return to local funding and thus local control of K-12 schools.
And we must implore legislators to end all of the state and local “economic development” scams and schemes that represent the outright theft of taxpayer generated revenues. If we are not successful in this area, more “good people” will do “bad things”, resulting in more state employee suicides. We must not continue to sweep economic development, finance, and education related corruption under the rug!
How do you spell “hypocrisy”?
If we do not converge on the next session beginning in early January 2013 to do so, expect RINOs and liberals to impose at least two more special interest exemptions, an across-the-board exemption of $75,000 or so for residential property owners and another exemption of $125,00 or so for those residents over 65 years of age. And expect RINOs and liberals to fund K-12 entirely with state funds…representing the total loss of local control of K-12 schools that “KIL ND” claimed to be against.
2013 Legislature must return Fiscal Discipline to Local Government
Measure 2 would have provided 100% local control over HOW the replacement funding would be spent. KIL ND was an organization of special interests that already have their property tax exemptions and did not want the rest of us to enjoy exemptions along with them. The “exempted ones” consider themselves to be “special” and un-exempted taxpayers are their “peasants” to be exploited with artificially high property taxes. That has to change!
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