Dakota Beacon

Tracy Potter has a novel idea for saving Social Security.  The Democratic candidate for ND’s US Senate seat would require employers and employees to pay a 6.2% social security tax on unlimited earnings, rather than the present $107,000 cutoff.  However, those paying the additional tax would receive no increase in benefits.  His opponent, Gov. John Hoeven, said Congress has rejected that plan before because it won’t work.  Potter also opposes raising the retirement age.

A Bismarck Tribune editorial said the Bush tax cuts should be allowed to stand.  Increasing taxes by allowing the cuts to lapse and raising taxes for those who make more than $250,000 would stifle the economy, because “wealthy citizens make investments in the nation's businesses and industry.”  The Tribune said, “Rather than reduce the deficit, eliminating the cuts would in all likelihood slow the economy enough to require additional deficit spending as a counter.”  The top one percent of income taxpayers already pay as much as the bottom 95 percent, but since the rich have so few votes, it is a politically tempting calculation to further increase their taxes.

Tribune editorials are thoughtful and unambivalent -- close to mainstream thinking in ND.  A recent editorial took on a touchy subject -- the constitutional right of every child born in this country to become a citizen.  The Tribune believes eliminating birthright citizenship should be considered.  Editor John Irby handicapped two initiatives which may be on the fall ballot.  He approved of establishing a state Legacy Fund (to save oil and gas revenues) and repealing restrictive and unfair pharmacy ownership laws.

Tribal schools are the poorest academic performers in ND and have costs per student generally exceeding state averages.  Officials from the ND tribes testified they need more, guess what . . . money and greater control of classrooms.  They told a US House committee the schools must provide more instruction in Indian languages and culture to build self-esteem necessary to succeed in other courses.

GF Herald Editor Mike Jacobs wrote at length about the well-known benefits and challenges of the ND oil boom.  Then he got to what he really wanted to say -- that the state’s political campaigns give little attention to “a larger vision for the state’s future.”  He ended, “How about it, candidates?  Let’s hear your ideas.”

In a later editorial, Jacobs shifted to the subject of water.  He identified three issues on which compromise and concession will be necessary: The Fargo flood diversion, the drainage of Devils Lake, and the increasing amount of water required for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the oil industry.  He could have added Fargo’s proposed diversion of water from the Missouri River.

Grand Forks hired a consultant to get to the bottom of retail sales “leakage.”  Herald economist Ralph Kingsbury says there is concern GF is becoming a secondary market, meaning shoppers from the GF area and Canada are doing their ordinary shopping there, but doing their more expensive discretionary shopping in Fargo and even the Twin Cities.

First the good news.  UND made the Princeton Review’s list of the “The Best 373 Colleges” in North America, and UND is off the list of top liquor-swilling party schools.  Here comes the “but,” UND is now rated the #1 school for students who study the least and #19 for having the least accessible professors.  Well, if you are not studying anyway, who needs professors?

Women’s hockey got off to a slow start at UND, but the future may be brightening.  The Olympic Lamoureux twins will be joined next fall by two Olympic players from Sweden and one from Finland.  Other top-rated Scandinavian players are also joining the team.

“It’s kind of a natural thing,” Larimore wheat farmer Paul Hofer was talking about dust.  ND farmers are on full alert because of the possibility the EPA may attempt to regulate ag dust.  ND’s congressional delegation says “significant dust” is generated by basic activities required to produce food.  Sen. Dorgan said any changes need to have “a deep reservoir of common sense” and we want to be sure new requirements “are not going to be inhibiting activities in the farm states.”

Theodore Roosevelt National Park near Medora needs to thin its elk herd.  The park called for volunteers to do the shooting --  it got them, 13,000 and counting from 38 states.  Now that’s a problem, because they only need to kill 275 elk -- a computer will winnow the number of volunteers down to 260, about one hunter for each elk.

Nodaks are enjoying good earnings, but 2009 earnings dropped a bit from a record 2008.  Bismarck was the only metro area in the Dakotas or Minnesota to have a rise in earnings in 2009. Per capita earnings fell three percent in Fargo-Moorhead, but still slightly surpassed the national average.

Sturgis, SD, spends a year clearing up court cases related to its annual Motorcycle Rally --- then it’s time to start all over again.  The rally can draw up to 750,000, close to SD’s entire population of 800,000, and is the state’s biggest event.  The 2010 rally held in early August had ten related deaths -- the death of a Mandan man may bring the count to 11.  Sturgis is in the Black Hills about 125 miles south of Bowman, ND.  The rally has little direct impact on ND, although many riders pass through the the state enroute to the rally.

DAKTOIDS:  Three sisters, each over 90, clumped their walkers down the hallway of a Fargo senior center on their way to watch a Minnesota Twins game on TV.  Many ND women are living into their 90s -- men, a few years less . . . A bevy of tornadoes hit farms in the Wahpeton area on a recent Saturday evening.  The Al Kosel family is missing a barn and a pickup -- the pickup should come down someplace . . .  Marion Morrison -- John Wayne to you -- got his toughness during summers on his uncle’s ranch in Towner.  Minot Daily News writer Kim Fundingsland believes it is likely, although evidence is hard to find . . . The dean of the UND School of Medicine estimates the state will be short 160 physicians (mostly primary care) by 2025.