The Rapid City Journal tells us that the Governor of South Dakota is proposing a $7.3 billion dollar budget for South Dakota State government. $7.3 billion!
South Dakota has about 750,000 residents, including enrolled tribal members, legal immigrants, border jumpers, and such. Well, the State government supposedly needs nearly $10,000 per person – woman, man, child. To do what? Provide the blessings of liberty? Protect us from crime? Defend us from foreign domination?
Per capita income in South Dakota is about $33,500 per year. That means that just the State government consumes nearly One-Third of the annual income of the average South Dakota resident. And notice, that is in addition to the FedGov’s theft and that of local governments: counties, cities and towns, and school districts.
Of course, even at the State level, much of the budget consists of transfer payments: money taken from one taxpayer and given to another person – not for providing goods and services, but just “because.” Government agencies can be “compassionate” to certain classes of people with stolen money. Welfare, subsidies, and other ways of giving one person’s money to someone else! Parasites?
And of course, much of the State budget pays the salaries or wages of thousands of State workers – even if they produce no real goods or services, or very little as compared to what private-sector workers doing the same things. Does this fit a definition of a parasite?
Do not forget that others who are “earning” all this money in South Dakota (and every other State) are contractors. These companies and individuals generally are providing some goods and services to the State. And some of those goods and services are actually beneficial. But at the same, there is a frightful amount of corruption (fraud and abuse) and waste.
So again, for the individual and the family and private business, what does this $7.3 billion budgeted by the executive and legislative branches of the government of the State of South Dakota really provide?
Again, ask yourself, HOW MUCH GOVERNMENT CAN WE AFFORD? And a second, related question: HOW LONG CAN WE AFFORD WHAT WE ARE ALREADY PAYING FOR?
And also to the point: how much of what South Dakota’s bureaucrats and other State employees and agencies and enterprises could be provided by private entities on a voluntary basis? And almost certainly cheaper, of better quality, and in a more timely (and less painful) manner?
Honestly? Probably everything – except for the (dubious) entertainment value of watching the politicians and the bureaucrats and those people who swarm around them.
The Price of Liberty 
Consequences
The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, and growing evidence of collapse in Ukraine remind us of this:
It is nothing new, of course: sooner or later, the impacts (the results) of our choices catch up with us. For some, it may be after (physical) death. For others, their own death may be a consequence.
It is not just stupid actions and choices that result in disastrous consequences, of course. Sometimes, people are brave enough to risk death – and die – because they love someone so much.
But all too often the stupid actions of people result in immediate consequences of death, wounding, injury, impoverishment and other calamities – to other people. LOTS of other people. Not just immediate, of course, but longer term as well.
The bloodbath submerging the Middle East today is just such a consequence. Stupid decisions made by people – by politicians and generals and others – going back a century and more.
Ditto for the Russo-Ukraine War. And dozens of “low-intensity” conflicts around the globe. Is it really low intensity when it is your loved ones that die or suffer? When it is your children, your parents, your neighbors? Hardly.
Just one more reason – or a whole bunch of reasons – to limit and prevent government. To be free. At least we are less likely to suffer from the consequences of other people’s actions as badly.
Just something to think about on this 9th of December, 2024.