The Daily Signal - Jobs, Family, Future: Gov. Kristi Noem Shares What Is Really on the Mind of America's Heartland

Episode Date: January 13, 2020

Much of America is focused on more than impeachment or whatever happens to be trending in the news cycle today. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem shares what is on the minds of her constituents in the heartland of America. Cutting red tape for small business and helping communities to heal from drug addiction are two of the key focuses for Gov. Noem's administration. When it comes to policy, Gov. Noem says she always looks beyond the present situation to asks herself, "How does this impact the next generation?" We also share your letters to the editor and a good news story about an exciting new announcement from Tunnel to Towers - the Foundation that supports the families of fallen law enforcement. Enjoy show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, January 13th. I'm Robert Blewey. And I'm Virginia Allen. On today's show, we share my conversation with South Dakota Governor Christy Noam about her recent meeting with President Trump to discuss cutting red tape for American businesses and how South Dakota is fighting for traditional family values and working to overcome the meth epidemic in their state. We also have your letters to the editor and a good news story about an exciting new announcement from. from Tunnel to Towers, the foundation that supports families of fallen law enforcement. Before we get to today's show, Rob and I want to tell you about one of our favorite ways to keep up with the news every morning. It's called the Morning Bell.

Each weekday, the Daily Signal delivers the top news and commentary directly to your inbox for free. You'll be able to read about the policy debate shaping the agenda, analysis from Heritage Foundation experts, and commentary from leading conservatives like Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager. It's easy to sign up. Just visit dailysignal.com and click on the connect button in the top right corner of the page. We'll start sending you the morning bell tomorrow. Now stay tuned for today's show coming up next. I'm joined by South Dakota Governor Christy Knoam.

Governor, thank you so much for being here. Oh, absolutely. Thank you for having me on. Now, you recently appeared on Fox News, and you said that, I love how you said this, that the D.C. impeachment circus is not reflective. of what is on the hearts and minds of the people of South Dakota or of the people in America's heartland. So what are your constituents saying, first off, about impeachment, but then really what are those issues that they're concerned about? Well, I'd say most of the time if impeachment comes up,

there's two different emotional reactions that people have. They're either very sad by what they see happening in our country. They feel like there's something right now that's breaking, and they're hoping that they can bring it back. Because this is the first time we've had a partisan impeachment in our country. And I think for some folks, it really disturbs them. For others, they start out making a joke about it. You know, they don't take it seriously because of the way the Democrats have conducted this whole operation and investigation. So, and then, you know, it's usually a 10-second conversation they go on to, are these trade agreements really going to get done? You know, how are we going to go into growing our businesses in our state? So they care a lot about

what's happening to their families. So we have a little bit of a unique situation. South Dakota that we have had the largest natural disaster in our state's history this year. So the folks and families and agriculture in our states kind of struggling. And so that's obviously a big part of the conversation. Yeah. And tell me a little bit about that. How have South Dakotaans come together in order to make it through that difficult time? Well, we started the year, obviously, through January, February, we are in our legislative session.

We got to March and we were hit with a, what they called. called a bomb cyclone. I'd never heard that term before, but it really was a unique weather event that dumped about five to six feet of snow in the central and western part of our state. The eastern half got about six inches of rain on frozen ground. So we had a lot of flash flooding, a lot of damage done. And really throughout the year, it never stopped raining. So in many areas, we got almost 400 percent our normal precipitation. Our ground is saturated. A lot of damage. You know, about many counties, you know, 58 of our 66 counties were declared federal disaster areas and some of them a couple of times over. So it was really a strange situation in South Dakota and agriculture is our

number one industry. We had the most unplanted acres in the entire nation. So I think when people thought about flooding events, they thought about Kansas and they saw what happened in Nebraska, but really South Dakota has been pretty devastated by the impact on the economy and the amount of land and roads and bridges that have been damaged. Wow. Wow. So looking forward, what are your hopes to kind of recover from that? You know, FEMA obviously is going to be helpful. We had five different FEMA declarations in the state, which is unprecedented for our state. And we're partnering with them. The state is doing some financing for local counties and cities so that they can build back their roads and infrastructure. We'll get through it. South Dakota does. We have a constitutional requirement that we balance our budget. Our state revenues obviously are down. So I've cut tens of millions of dollars out of the budget. We're still putting money into reserves, though, which is a priority of mine, and we're not raising taxes. So we will get through it. It's a difficult time for South Dakota families, but we've done hard things before, and I think that's one of the wonderful things about our state.

Everybody works hard. They come together, and they help each other get through them. Yeah, that's wonderful. Now, you are such a champion of family values in your state, and you really do. You speak openly about how you hope that South Dakota does become a model for America in terms of upholding those traditional values of loving our nation and serving our communities. So how do you see South Dakota becoming this model state for America? So we are a small state. We don't have a lot of people, big land area, but I think that sets us up for a unique situation. In many ways, South Dakota can be a pilot project for a lot of reforms that need to happen in this country. And so I've said from the time I served in Congress and

then campaigned for governor and now as governor, that we can do big things in our state. And I've seen over the years that for our next generation to be successful, they have to have strong families. It's very difficult for a young person to grow up, to have the ability to go after all the opportunities in front of them if they don't have support. And so a lot of things in our culture today are breaking down the family. And so I've talked about that we should be focusing on foster care, on a adoption on making sure that families are spending time together, giving them more opportunities

to have flexible workplaces. In fact, my staff has a question they have to answer on every single policy or bill that they bring to me. The last question on this form that they have to do on an analysis is how does this impact the next generation? I never want my decisions to be made on how does this impact us a month from now. I want them to be thinking about if I make this decision, what will happen 10 years from now? How will this set us up for success for our kids and for our grandkids. And the ways that we tackle some of these big things really will stand out in the country. We've already done some things that I think have gotten us to be noticed. That's not really the goal is to get attention. But I think that we have a unique opportunity

because we're such a well-run state, because we don't have a lot of people, that we can do big things and really show the rest of the country what's possible. Yeah, that's so important, that forward thinking. That's huge. We need more of that in Washington, D.C. You know, I spent eight years in D.C. I was in Congress for four terms, and I think that frustrated me. Obviously, I served on Ways and Means, so I had the chance to do tax reform. That was one of my passions when I went to Congress, and I'm so grateful I got to work with the administration to do that. Did farm bills, did a lot of important legislation. But the big reforms that I wanted to do, I really saw governors have the chance to do. We're the CEOs of our states. We have the chance to set an agenda and accomplish them. It's one of the reasons why I ran for first. governor. I wanted to come home and be there all the time. I love South Dakota, but also to do some

big reforms I think only governors can do. One of the greatest challenges that our nation is facing right now is rising drug addiction. And in November, you launched a new campaign to combat the meth epidemic in South Dakota. So can you give an update on how that campaign is going and what your goals are for 2020? Yeah. It was a campaign that definitely got us noticed nationwide, not to, just in the state. And listen, we have a huge problem, not just in South Dakota, but across the country with drugs and addiction. And a lot of times we don't talk about it enough. In South Dakota, we have double the national average of 12 to 17-year-olds that are using meth. So while a lot of the country is talking about opioid addiction, and I worked on those bills when I was in Congress,

our big problem still in South Dakota's meth. It's cheap. It's everywhere. And we've got a huge issue with it. So for us, we had seen and I did some research and my team did that we had done campaigns in the past that hadn't really worked. And so we knew when we picked our tagline, when we did this campaign, it would be provocative. We knew it would grab people's attention and it certainly did. But now that we've got people's attention, we're moving into phase two of calling people to action. We can't fight addiction on our own. My goal is to remove the shame of it, to get people talking about it. And really, we're already seeing results.

We've seen more people get onto the website, call into the 800 number, and ask for help than we did in the previous years combined. We've had more people go into treatment than we have in the past. People are calling and asking for help, and those involved in that area helping people get healing from addiction are saying that they haven't seen a response like this before. So I know that when the campaign first kicked off, a lot of people thought, what does I'm on at me? and people made jokes. And what I told folks is, you know, if you're making a joke about this, you probably haven't watched the commercials. You probably haven't really paid attention to the message of it.

Because in order for us to beat this drug epidemic that we have, we're all going to have to be on it. It's going to take a community effort. It's going to have to take families talking around the dinner table about it. And this campaign certainly has started that. And why do you see tackling this meth crisis as so critical in order to see South Dakota flourish. Again, it's about giving people all the opportunity to be healed and healthy and to be successful.

Meth does such damage to people. You can do this new meth is so pure and so potent. You do one hit. You're immediately addicted. And it's cheap. You can pick up a hit for $5 on the street and it's everywhere. So that's why it's so prevalent. And now drug traffickers and dealers are mixing meth with other much more potent and fatal drugs as well.

So unless we raise the awareness level of what's happening in our small communities, people won't really get on board to helping solve the problem. What changed my perspective, people asked me why I got so passionate about this. I spent some time with our law enforcement officers. I was watching some body cam video of some situations where they came into a home. There's three little kiddos crying and mom's just beating her head against the wall because she's high on meth and the kids are sobbing. and there's blood and this is what kids are, and this is in one of my smaller towns in South Dakota and rural America. So a lot of times we walk by these houses in these neighborhoods

and not even think about what's going on inside that house. So we need to start watching out for each other, and we can't afford to let our kids grow up in those kinds of situations. It does damage. It's traumatic for them. Yeah. Another issue that's very important to you is strengthening the local economy through small businesses. And of course, the economy,

and job creation is a priority that our president, Donald Trump, is very, very invested in. You were recently at the White House to talk with the president about how we can remove some of the red tape on businesses in order to strengthen the economy. What did the president have to say during this meeting? You know, he's very passionate about getting the regulatory burden off of businesses. He knows how much it costs our businesses. And, of course, all those costs get passed on to the consumers. So South Dakota has for a long time been the least regulated state in the nation.

Now, Idaho just passed us up. But Governor Little and I have a little competition going that I've told him I'm coming after him again because we have long been known for being a very easy state to do business in. And that allows our folks to pursue their passions, employ people, raise wages, and really create opportunities. So the president understands that, of course, he's run businesses. He started businesses. That's very helpful to have in a president. I have run businesses.

I have started businesses. It's one of the reasons I got involved in government and politics was because of business structure and tax structure. We needed business people to be involved. And so that insight and discussion with him was very helpful because we talked about removing regulation for, you know, whether it's EPA OSHA regulations, but also allowing those who are coming out of our criminal justice system

to get back to work. You know, looking at all aspects of, it, which I think to have some governors and leaders sitting around that table with the president talking about how we could partner, very helpful in getting rid of those regulatory burdens. If you're tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger and bigger government, it's time to partner with the most impactful conservative organization in America. We're the Heritage Foundation, and we're committed to solving the issues America faces. Together, we'll fight back against the rising tide of homegrown socialism, and we'll fight for

conservative solutions that are making families more free and more prosperous. But we can't do it without you. Please join us at heritage.org. Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday we feature our favorites on this show and in our Morning Bell email newsletter. Virginia, who's up first? Davis Ronich writes, I recently got mail confirming my membership with the Heritage Foundation.

I like the Daily Signal's morning bell emails. So far, so good. keep up the good work. And Betsy Grenovich of Loganville, Georgia, writes, Dear Daily Signal, I wanted to thank you for your daily morning bell updates and for making them accessible to a screen reader, as I am a totally blind individual. I also want to thank Daniel Davis for his article titled 29 books

that would make an excellent Christmas gift. I was able to find many of them on a site where a group puts books into formats so that blind and visually impaired readers are able to read them with either braille or audio. I look forward to reading many more updates from you. Your letter could be featured on next week's show. Send an email to letters at daily signal.com or leave a voicemail message at 202-608-6205.

It's because of support from listeners like you that we can continue to produce podcasts like Heritage Explains and SCOTUS 101. And you can help us keep it going by visiting www.heritage.org slash podcast today to make your tax deductible gift. Virginia, you have a good news story to share with us today. Please tell us about it. Thanks so much, Rob. Tunnel to Towers is the name of a foundation that exists to support the families of fallen law enforcement. It was founded in honor of the life and sacrifice of Stephen Silver, a firefighter who gave his life helping others escape from the Twin Towers on September 11th.

Frank Silver is the brother of Stephen Silver and the CEO of Tunnel to Towers. And Frank recently appeared on Fox News. It was just this past Thursday to announce that Tunnel to Towers is furthering their generosity and promise to these hero families. We want every law enforcement officer in America to know that when they go out and they protect our community and they give their kids a kiss goodbye. And if they don't come home, they die in the line of duty, that we are going to pay off their mortgage. Every officer in America. Every officer in America. You could be a border patrol.

You could be a sheriff. You could be a police officer. You could be anything to do. Protect us. Protect our great country, our communities. That you know that if you die, you have in the back of your mind, you know that if you're killed in a line of duty,

that your family is going to be taken care of. The program is called fallen first responder home program. And Silver explained that it exists to help the families of fallen law enforcement members, just like Alabama police officers. Billy Claudi the third. He was shot in the line of duty. He was making a drug bust.

He had five children, kind of like my brother who died on 9-11, had five children left behind. Not only that, his father, in 1978, died in the line of duty himself. So he comes from a family of heroes. He also served our country in the U.S. Army. We have to take care of these families.

Frank Silver is absolutely right. We do have to take care of these families. So if you would like to learn more and find out how you can support these hero families, please visit Tunnel to Towers.org. Virginia, thanks so much for sharing. It's nice to hear about the good work that's being done. It really is, Rob. Well, we're going to leave it there for today. The Daily Signal podcast comes to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation.

You can find it on the Rurkishay Audio Network. All our shows can be found at dailysignal.com slash podcasts. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or. or your favorite podcast app. And be sure to listen every weekday by adding The Daily Signal podcast as part of your Alexa Flash briefing. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review and a five-star rating. It really does mean a lot to us and helps us spread the words to even more listeners.

Be sure to follow us on Twitter at DailySignal and Facebook.com slash the Daily Signal News. Have a great week. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Rob Bluey and Virginia Allen, sound design by Lauren Evans, the Leah Rampersad, and Mark Geinie. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.