Noem fails to follow her own advice with taxpayer money
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem delivers her 2025 State of the State address to lawmakers at the Capitol in Pierre on Jan. 14, 2025. (Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight)
During her tenure as the governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem liked to remind legislators at budget time that the money they were dealing with was not their own.
From a 2019 address to the Legislature: 'I'm committed to maintaining the fiscal integrity for which our state is known. We won't spend money we don't have. We will not raise taxes.'
From 2022: 'I recognize that taxpayer dollars are not our own — they belong to the people of South Dakota. We all must remember throughout our budget discussions that this money belongs to the hard-working people of South Dakota.'
From 2025: 'During my time as governor, I have always kept my budget proposals focused on our people, not government programs. After all, this is the people's money. They entrust it to us and expect us to spend it wisely and responsibly.'
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Those are good reminders that legislators should take to heart. However, it seems that Noem was just reading from the teleprompter rather than paying attention to her own advice. Recently Noem's actions with taxpayer dollars were the topic of discussion on a couple of fronts.
A South Dakota Searchlight story noted that the Government Operations and Audit Committee in Pierre was trying to get answers about how Noem rang up $750,000 on her state credit card during her six years as governor. Noem admonished lawmakers to look out for the way taxpayer dollars were spent while she was racking up travel expenses on a book tour, a Canadian hunting excursion and various out-of-state political trips to tout the hopes of Republican candidates, including Donald Trump.
Who's to say if South Dakota will ever have another governor like Noem who became the darling of the Republican Party for her reaction to the pandemic. During her many travels, she was quick to praise South Dakota's maskless response to the pandemic and just as quick to label as fake news anyone who dared point out that the state was leading the league in per capita COVID-19 deaths.
Lawmakers on the committee learned that under the current laws, there isn't much that state bookkeepers can do when called on to cover a governor's credit card expenses. They can question a credit card charge, but if it isn't then handled voluntarily by the elected official, the state has to pay.
Basically, the current law treats elected officials like adults. As adults, those officials should know when the people should pay and when they should reach into their own wallets to cover any expense that doesn't directly have anything to do with their elected positions. Given the example Noem set, lawmakers who took her advice about fiscal integrity seriously are now faced with proposing legislation that calls for creating some sort of credit card overseer or nanny. That's a move that wouldn't be needed if Noem's credit card use was more statesmanlike instead of resembling a sailor on leave.
Another Searchlight story published on the same day chronicled Noem's appearance before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. At the meeting, Noem had it pointed out that her new department has budget problems.
'Your department is out of control,' said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut. 'You are running out of money.'
Given that Noem has been given responsibility for Trump's signature issue — immigration control — it would certainly be a bad look for the president if the department charged with rounding up illegal immigrants ran out of funds before the end of the fiscal year. Fiscal restraint may be the order of the day as Noem works for a man who changes Cabinet secretaries the way other presidents changed their socks.
For her part, Noem doesn't seem like she's pinching pennies, spending $100 million on TV commercials that praise Trump policies and warn immigrants not to come to the United States illegally.
She has also unveiled a plan to offer $1,000 in 'travel assistance' to illegal immigrants who self-deport. The cost of that could be as much as $1 billion if Trump reaches his goal of deporting 1 million people. Those hardly seem like the actions of someone who has been entrusted by taxpayers to spend their funds 'wisely and responsibly.'
All of Noem's budget guidance for South Dakota lawmakers should have come with another bit of helpful advice: Do as I say, not as I do.
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