Sunday on FNC’s “Life, Liberty & Levin,” Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) offered her assessment of why South Dakota is thriving, particularly as the rest of the country is recovering from the aftermath of the impacts the COVID-19 pandemic had on the U.S. economy.
According to the South Dakota governor, her state was “an experiment” in what the founders’ vision of the country would ultimately be.
“[I] will tell you that our people in South Dakota are incredibly happy, and I would say it’s because they’re free,” Noem said. “You know, we’ve seen incredible changes in our country the last several years. We’ve watched the media use fear to control people, and the left use fear to promote an agenda that’s fundamentally remaking the America that we live with each and every day. So throughout this pandemic in South Dakota, I made very different decisions than most of the other governors.”
“We never did any mandates, never once shut down any businesses or said people couldn’t have gatherings, never once even defined what in the central business was, told people we would trust them based on what authority I had under the Constitution, and didn’t grab other authority that I did not have, and we’re seeing the results of that in South Dakota,” she continued. “So it’s interesting when you look from state to state and see how they’re doing today. We’re leading the country with our economy. Our kids are outperforming kids in every other State in educational outcomes.”
“I have less than 700 people in South Dakota that are on unemployment today because when the President offered those elevated unemployment benefits, we were the only State that said, ‘No, thank you,'” Noem added. “Our people want to work. So you know, it’s an experiment in what our founders envisioned this country would look like. In South Dakota, we actually did it. And now, I think it is bringing hope to the rest of the country. We’ve got people moving to South Dakota in record numbers, and they’re moving there because they want to be like us.”
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