Rapid City Journal - Paychecks Buy Less Today than a Year Ago

Op-Ed

By Kristi Noem

I spoke with a young woman in the grocery store last March who had a hand full of coupons and a cart full of generic food. We had a long conversation about how tough it was to make ends meet when electricity costs were so high. Then again, the cost of almost everything was seemingly on the uptick. Even the cart of groceries each of us was pushing was going to cost more than it did a few years ago -- and we weren't alone.

More than half of people say they're spending more on groceries this year than last. It's one of the reasons I pushed so hard for the Farm Bill to be passed.

Growing up, my Dad always told me that you can have a decade of good years and lose it all after one bad year. The Farm Bill was designed to help control this risk and ensure disasters like Winter Storm Atlas wouldn't wipe out a portion of our agriculture industry. Without this safety net, you and I would probably be paying a lot more for fruits, vegetables, cereal, milk, meat and more every week.

Even with the Farm Bill passed, there's more to do. I'm constantly fighting back the EPA and other agencies to ensure producers, local businesses, and consumers aren't paying more because of unnecessary regulations. We've already been able to stop the EPA's talks of expanding dust regulations and OSHA's attempt to regulate small family farms, but this administration keeps pushing new regulations -- that means new costs for the average South Dakotan.

January 2014 represented the largest month-to-month increase in electricity costs in the last four years. Still, the administration is moving forward on new greenhouse gas regulations that could increase electricity costs by $17 billion nationwide. In South Dakota, families earning less than $50,000 per year already spend one-fifth of their after-tax income on energy, which is double the national average. It's unacceptable to further increase these costs for families.

It doesn't have to be this way. I filled up my tank in Watertown last week for less than $3.00 a gallon. It's been a while since there's been prices like that. We're seeing these lower prices in large part because U.S. oil production is rising. Because many states have streamlined their regulatory processes, oil production on state lands increased 61 percent between 2009 and 2013. Meanwhile, production on federal lands fell 6 percent. Just think what gas prices might be if we eliminated some of the unnecessary federal regulations too?

Poor policies out of Washington have also pushed the cost of healthcare up for many South Dakota families I've spoken to. With healthcare costs expected to rise 6.8 percent in 2015, many South Dakotans are bracing for another round of premium increases. I've been working on a bill to replace the Affordable Care Act with a patient-centered model that targets the primary drivers of healthcare costs. Rather than costly mandates, my plan would infuse more competition into the marketplace, shift to an outcome-based reimbursement model, and limit frivolous lawsuits.

The fact of the matter is that our paychecks buy less today than they did a year ago -- let alone five or 10 years ago. And still, this administration is working to implement policies that make it harder to stretch a dollar. I believe we ought to be eliminating costly regulations, not adding new ones. We should be restoring genuine accountability to government and making sure Washington is doing more with less -- just like families are.

Source