Letters: Will clean up mess in Pierre

During the past few years, we've seen the corrupting effect of absolute power in Washington and on Wall Street. We saw CEOs of banks and insurance companies take reckless risks to line their own pockets - then stick taxpayers with the bill when it finally came due. And after all that, they pretended like nothing ever happened and blamed someone else.

We're now seeing the same from South Dakota Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard as he runs from the budgetary practices of the Rounds/Daugaard administration. After eight years in office, they've racked up seven structural budget deficits. They waste millions of dollars in taxpayer money on no-bid contracts for their top political donors. They fly over the state in taxpayer-funded airplanes and lounge at their hideaway summer mansion in the Black Hills.

South Dakotans who are upset with Washington should take a look at what's going on in Pierre because it's not any better. It's finally time to make a change, and this November we should elect Scott Heidepriem as our next governor.

After eight years of go-along-to-get-along politics, Heidepriem is the right leader to finally clean up the mess in Pierre, fix our broken government and get South Dakota moving in the right direction again.