If you remember that, you might also remember that this $107 million tax increase (that we so desperately needed in order to improve teacher retention in our state) will result in the firing of some 400 teachers across South Dakota.

Yes, welcome to the new world of “Republican” “newspeak”.

It’s the same kind of “newspeak” we’ve “enjoyed” from Leftists for a long time now. You know, the kind where good is “bad”, bad is “good”, immoral sexual behavior is “moral and healthy“, two men sodomizing each other on a regular basis is “marriage,” lawlessness is “lawful,” crushing liberty advances “freedom,” irrational behavior is “normal,” innocent civilians are repeatedly slaughtered in the name of what our government insists is the “Religion of Peace,”  someone with a penis is a “woman,” a white woman is “black,” men are entitled to use the restroom and shower with our daughters, and a 52 year old man is a 6 year old girl.

Yes, the Left’s “newspeak” is the same kind of newspeak we saw in George Orwell’s 1984 where “doublethink” is employed to make war become peace, freedom become slavery, and ignorance become strength.  If you don’t believe that’s the kind of liberal-dominated culture we’ve come to live in today, take a look around and see if the Left doesn’t loathe freedom as if it were slavery, and laud ignorance as something to be embraced.

But it isn’t just the Democrat Party that’s living by “newspeak” and “doublethink” anymore. No, there are so many liberals infesting the Republican Party these days that we’re seeing the same kind of lies, deception and unreality being peddled by people who call themselves “Republicans.”

Now that we’ve had to raise $107 million in taxes so we could give 58% of it to teachers, and now that this $107 million tax increase to pay teachers better has resulted in the firing of 400 teachers, we learn from the Rapid City Journal that school administrators and others are going to get a big raise.

Yes, they’ve found a “newly identified” surplus in Rapid City of some $2 million (that somehow could not be found before our legislators passed a $107 million tax increase for us).

Rapid City’s teachers won’t be the only school district employees to get a substantial boost to their pay in the upcoming fiscal year. Thanks to a newly identified $2 million surplus, some district administrators and technicians will see their salaries increase by more than $20,000 each starting July 1.

The lion’s share of the increases will come in much smaller increments of a few thousand dollars apiece for 81 administrators and technicians listed in a new salaries document approved by the school board Monday.

I pointed out several years ago, when the Left was pushing for more taxes for “education” that only a little more than half of the people employed in the education establishment are actually teachers.  I understand that any effort will require support staff to supplement the main cadre, but if you look at any ministry, organization or business and see approximately 50% overhead, you know you have a hemorrhage problem in that outfit.

If you really want more money for education, if you really want more money to pay teachers better, how about looking for ways to cut unnecessary expenditures, waste and overhead?  Somehow, from the bureaucrats with a gleam in their eye for the taxpayer’s pockets, that just never seems to come up in serious discussion.

So, thanks to our “Republican” supermajority legislature, we have a $107.4 million new tax, with less than 2/3 of it actually going to teachers, and 400 teachers being let go in our effort to improve state teacher retention, and in Rapid City we have $2 million in “new money” they’ve found to give $20,000 salary increases to school staff who aren’t even teachers.

Something doesn’t sound right to me, ma.

This “Republican” newspeak just isn’t for me.

*** Bob Ellis *** Is a conservative author  and Life and Liberty News contributor

      Read more from Bob Ellis and other conservative authors at American Clarion