Who is paying for these PAC ads?

Greetings. Four more weeks until the primary election. You can now go to your county courthouse and vote early.
I’m getting a lot of questions regarding negative campaign ads on TV and on glossy, big postcards. I watched one reporter ask the four Republican governor candidates if they were responsible for these ads, both print and on TV. There, of course, weren’t takers owning up to it.
The real question is who paid for the ads? Just saying its a political action committee (PAC) isn’t explaining anything. Perhaps we should do a bill that forces PACs to divulge where the money comes from for the attack ads. I think not only the attacked candidate has a right to know, but so do the rest of us. The situation we have now is, when asked if they are responsible for running negative, misleading attack cards or TV commercials, all we get is the penguin salute.The mailings and TV hit pieces are very expensive and we all have a right to know who is funding these hit pieces.
Let’s visit about rumors. There used to be two gas stations in Rapid City that had cheaper gas. One was across from Baken Park and the other one on the corner of East North Street and LaCrosse. The rumor was that they watered down their gas. It was a totally false rumor, but it seemed everyone had at least heard the rumor.
Now, take rumors to a statewide level. The rumor is that education was supposed to get the state’s take of video lottery money when it was passed way back in 1989. Nowhere in the bill did it stipulate that education get the video lottery funds, and there is no mention of it in the codified law.
What is the department of revenue supposed to do with the funds? The funds total about $320 million. The state gets half of the gross. Video casinos get the other half, about $160 million last year. There is no place else to put the $160 million other than in the general fund.
Yes, education is funded out of the general fund, but so is every other agency. However, the public cries foul and feel they were lied to when video lottery passed in 1989.
This is wrong on so many fronts. First, we shouldn’t think our South Dakota state government is corrupt and is purposely keeping these funds from education. It simply is not true. I’ve thought about dropping a bill stipulating that all video lottery funds for one year have to go to the department of education. The problem with getting this passed in the legislature is: how are we going to make up the $160 million that would then be depleted from the treasury?
When we passed property tax relief bills this past session, we stipulated that the funds could only go to owner occupied homeowners. How much of a one-time pay raise would teachers get if we used the $160 million for them and divided it equally among all teachers?