Senate Candidate Sid Dinsdale stops in Kimball

Sid Dinsdale is the fourth Republican Senate Candidate to run for Nebraska State Senate since Senator Johanns announced his soon to come retirement.

Dinsdale is a Nebraska native and has a extensive resume filled with a variety of experience in different fields including agriculture, business and community activities. Although those fields do not include politics.

“I have thirty-seven years in community banking and agriculture. My brother and I are still involved with companies that feed cattle and have real crop operations, so that’s my business background. My wife and I have been extensively involved in the non-profit world in Omaha and across the state and board positions and leadership positions like habitat for humanity Methodist Health Systems and the University of Nebraska Alumni Association and things like that. So I’ve got a broad long deep resume in business and community activities,” Dinsdale said.

He is a Nebraska native and really values having had a small town start.

“I’m married thirty-seven years and have three grown children and three grandchildren and one on the way. I grew up in Palmer NE town of about 400 people. graduated from the University of Nebraska and have lived in Elkorn, Nebraska, since 1991. All of our family is around Elkorn now which is nice,” Dinsdale said.

Dinsdale’s experience in the community concerning different businesses that he has been involved with really allow him a unique perspective. However, he doesn’t want this to be a new career adventure.

“I’m doing this not because I want a career, I’ve had a great career. I’ll serve up to two terms, twelve years total. I’m going back there because I think my background of being in business and being involved with agriculture as well as banking also with my work in the non-profit world, well I’ve got a lot of experience and hopefully I can represent a lot of interest in all those areas when I’m back there and try to make a difference. So I think you’re different if you’re back there for a fixed amount of time rather than a career,” Dinsdale said.

As a result of wanting to serve only two terms, Dinsdale is entering this race with some very strong feelings concerning what he would like to see fixed in government today. Among the things he would like to see change is the amount that the government interferes. He feels that the government is making decisions that they don’t have insight into, such as the farm bill. Dinsdale said that the real issues on the mind of people in the agricultural field are not being taken into consideration. He also wants to see something done about the KeyStone pipeline as well as immigration.

“I believe we have a very indecisive and very weak President and things like the KeyStone pipeline, I’m in favor of the KeyStone pipeline. I don’t like imminent domain but in some cases it’s probably necessary. I’m in favor of that pipeline as long as we don’t export anything coming out of that pipeline. So those are some of the key things. I think immigration, I believe we need to seal the borders, if Israel can seal their borders then we can seal our borders and find out who all we’ve got here make sure all the bad guys and gals are out of here. the rest of them, we need to find some kind of work status for them some requirements. and then we need to adjust our overall immigration policy so that so many of these best and brightest in the world that come here for school in the United States, we can find a place for them,” Dinsdale said.

Even though Dinsdale has never been involved with politics he is very confident that his life experience will give him an outlook that is different and more effective than those of his challengers. He hopes that he brings a little something extra to the table.

“My experience level, I’m sixty-one years old and the challengers have not had nearly the experience in business, civic work, that I’ve had, or the positions I’ve had on the boards of various organizations. and probably the biggest difference is that we employ somewhere around 800 people across the state of Nebraska. and in my community banking career and in our agricultural companies we’ve seen first hand what the government can do to them and I understand what regulatory problems are created when someone in Washington DC passes what they think is a great new regulation. So I’ve dealt with it first hand with my friends, our businesses and have had a lot more experience, a lot broader experience than any of the other challengers have,” Dinsdale said.

Like several other candidates, Dinsdale is wanting to repeal Obamacare. Dinsdale said he doesn’t agree that the problem with healthcare is the access to it, but rather the cost of healthcare. He also takes issue with healthcare being a government operation.

“I have a real philosophical problem with the government taking over fifteen to sixteen percent of our economy which is healthcare and dictating to three hundred million people how that healthcare service should be delivered. philosophically I have a real problem with a single payer system, which seems to be the way we’re headed. And seems to be that we’re going to make all healthcare workers government employees so philosophically I have a problem with that. I’m all about the more local, the better,” Dinsdale said.

Another issue that is near and dear to Dinsdale is there being available jobs and people who are being trained to be successful in different tradesman fields. Dinsdale said that it is commendable that high schools are starting to bring back shop type classes, since that’s where a lot of the jobs are in rural Nebraska. He also believes that there needs to be some sort of incentive to draw people to move to where the jobs are located.

“I think another thing we really need to look at is unemployment benefits and the other benefits that a person can get. I know that we have to have a safety net, I get that and I appreciate that but one problem we have if that safety net is too generous, or sends people the wrong way people won’t move to where the job is because it’s better to just stay where they are and collect the benefits. So one thing I would like to look at, and the devil’s in the details here, is maybe instead of these benefits, what if we give you a moving allowance or some kind of allowance to go where the jobs are because many jobs are in rural America at least they are in rural Nebraska,” Dinsdale said.

Dinsdale is a man with no political background, but he feels that he is the right man for this elected office. He feels that he brings a unique outlook that will be for the benefit of those that are actually affected by the decisions made in government.

“I’m a man with city experience and small town roots and that’s very important to me. I was shaped and molded by growing up in a town of 400 people. I still have agriculture ownership and agricultural experience as well as banking experience. I hope I bring a little bit of a unique resume where I can sit down with the president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve, but I could have a beer in a tavern in Kimball too,” Dinsdale said.