ADS ON M15 LEAVE OUT IMPORTANT INFORMATION

In my email box;

At the end of this election season, one advocate for children and low-income people is lamenting that important information has been left out of advertisements and public discussions on Initiative 15, the proposed sales tax hike for K-12 and Medicaid.  Cathy Brechtelsbauer, Sioux Falls volunteer and former public school teacher, lists omissions on both sides:

(1) Initiative 15 promoters have recently mailed ads with the highly suggestive message that Initiative 15 will keep seniors’ property tax from going up.

a. These ads do not reveal what Initiative 15 actually does: It raises sales tax.

b. They do not reveal that Initiative 15 actually says nothing about property tax. Nor have plans been put forth that would raise property tax, or any other tax, if Initiative 15 fails.

c. The fliers do not reveal that a property tax freeze is available for seniors. It is available to those under $24,116 if they live alone, or under $31,395 if the household has more than one income.

(2) Ads opposing Initiative 15 have neglected some compelling arguments for their stance.

a. There has been little mention of the effect of sales tax on food and hunger. South Dakota is one of the rare states taxing food and even taxes the food served in nursing homes. Already sales tax on food annually totals the amount spent on three weeks’ of family meals.  The increase raises that toll to three and a half weeks’ worth of groceries.  As the director of the statewide food bank often says about the tax on food: No other tax so directly takes food off tables. Besides taxing food directly, raising tax on other essential needs, like utility bills, squeezes the more flexible parts of the budget, often the food budget.

b.  This would have been an occasion to inform South Dakotans about which purchases have sales tax and which do not: Besides food, a sales tax increase would raise the cost to pay for heating bills, light bills, phone bills, car repairs, internet, clothes, baby formula, Tylenol, laundry soap, building supplies, trash hauling, kids’ music lessons, and much more.  It would not raise the cost to buy snowmobiles, hot air balloons, personal aircraft, yachts, jet skis, food for horses and pigs, or gold.

c. Initiative 15 opponents neglected to stress that because South Dakota’s median hourly wage is one of the nation’s lowest, a very large sector of South Dakotans will be unfairly affected. After all, sales tax is a regressive tax, meaning it imposes a proportionally heavier burden on lower incomes.

d. This would have been a time to inform South Dakotans that South Dakota’s tax system is already one of the 10 most regressive tax systems in the nation, and Initiative 15 proposes to make it even more regressive.

e. Voters could have learned that the sales tax rate does not need to be the same on everything. The sales tax “streamlining” rules allow states to have sales tax rates for food and utilities that differ from rates for other purchases. Exempting food from the rate increase would still raise over $160 million. Nevertheless, Initiative 15 drafters declined to give the exemption.

“Because raising the cost of living permanently for everyone hits struggling households the hardest, to the detriment of both education and health, I am asking people to vote No on Initiative 15.”