During the Mayoral Forums, something TenHaken said resonated with me. When asked to look back on 8 years as mayor, what would he like to see as accomplishments. Paul said that he wanted to close The Bishop Dudley, The Banquet and Feeding South Dakota. He essentially wanted to ‘put them out of business’ because they wouldn’t be needed anymore.

Loetscher expressed similar goals early in her campaign when she had a FB discussion with a homeless advocate from Houston who is making big gains in ending homelessness there.

Whether Loetscher or TenHaken understand what kind of monumental task that will be, I don’t know. But it is possible and should be attainable.

It often frustrates me when I see ribbon cuttings and press conferences about expanding different facilities. I often scratch my head when I see local businesses giving to these organizations than some of these same businesses paying such low wages their own employees must use the facilities. Seems counterproductive.

As I have said in the past, we don’t have a housing or even a hunger issue in Sioux Falls, we have a wage issue.

(Click to enlarge) Priceless menu at Bill’s

South DaCola decided to do a food review of the new sports bar, Bill’s. The new restaurant is a great concept from one of our local hospital’s for-profit divisions.

At first glance when you arrive, it’s your typical memorabilia sports bar with some local flare.

While we found the food to be your normal bar food fare and the service friendly, we wondered why the menu at Bill’s didn’t have any prices listed on menu. So we asked our server, who grabbed a shift manager to answer the question for us.

The shift manager came over and grabbed the menu from us, looked on both sides and said, “Huh? You are right, no prices are listed.” He walked off without explanation and seemed confused. He returned a short time later and said, “I checked our POS computer, and the prices are not listed there either, not sure what to tell you.” I asked if there was someone else he could check with. After waiting about 20 minutes we decided to order anyway, two 16 oz fizzy American tap beers and two bacon cheeseburgers with fries. We were about to finish up our meal when the shift manager returned with a phone number scribbled on a piece of paper and told us if we call this number they could give us the pricing. Since my guest and I have never experienced such a strange thing before, we decided to call. It was about 5:43 PM in the afternoon when we called. I got voicemail that said, “Thank you for calling Bill’s price coding office. Regular business hours are 9 AM to 4 PM, Monday-Thursday. If you need immediate menu pricing please dial ‘0’.” I tried that several times, and all I got was a recorded message that said, “Thank You for calling Bill’s, have a nice day.” and the phone disconnected.

I waved down the shift manager one more time and told him what happened and he responded. “That’s to bad.” and walked off.

We asked for our bill figuring we would finally get the pricing with a receipt. The tab arrived with a Bill’s header on it and a line that said amount due; $172.57. I asked our waitress if there might have been a mistake and she checked her POS and told me everything was rang in correctly, then gave me a phone number to call for customer complaints and coupon for free onion rings on our next visit.

I didn’t bother calling. Anyone want my coupon?

*This article was a parody. There is NO sports bar in Sioux Falls called ‘Bill’s’. It was an attempt to make light of the fact that most hospitals won’t show patients a price list of procedures that are usually overpriced.

As if it isn’t bad enough that the state taxes food, and increased it by a half penny last year, now the state wants to implement another penny and a half on Farmer’s Market food sold by Falls Park. The state may be able to pull this off. Because state law says they can charge this additional tax to any retailer at a tourist site.

State Rep. Jamie Smith, D-Sioux Falls, said while he understands the revenue office is only enforcing the laws that are already on the books, an exemption for farmers markets is something he’d support. While he believes there shouldn’t be any taxation on food, burdening local producers with a higher tax than grocery stores will only deter the public from using alternative food sources.

“We’re discouraging locally grown products,” he said. “Those are dollars staying local right here. The person that grew that carrot lives here, spends money here and goes to school here.”

I guess I would have two arguments against the additional tax. First off, they are not selling souvenirs, they are selling FOOD. Secondly, the Farmer’s Market isn’t really in Falls Park, it’s actually wedged between a stinky meat packing plant, and a blue-collar bar, hardly the tourist attraction. People come to the market to buy fresh produce and the occasional jar of raw honey. They are not buying T-shirts of Falls Park.

I guess things are getting so desperate for the state and the city, they are looking to start charging additional fees on anything they can, including claiming organic food products are now souvenirs.

The sad part is they continue to make excuses about the farm economy and internet sales instead of offering solutions (and there are really simple solutions out there). They keep wanting to beat the dead horse hoping to suck more money out of it.

Let’s face it, sales taxes are regressive and primitive. Don’t get me wrong, they are applicable for many things, but should NEVER be charged on necessities like Food, Clothing and Energy costs.

Of course everyone fears an income tax. To most hard working South Dakotans, an income would never even touch you or effect you.

I would suggest we implement a three step process over 6 years;

First step would be to eliminate ALL sales taxes on anything tangible or a service that is considered a necessity of life or living. For example, you wouldn’t pay a tax to get your tire fixed on your car but you would pay one at a sun tanning salon. I would then increase that sales tax to 10-12% on all the remaining products and services. There would also be a ‘luxury’ clause. If you bought a minivan for your family of 5, you probably wouldn’t pay a tax on that, but if you bought a Porsche Crossover, there may be a tax. Same would go with luxury homes.

I would wait two years before implementing step two, which would be a income tax on corporations profiting more then $2 million a year, singles making more than $100K a year and households making more than $200k a year. This would be a flat tax of about 5-7% with NO exemptions.

I would wait another two years to implement the last stage, shut down Video Lottery. I would keep property taxes where they are.

Let’s face it, we can continue to bitch and complain about sales tax revenue going in the hole, but as the gap between the rich and poor get bigger, it’s reality, because it is a regressive tax. Tax those who can afford it.

A guest post by my conservative friend, Matt Showers;

Yeah, you would think I would need to go through a car wash to scrub off all the grease once I visited with our (mis) representatives, Rounds and Thune. But luckily I escaped their offices with just a couple of brown streaks, mostly on my nose.

The real grease is all the fine eateries around DC. And I’m not talking about the fancy smancy places, when I travel I must eat the same greasy crap I eat in my Podunk college town of Brookings. So forget about the 4-Star ratings, I head straight to the fart factories of Irish Pubs.

I give O’Burgers on 4th street a 3 Fart rating, mostly because the cheese not only backed up my bowels it shut down the gas chamber.

Cabbage O’Nally’s really had the best Rueben of all. Naturally with all that Kraut, it got a 5 Fart rating, and a night on the rollaway (yeah, since the old lady is the breadwinner, she funded the trip).

I almost bit my fingers off eating this deep fried and breaded banger at Sausage O’Donnells. 4 Farts for sure.

I completed the trip with some Fish N’ Chips at the airport, it sure would have made Ronnie Proud, and easy 4 Farts which gave us a turbo boost on the way home.

So the next time you go to the Nation’s capital, don’t worry, they have plenty of places that serve the same greasy crap they serve at home. Your tummy will thank you, your butt, not so much.

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