Stormland had a couple of stories, and once again, they didn’t ask the other side, big surprise. The first was about sales tax revenues being up in the first couple of months of 2010. Gee, wonder if that has anything to do with people getting their tax returns and buying shit they need . . .

Sales tax collections in Sioux Falls grew by 5.7 percent in the first two months of 2010. The new numbers reflect the first positive growth in six months.

While it’s too early to tell whether this the beginning of something big, Mayor Dave Munson says it is good news.

2010 is off to a good start for the city of Sioux Falls because the first two months of sales receipts show people are spending again.

“It’s encouraging to see that because it was July of ‘09 that we saw a positive in the sales tax.  Coming now, it couldn’t be more timely, so we are really pleased to see that there is a growth,” Munson said.

Notice, no mention of tax returns or the $400 tax credit that Obama handed out this tax season. What do people do (especially poor and working class people) when they get their tax return? They freaking blow it. That is why revenue was up.

Or it may have something to do with this;

This February, the city received a $473,000 check from the state from audit investigations – a large amount, Rowenhorst said. It makes up 13 percent of the February revenue, which totaled $3.6 million. The large check is 12 times the amount received in February 2009, when the city received $38,600. If the state audit checks are removed from the monthly revenue totals, February revenue this year actually is down 6 percent from last February. With the state checks, this February is up 7 percent.

Their next story was about potholes. While I was impressed that the pothole machine showed up so quickly, I had a good chuckle at the end of the story. It wasn’t in the print story, but listen to what Katie says at the end of the clip;

“After five hours about half of the repair had been blown out by cars.”

Well, when you don’t even have a person get out of the vehicle to repair the hole, what do you expect? That machine may be better at seasoning steaks instead of filling potholes. I would love to meet the asscrack that sold the city that POS.

…you must be blind, deaf, and incomprehensibly stupid. Time to find a new source of rainbows and unicorn farts.

The bill that would have allowed cities to raise a third penny sales tax for special projects was shot, hanged, poisoned, racked, gassed, lethally injected, drawn, quartered, and waterboarded by the House Local Government Committee.

While most of the arguments against the bill came from people saying they didn’t want to tax the poor to pay for something they’ll never use (a good argument), the main problem I have with funding a new EC with a sales tax is that it’s a crappy way to fund an entertainment building. Tax Bed, Board, and Booze instead. This will still give us enough revenue to build an EC without putting an undue burdon on people buying groceries or yet another set of clothing for a daughter who grows faster than our national debt.

The most unfortunate (and telling) part of the linked article is the paragraph quoting Jane Page of the State Department of Revenue.  She’d like to keep the option open for the state to raise sales taxes in the future without having to pile on top of increased local taxes.  I wonder how many legislators “can’t wait” to raise the sales tax to build all kinds of wonderful stuff.

Now that the city has to go back to the drawing board to come up with a workable idea, maybe they’ll be a little more open-minded about better locations and funding sources. If not, we’ll still be talking about building a new EC 20 years from now.

What’s the best way to pay for playgrounds for the rich? Tax the shit out of the peasants of course.

Word on the street in Pierre is that it has a very good chance of making it out of committee. This does not surprise me. I guess the committee members have been lobbied pretty hard on the issue. Even if it makes it out of committee I don’t think it will pass the houses, and if it does for some miraculous reason, voters will certainly turn it down in November;

The sales tax bill that could produce a funding source for a new Sioux Falls events center is scheduled for its first hearing today.

House Bill 1198 is scheduled to be heard at 10 a.m. by the House committee on Local Government.

The bill would enable cities to impose a temporary one-cent sales tax for a specific capital project, pending local voter approval.

And it seems Mr. Tax and spend himself will be in Pierre to promote higher taxes, go figure.

A hearing in the House Local Government committee will be held Thursday at 10 a.m. and Mayor Dave Munson plans to testify about the bill. But it’s only the first step in the five-step process of passing the third penny sales tax bill through the legislature.

I was actually surprised we had so many. I wonder what the per capita rate is for the states? I heard that SD ranks around #1. And you wonder why we continue to not have an income tax, instead we find it fitting to tax the poor on food;

In 2006, South Dakota ranked 44th in the nation with 11,769 millionaire households. While that number rose to 12,563 in 2007, the state’s rank actually dropped to 47th. The state rose to 41 with 12,151 millionaire households in 2008, but dropped to 47 this year with 10,646.

Just think if we put a 6% income tax just on those 10,646 residents (based on only making $1 million a year) the state would raise $638,760,000 million. With that kind of dough, we could eliminate video lottery, retail taxes and reduce property taxes in one clean sweep. But hey, that would make sense and be fair, how dare we!

Today at the SF city council informational meeting there was a presentation of the arterial street plans for 2010-11. As South DaCola reported this week, the developers haven’t put in their fair share. Councilor Staggers questions the city department head about it, and that person reveals that platting fees have brought in $258,000 to date and the .08 cent tax increase has brought in “around $2.09 million”. Staggers then asks who will be paying for the project if the platting fees are not matching the taxpayer’s contribution. (paraphrasing) “I thought the developers were going to share 50% of the cost, that’s what we were told,” Staggers. The city official responds, (paraphrasing) “NO, we did not say that, that was simply a formula we used to get to the $10 million dollar number.”

A formula? More like a load of F’ing Crap!

WE WERE LIED TO in order to RAISE OUR TAXES, AND YES, WE WILL BE PAYING FOR A MAJORITY OF THESE ROADS.

South DaCola made the FIVES again;

Regressive taxation, in graphic detailA few years ago, the Journal Editorial Board took exception to the state’s efforts to force cities to raise taxes, particularly because the tax increase would include staple items such as food.

The state heard similar complaints from folks all over South Dakota, and in response, offered up a program by which individuals who met a certain income level could apply for relief.

Still, no matter how it’s explained, taxes on food are regressive, i.e., it most adversely affects the people who are least able to deal with it, the poor.

That’s blogger Scott Ehrisman’s argument against a current plan being floated by Sioux Falls officials to increase taxes to pay for an events center.

While Ehrisman’s conclusion that such a move is plain and simple discrimination may be hard from some people to swallow, he makes an extraordinary case against regressive taxation by offering up a graphic that shows by income bracket what percentage individuals must pay of their total earnings to such taxes.

Another case of a picture — or a line graph — is worth a thousand words.

WOW! Imagine that, South Dakota’s second largest city has a little compassion for their citizens;

“We understand that times are tough and everyone needs to tighten the purse strings as much as possible, and I think the city government is no exception,” Rapid City Mayor Alan Hanks said.

Can you pass that message on to King Dave?

Sioux Falls will collect 3 percent more in property taxes next year after the City Council on Monday approved the maximum annual increase allowed by state law.

And guess who was the only councilor to vote against this increase was?

Councilor Kermit Staggers proposed an amendment to not take the 3 percent increase, but it failed to get support.

Once again, the Sioux Falls city council proves how out of touch they are with the general public by approving this increase.

Let’s face it, taxing poor people to pay for an events center they will never be able to afford to visit is discrimination, plain and simple, yet it doesn’t stop our city leaders from pushing this stupid idea. This letter to the editor says it all;

Unfortunately, the current and proposed sales taxes already impact poor and moderate-income folks disproportionately. They pay a significantly higher percentage of their already strained incomes on food and other necessities. This includes baby food and food for older children.

As of May, Sioux Falls had 37 percent of its school children on free and reduced-price lunches. That percentage probably is higher now. South Dakota is 49th in hourly wages.

The Food Pantry in Sioux Falls is reporting a 70 percent increase in requests for food during the past 18 months. We need to eliminate the sales tax on food altogether. To consider raising it again is unthinkable and immoral.

This chart shows the percentage of income paid in taxes compared to what you make. As you can see most of South Dakotans are submitting over 10% of there income to local taxes. Couple that with Federal income taxes and you are looking at a staggering amount of taxes. We must stop the retail tax increase to build the events center, especially on food (Thanks to Bread for the World for the Chart)

I talked to a Republican businessman last night about what might be happening in Pierre next year, and two things stuck out;

- A law may be passed to allow 19 yr. olds to drink in beer joints

- Rounds would probably veto any legislation that would allow cities to increase the sales tax

He told me that many legislators are for lowering the drinking age (Dems and Repubs). Eleven other states have done it. But it has to be specific. 19-20 yr. olds would only be allowed to drink beer AND they could not purchase beer off-sale. I guess it is a loophole with Federal highway funding.

And as I mentioned before, the state will probably not give cities the power to raise retail taxes, unless they come to some agreement like letting the state to raise taxes at an equal amount, which we could see our taxes as high as 8%. We’ll see what happens. My prediction is that there would be a citizen uprising and the increase proposal won’t even make it out of committee. Which leaves us at square one, once again with the Event Center.

I still think the council and mayor should just raise the bed and booze tax and start building the damn thing already.

I got interviewed this morning about my feelings on the platting fees being so low in comparison to the taxes collected for arterial roads (see graphic below). I touched on many topics, but here’s a summary

- I think it is unfair to mandate retail taxpayers to pay an extra tax when the developers are not

- I thought it was pretty obvious the night the council approved the tax increase that we were going into a recession

- I think the tax increase was just a ploy to max out our taxes to what state law allows so that it will be easier for the SF Event Center Task force to ask for another tax increase next year from the legislature.

- I think arterial streets should be built on a DEMAND basis. If developers start moving dirt, we start moving dirt.

- I pointed out that councilors Knudson, Jamison, Litz and Brown all had their campaigns funded by the very special interests that supported this tax increase.

Obviously not all of this will make it into a 3 minute news spot. KELO also interviewed Theresa Stehly and they were planning on an interview with Craig Lloyd, the main developer who was pushing this tax increase. Mark Cotter, city planner, may also be interviewed.

I guess we are only in a recession when it is hurting the developer’s pocketbooks, not the rest of ours.