State Legislature

Sales taxes are regressive, and any effort to raise them will be met with massive opposition

l3wis August 11, 2025 2Comments

I see Jodi is now becoming the Mayor’s cheerleader in trying to raise our sales taxes;

At the same time, before offering any incentive like that, we need to consider raising sales tax across the board if we’re going to continue to emphasize reducing property tax.

In the city of Sioux Falls alone, one penny of sales tax can generate almost $100 million each year. An option to capture that revenue, while at the same time pairing a sales tax holiday to provide relief during the year, seems worth exploring.

Our average of 6.11 percent, coming in at No. 36, is quite low, especially when you consider there’s no personal or corporate income tax to help fund government services.

She thinly veiled her support for a sales tax increase with a story about sales tax holidays. How about we put South Dakotans on a permanent sales tax holiday and implement an income tax. I did the math, and if you set it with certain income levels, 60% or more of South Dakotans wouldn’t pay a penny in income taxes. I have argued if we implemented a income tax on households and private business who make over $100K a year (with exemptions for children) and increased the assessments on commercial and ag properties for property taxes, we would have oodles of money for programs while eliminating the sales tax almost entirely. I would keep sales taxes on luxury items and items over a certain dollar value. Sales taxes on anything we need like medical, energy, food, clothing, etc., would be eliminated. Making poor people pay more in taxes so property owners can get a tax cut makes no sense and is defeating the purpose. I support a property tax cut, but other changes have to be implemented for it to work, and we don’t need to increase taxes on things we need, the government needs to budget differently and we need to go after the tax dollars where they are; RICH PEOPLE. But since they control this town and legislature it will never happen.

Did I just wake up from a 15 Year Coma?

l3wis August 4, 2025 4Comments

Several years ago when Huether was running for Mayor I said something similar to this;

‘This is the problem when you have marketing people running city government’

I didn’t say that exactly, it was something like, “We don’t need salesman running our city.” Same premise. The initial quote comes recently from a SF legislator referring to our leadership in our fine city, specifically the mayor’s office. I have railed about this for 15 years, questioning why we need salesmen running our city. I guess some other ‘leaders’ in Sioux Falls are finally waking from their 15 year coma and realizing shucksters and carnival barkers have been running our city, and it is time for a change. Hopefully we will get a mayor this next time around who wants to actually GIVE BACK to the community instead always trying to sell us something we don’t want or need . . . and that is quite a list.

Mr. Kirby even weighs in on the topic;

I sometimes wonder if the Chamber of Commerce and development foundation focus a bit too much on growth and not enough on life quality and the right sort of growth.

I have been saying that for 20 years. Growth for Growth sakes will eventually bite you in the butt when the money tap runs out for the Developer Welfare Queens. That tap will run dry by the end of the year and won’t get shut back on for several more years. Maybe it is time city government focus on fixing up the current infrastructure instead of building canals on Veterans Parkway.