Term Limits and Taxes

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The Argus Leader had a pair of great letters to the editor today.

The first one was slamming a regular neo-con who spews about the benefits of taxcuts;

I grew up in a South Dakota community that had WPA or PWA stamped on everything from schools to sidewalks. My quality of life to this day (62 years) has been impacted more by the New Deal and the Great Society than all other presidents and eras combined.

Couldn’t agree more. Things were built better back then to.

The second letter is about the arrogance of our state leaders and their continued attempt to overturn term limits that the voters have told them twice that we want to keep them as is;

South Dakota state legislators simply don’t understand. Last year they placed a constitutional amendment on the ballot to repeal term limits. The measure fell flat with more than 76 percent of voters casting their votes against the effort to repeal the state’s current term limits law.

I think all legislators need to take an IQ test in South Dakota before they are allowed to run for office. I think it would eliminate the Gordon Howie’s of the legislature.

Argus columnist KINDA endorses a sales tax decrease?

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Matt Okerlund wrote a great column on Sunday about term limits, but he started his column off with I believe to be a veiled endorsement of our goal to get sales tax decreased;

Earlier this month when told a group of residents launched a petition drive to counter his and the City Council’s decision to increase the city sales tax from 1.92 percent to 2 percent on Jan. 1 to raise more money for road construction, Sioux Falls Mayor Dave Munson sounded dumbfounded.

“I’m trying to build a city, and build a city for the future, so that our kids and grandchildren don’t have to go to Minneapolis or Omaha or Kansas City for opportunities. They can stay here,” huffed Munson at the news that Citizens for a Responsible Sales Tax hoped to gather enough signatures to ask voters to cut the city sales tax to 1.9 percent - the pending .08 percent increase plus a bit more – because it is convinced a looming U.S. recession and banks from Iceland to Islamabad making like the Hindenburg is a strange time for city government to be hitting up taxpayers for more money.

“What do they want to take away?” grumbled Munson. He noted the city budget next year includes $615,800 for upgrades to McKennan Park. “Do we want to just drop those programs we want to do for McKennan Park? It’s a possibility.”

If that was a veiled threat, it lacked the veil.

He finishes the column up beautifully

In nine days the other people who inhabit this state will once again tell me just how wrong I am. When that happens, I’ll mutter. I’ll curse. I’ll look to the heavens and shake my head. I might even wonder – if for only a fleeting moment – if somehow, by some fluke of nature, by some crazy twist of fate, I have it backward.

Maybe the misguided one isn’t them.

Maybe it’s me.

And maybe someone should remind the mayor of this city and four-fifths of the Legislature how a democracy works. It seems they have forgotten.

I have long felt that half of our city council and mayor have no clue how a democracy works. The proof is in the pudding. They have been wrong about the Rec Center and Drake Springs Pool, and once again he is wrong about raising taxes on food and utilities to build roads for new development (that may never happen) during a National economic crisis.

Please sign our petition.

The Gargoyle Leader comes out against Term Limits

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No surprise here, they like people who are entrenched in the system, so they can keep getting tax benefits (Advertising is NOT taxed and no one has introduced legislation to do so – yet we have to pay tax on food) And the tired old same people in our state legislature will not present new ideas, or new ways to fund government besides sales tax and video lottery. But this statement surprises me most;

Fundamentally, though, the issue is power. South Dakota’s governmental structure means our governor wields a lot of it. Tack on term limits for legislators, and that branch’s power is further reduced. It’s not much of a stretch to lay the Legislature’s unwillingness to stand up to a governor who routinely disregards their directives at the feet of term limits.

When has our longtime legislators ever stood up to him? They bitch a lot in the media (Gene Abdallah) but never get anywhere with it. File complaints, file lawsuits and take it to the people. Mike Rounds does not scare me, why does it scare these legislative veterans? Because they all sleep in the same bed together.

VOTE NO ON J – WE need new ideas in Pierre.

And a correction in the story, Scott and Phyllis are in District 13 not 14.