Do you think city hall knows how to spend your hard earned money better then you? When the mayor and half of the council raised your sales tax, that’s exactly what they told you. They believe in the ‘trickle down economics’ model of taxation; increase taxes and give that additional revenue to special interests such as developers and contractors in hopes that money will ‘trickle back’ down to those original taxpayers in the form of jobs and growth.
It’s a backwards way of spending YOUR money to improve this community. There is a better way to move us forward; let taxpayers spend that money individually instead of handing it over to city bureaucrats and special interests.
They disguised this regressive tax increase as being progressive because they claim it will help our city grow. Hogwash.
 I’m all for new and maintained roads – I’m just against how they want to pay for them. New roads can be paid for through developer fees, which I fully support and roads can be maintained through the sales tax we already pay. Councilor Costello put it best in an Argus Leader article “It’s a shell game.†There is nothing stopping our mayor and the city council from spending those increased taxes on anything they want to. They sold it to us by saying we needed the new roads yet the CIP budget (which is also funded with sales tax) is packed full of unneeded projects that only benefit a few in our community not the greater good. We can cut the CIP easily and make up for this sales tax decrease. It will mandate the mayor and city council to spend within their means for at least one year (2010) and you also have to remember we may have up to four new councilors and a new mayor in 2010, lets break them in right by showing them they need to have some fiscal restraint.
Want REAL growth in our community? Stop overtaxing our citizens on necessities like food and utilities and let them spend that money on goods and services that helps ALL local businesses grow not just a select few lucky enough to get a handout from the city.
Local business drives our economy in the form of good jobs which promotes growth. Would Sioux Falls grow stronger if ALL local business were getting a piece of the pie and not just the special interests?
Scott L. Ehrisman
Co-Chair, Citizens for a Responsible Sales Tax
Theresa Stehly and I will be on the local radio talk show hosted by Jon Micheals, FORUM on all the Backyard Broadcasting stations Sunday Morning talking about the petition drive for the initiative to reduce sales taxes.
KELO AM and FM at 7 AM and all the other stations at 8 AM. I believe the interview lasted about 40 minutes.