I see legislators are finally listening to Detroit for once.
They have come up with some good ideas to help fund road maintenance in our state;
That the excise tax charged on registration of vehicles be raised from 3 percent of the purchase price to 4 percent. That would raise about $19 million dollars, which would go to the state highway fund. Raising the cost of license-plate fees for noncommercial vehicles by an average of $10. For a typical passenger car or pickup, that would bump the fee from about $42 to $52 and would raise about $12 million, which would go to counties. Eliminating a provision that gives a 30 percent license-plate fee reduction for noncommercial vehicles older than five years and a 10 percent break for older commercial vehicles. Those two changes would raise about $13 million, which would go to counties for road work.
Next stop, corporate income tax!!
Let’s go, South Dakota!
I’m glad to hear that the people in Pierre are starting to realize that video lottery and tobacco settlements won’t fund everything and that in order to have a quality network of infrastructure in this state, we might actually have to pay for it.
And tax things that are actually using our roads VEHICLES!!!
No, we don’t need anymore taxes.
We need to cut spending. The State Government’s budget has been growing by $60 Million a year for the past 6 years or so, throwing money away on all sorts of nonsense.
The state government has, like the city, gotten drunk off the increased revenues from the Federal Reserve inflation-created Boom, and now that that artificial boom is coming to an end and we’re in the bust phase, they want to keep spending like drunken sailors.
That’s not economic reality.
People know how to spend and allocate money more efficiently then government bureaucrats. Even assuming everybody in government is honest and upright (Which we know they’re not.), you still want to keep as much money as possible in the voluntary sector of the economy.
We DO need to oppose no-bid contracts and other forms of corporate welfare. That’s a Huge cut right there.
Tracy
I will admit that making cuts would be the wisest choice. But we both know that will NEVER happen under the current governor and the chicken-shit Republican legislators who don’t stand up to him, just piss and moan to the Argus Leader.
We need new leadership and a fiscal conservative that really understands that concept.
So, how do we force the Republicans to be fiscally conservative?
One, way is to make them fear that they might loose their reelection in the highly gerrymandered Republican districts, by running active Libertarian, or Constitution party candidates.
But that takes a cycle or 2 to be effective.
Tracy
I have also beleived that the two major political parties should split in half.