I guess citizens are lining up to start a petition drive to raise taxes;
Gov. Dennis Daugaard, while he opposes new taxes to erase the state’s $127 million structural deficit, said Thursday that he’d have no problem with such an initiated measure.
“Certainly, that’s democracy in action,” he said. “If the citizens choose to raise taxes through that initiative, then it’s certainly within their power, and I support their ability to do that.”
Somehow I feel Doogard was being sarcastic. Funny how legislators are backing away from raising taxes permanently when citizens have the lawful right to get involved;
Lawmakers were talking about dedicating revenue from a new one-cent sales tax for schools, Medicaid and perhaps property tax relief, it said.
But that momentum came to a halt Thursday when Sen. Mark Johnston, R-Sioux Falls, decided against bringing an amendment to Senate Bill 126 to the Senate floor.
Johnston is part of a group of Republicans working on solutions for education and Medicaid funding. He had considered changing his bill into a permanent sales tax increase but suddenly decided to leave it alone.
Why’s that Mark? Because it is f’ing stupid? Ironic how RICH Republicans like Mark (Executive with Sanford Health and staunch opponent of our sales tax initiative petition drive, to reduce city sales taxes) are all for raising regressive taxes on working people but run like a chickenshit away from fair taxes like on income, advertising and luxury items. Cry all you want, but there are two ways to fix our budget problems; heavy cuts to a bloated state government, and other forms of creative taxation, like I mentioned. You can’t continue to bleed workers, the only thing an increase in sales taxes will do is that people will buy less (locally), which hurts local business and hurts local jobs.