As investor enthusiasm for Trumpocracy fades, South Dakota continues to see no Trump bump in its economy. The Legislature’s Executive Board received an update Tuesday that shows sales tax revenues still lagging:
State sales tax revenues have fallen below the previous fiscal year’s revenues for eight of the nine last months. And remember, we’re charging an extra half-cent sales tax on every dollar sale than we did in FY2016, so that 2.16% drop in tax revenues in March represents a 13.03% drop in taxable sales. [Correction! 2017.04.21 16:08 CDT: Notice that term “base sales tax” in the charts? LRC calculated these revenues based on the old 4% rate, to compare apples to apples. They did not include the extra half-penny tax for teacher pay, so the 2.16% drop in sales tax revenues does indeed present a straight 2.16% drop in taxable sales, not the even worse 13.03% drop that I feared. I apologize for the error.]
Bob Mercer reports that South Dakota would need 13.4% growth just to hit the reduced budget target that legislators adopted just two months ago to get us through June 30.
Hmm… if South Dakota really wants to cash in on the Trump economy, we should stop flying to Vegas to recruit pistol and rifle makers—peashooter sales are slumping under Il Duce—and work on getting Raytheon, Dynetics, and other big defense contractors to build factories here. Under Trump, the big money is in missiles and bombs!
Is it all that crazy [in a state with no income tax, a chronic budget crisis, a sincere love of freedom and a distaste for Federal government telling us what to do] to propose legalizing industrial hemp?
I mean, who is the Federal government to keep South Dakota from growing non-drug crops in West River gumbo? If we could increase production value of land while not getting anyone hooked on the dope, then why the hell not? It’s limited to an agricultural product on that level, and there is no danger of anything.
And heck, since a significant number of people are already out there recreationally smoking it, regardless of its illegality, why not tax the growing flow of that relatively harmless product? It seems in-line with South Dakota tax revenue needs and freedom-oriented, American, state’s rights values.
Instead, South Dakota would rather allow the sale of guns to clinically insane people with violent backgrounds (at gun shows and online) while locking those weed smokers up as if those dopers are the real threat to society. Meanwhile, no one has ever heard of a guy who got high on the pot and then suddenly really wanted to rob a bank or kill people.
I would like to see the pro-pot people in SD hire economists to develop monetary projections on how South Dakota’s economy and state budget should/could be estimated to benefit from forward thinking industrial hemp policy alone.
If we can just get on the front end of something – anything – any change in the economy or innovation of absolutely anything – we could make real progress as a state. Unfortunately, I fear that we just don’t have the balls nor the brains. Ya know, it really takes guts to be different.
let’s assist the tribes in fully developing tourism as they may desire and knock it out if the park
yah got a fully developed NPS Buffalo plan that is still viable (all across the state perhaps), quit wasting money on SFC state park and work the problem for the WHOLE state.
oh, and then dems, progressives and independents get yer heads out and tackle sate income tax. work together people.
MEDICAID EXPANSION, two words Medicaid Expansion. South Dakota folks in general, do not have two nickels to rub together. We are a failed poor state that is getting even getting worse with no improvement on the horizon. We have a legislature that goes to Pierre. That is all. They chase interns. Do their damnedest to defeat democracy. End of story.
No matter how many times the republican sees the marquee for a better South Dakota, they decline as if the two words were just so difficult to understand. Now, we have two more dingbats getting groomed for the job. Which one will we take to make us even more worse off, the Prom Queen or her escort. Both cannot dance, but are photogenic and that is what sells. Regarding the cruise missile manufacturing, I fear that it would be something akin to what the bad haircut dude has already in North Korea. In short, I don’t think we could hit a bull in the arse with a scoop shovel little alone a missile.