Rep. Leslie Heinemann (R-8/Flandreau) is hoping Christmas shopping will save the Legislature from having to go along with Governor Dennis Daugaard’s proposed zero increase in K-12 funding:
Heinemann expects that lawmakers will try to find more money to allocate to K-12 education during the 2018 session. Due to lower than projected sales tax revenue, Gov. Dennis Daugaard proposed no increase in state aid to education in the next budget. Heinemann said he considered the governor’s proposal a baseline for spending, and lawmakers would want to see where sales-tax revenues stand for the last two months of 2017.
According to Heinemann, at the time of his budget address, Daugaard possessed the state sales-tax revenue numbers up to Oct. 31. Heinemann thought that good retail sales occurring at the end of 2017 might boost state revenue [Chuck Clement, “Legislature Expected to Return to Meandered Waters,” Madison Daily Leader, 2017.12.22].
These conservative hopes for more liberal spending are coming true nationwide:
Consumer confidence, robust online shopping activity and a slew of procrastinators helped boost holiday retail sales this year to record-setting numbers, preliminary reports show.
Holiday sales increased 4.9 percent over the previous year, marking the largest year-over-year increase since 2011, according to the latest Mastercard SpendingPulse report, which tracks retail spending by all payment types. Its figures do not include automotive sales [“Retailers See Biggest Increase in Holiday Sales Since 2011, Report Says,” Washington Post via Mitchell Daily Republic, 2017.12.26].
The 2017 holiday shopping season was the second-longest possible: Thanksgiving this year fell on November 23, meaning shoppers had a full week in November to hit the stores. A 2004 study did find that earlier Thanksgiving correlates with higher holiday retail sales.
But when online shopping can make every day feel like Christmas Day, should we keep banking on Christmas sales to top off our private and public coffers? And by counting on Christmas to bring a surge in crass capitalist materialism, aren’t folks like Rep. Heinemann triggering the Gordon Howie critique and undermining the Christian underpinnings of this holy time?
Oh well. Consume, citizen! Your legislators are counting on you to spend them out of hard decisions!
What the hell does a guy who voted across the board against the original measures care about school funding now?
Good reminder, Mike! Heinemann voted against the 2016 teacher pay raise funding all three times the bill (2016 HB 1182) came to a vote in the House. Note that now he’s not going to back an increase unless the economy does some magic for him and relieves him of any tough choices.