Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender is blaming the bad farm economy for his having to deny $1.5 million in city budget requests:
“It’s a year when we look at all of the indicators and we think this should be a good year and then farm income in down by well over 40 percent and there is no way to compensate for that,” said Allender. “I’ve given this warning to council for years now that we have an obligation to look at our sources of revenue and commit to a different way of doing things” [“Mayor Says 2019 Budget Impacted by Drop in Farmer Income,” KOTA-TV, 2018.08.06].
Mayor Allender says Rapid City depends too much on sales tax. But where else is a mayor going to get money?
While there are increases in personal income and building permits, the city is feeling the impact of reduced farmer income, which greatly impacts the budget [KOTA, 2018.08.06].
No, Mayor Allender didn’t say income tax, but if income is up, shouldn’t the city and the state be able to proportionally tap that wealth to sustain public goods and services? Heck, we can’t even turn the Wayfair sales tax into a windfall. Rapid City shows that including an income tax in a properly three-legged stool of taxation creates a faster-growing, more reliable long-term base of public revenue than South Dakota’s regressive and obsolescing tax system.
Expect former police chief Allender to instruct police to start issuing tickets at every possible opportunity. And expect fee increases. Lots of fee increases. It’s nickel and dime time.
Allender gets reckless with the truth. Hasn’t he heard that the ag business just got a 12 Billion dollar bribe to offset the decline. Maybe reconsider the Shangri-La for a couple of hundred million to offset his name plaque. Rapid City, just got conned by another lying trumpian republican.
Ah, but Ror, those tickets aren’t a reliable source of revenue either, are they? If farmers are short on cash, they won’t be driving to town as much, and when they do, they’ll drive more slowly to save gas….
Jerry, I know you’re winking, but I seriously wonder: will any of that Trump farm welfare go to Pennington County producers? Will beef producers get much Trump Commodity Credit Corp. money? Will more go to the pork and soybean producers, and if so, is there much of that production in the Rapid City area?
Foreign tourism numbers are dropping. They don’t feel safe or welcome here anymore. Noticing the large number of foreign tourists I see on my periodic trips through the hills I would guess this is also adding to less tax revenue along with a depressed ag economy.
Very little pork production in West River period unless it is close to the river, just cattle and wheat for the most part. No, either NOem is lying or Allender is lying or they both are, which makes more sense. Noem claims the economy is booming, Allender claimed the same because the in crowd put up thousands of dollars in advertising to sell the lie. Allender said that he was gonna fix the roads, fix the railroad crossings and do all that fixin and still have bucks left over for the cathedral. Now, he needs a scapegoat and farmers, you all are in line for the browbeat. Does not matter if the Bribe money comes to West River or not, what he should say though, is that it is the trump economy that is hurting the bottom lines. Instead, he just blames ranchers and farmers for not doing something which he does not say. What are they supposed to be buying that they are not buying?
Allender is kind of deaf as well it seems. He cannot hear those cycles out there making noise, the noise of money. Hotels are all filled, places to eat are busy, that boy is simply not telling the truth. Looks like he will have a great future in the Duma of South Dakota.
Is there much talk from SD trumpelstilskins about unhappiness with their hero’s tariff wars? Or are they blaming China? Democrats? Liberals? Or . . . . . anyone but Tangerine Wankmaggot?
It is curious to read how farm incomes have dropped 52% since 2013, according to the USDA Economic Research Service.
Did the entire world go on a diet? Did everybody cut their caloric intake in half? Are people more successful at growing their own food?
Should we blame this on backyard chickens?
Or is it that incomes have dropped because the production costs have increased? The costs of labor, fuel, fertilizer, insurance and regulatory compliance have put a squeeze on farmers? And it started in 2013?
Ms. Debbo, they think they are winning, much like the victims of the Titanic that thought as long as the band was playing, lets party. Blub blub, all underwater just like this latest trillion dollar deal to his partners has left us. Oh well, print up some more paper money, that will do the trick. In fact, print enough to pay off the debt, there ya go, fixed it.
I heard a lady say today that she was not gonna vote because South Dakota only has 3 electoral votes, so why should she bother. Civics left our minds in the 60’s and 70’s because who needs that knowledge of government, and here is what we have, dumbass people.
2012 Farm Bill should have eradicated that Anne, but republicans let it die on the vine.
“Indeed, the Farm Bill can seem incomprehensible to anyone who’s not a policy wonk. I am a reluctant wonk. I first became interested in the Farm Bill because of its potential to do something that the free market does not: help landowners restore habitat and protect nature. But I quickly came to understand that the Farm Bill could be a solution to myriad food-related problems. Some of these problems have been hammered into the national consciousness—for instance, the fact that two-thirds of the country’s people are overweight or clinically obese. Other issues addressed in the Farm Bill get less air time: One-sixth of the country relies on food stamps. Our agricultural heartland just suffered its most serious drought in decades, and climate conditions continue to grow more erratic. Farm operators over 65 years of age outnumber those under 35 by 7 to 1. Impending water and fuel shortages are already affecting agriculture.” http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/food/2012/10/farm_bill_2012_expiration_why_congress_needs_to_take_food_policy_seriously.html
So instead of ag producers getting the help after the drought, they got the shaft and were told by republicans that the black guy did it.
We need to eliminate about half the Navy fleet, a considerable amount of these expensive bombers and jets and get down to the fact that we are now outmatched. Kind of like Stand your Ground, you have to have the coppers there in order to fulfill that nonsense. You may pull the trigger but it is gonna have some serious consequences. Hey, what happened to the Rocket Man? Oh yeah, he called our bluff. If they hack your grid system and your elections, they can hack anything and you will be chasing your tail in the blue water of the Pacific wondering what the hell is going on.
“Will the Pentagon, with its 30-year planning cycle for building ships, still be launching aircraft carriers in 2048 — even though they’re highly vulnerable to attack today?” Washington Post 08/07/2018
So you get smarter war planers and take the trillions in savings to provide a realistic business for ag producers. In other words, pay them for their product. Not to hard to see when you take a look at the risk involved along with the uncertainty of an treasonous president who thinks playing with the banks money is a good idea, Or you learn how to speak Chinese. Hey, we already like the food buffet, so here we go. Learn some Russian as well as they even have a salad.
[In South Dakota Anne Beal represents the government. She’s a top leader in the majority political party.]
~ Anne Beal, why don’t you ALREADY know the answers to your own questions? Isn’t it government’s task to gather and analyze data on hurting farm commodities and to work to mitigate problems like this?
~ We Dems believe it’s absolutely YOUR job and you’ve been lazy in doing it. Using the “small government” tagline to avoid doing your work is getting old, Annie. It’s true that Republicans almost always don’t know what to do (or even how to figure out) how to fix even small problems, but try this. Get off the blogs and get your happy ass government to work! …
~ VOTE BLUE ~ FOR THE FARMERS!
~ HEY, Annie … FYI … Since 2012, the real prices of corn, soybeans and wheat have all declined markedly toward their average 1998-2005 real price. The decline in real prices since 2012 mostly reflects lower current dollar prices since US inflation remains low. As a point of reference, the 2018 crop year price that would have resulted in a real price in 2018 equal to the 1998-2005 average real price is $2.69/bushel (bu.) for corn, $7.00/bu. for soybeans, $3.95/bu. for wheat.
There’s so many factors here, one farmer I know attributes the drop in prices to an increase in yields. They are producing more bushels/acre of everything so the prices are dropping. (Crunch the numbers on that, the number of bushels per acre x price per bushel to get income per acre, then subtract the production costs.)
I also know that farmers who get subsidies are accused of accepting welfare, getting rich off of taxpayers’ money etc. there is no easy fix to this. Throw in the effort to use the farm bill to combat obesity and you have a competing interest. You want the farmers to grow food but you don’t want people to eat it.
Anne, how many negative factors can Republicans dwell on before they come to the conclusion, “There’s no way we can do anything to make it better. No sense even trying.” That’s the easy way, huh? Republicans are the reason South Dakota was given an “F” grade in ingenuity in the last national ratings.
GMO soybeans are not human food, they are livestock feed. Non GMO beans are used for human consumption. Why do farmers get blanket subsidies? I am sure they would like to know that question as well. We all need to eat, there is no doubt on that. So why do we grow corn food to make into fuel that has to be subsidized in order to make it profitable. We don’t eat the ethanol corn, so it has one purpose, fuel additive.
Speaking of eating, soybeans and feed corn are for animal feed. We could do much better with pasture finishing of our beef. Better for the land and better for meat, so it is better for us, the consumer. What about our poor, disabled, elderly and veterans, don’t they deserve to eat with dignity? Why the hate on them?