The state is pretending that spending $1.5 million to stage fireworks at Mount Rushmore for Il Duce and the Snow Queen’s vanity was a great fiscal success:
Wanda Goodman, deputy secretary with the S.D. Department of Tourism reported those numbers to the S.D. Tourism Advisory Board recently. Of the estimated $2 million in direct spending, the state saw about $160,000 in immediate tax revenues for state and local governments.
…That revenue compares to the $1.5 million price tag for the event. Event costs included $60,000 for pre-event planning; $125,000 for travel costs for the Incident Management Team; $80,000 for labor costs, $3,500 for supplies; $4,500 for equipment; $40,000 for contracts; $88,000 for wildland fire support; $350,000 for fireworks; $47,000 for shuttle buses; $50,000 for jumbotrons; and $475,000 in miscellaneous costs. Katlyn Richter of the S.D. Department of Tourism said those costs were shared by federal, state and local agencies. Funding for the fireworks came from South Dakota Future Funds, a fund designated to support workforce development within the state [Wendy Pitlick, “State Reports Major Success from Mount Rushmore Fireworks Event,” Black Hills Pioneer, 2020.10.12].
In terms of government budget, 1.5 million dollars went out, and only 160,000 dollars came back in. We only made back 11% of what we spent, and that’s a major success? Wow—the Tourism Department must also be in charge of the math Governor Kristi Noem is using to say that another record new and total daily case counts and nearly swamped hospitals show the state’s major success in containing coronavirus.
To cover the money it blew on Trump and Noem’s ego, the state has to play magic math, reminding us of its July claim that the free press from the Rushmore Two-Hours Hate was worth $22 million in advertising and estimating that the 7,500 people who were permitted into the closed national monument on July 3 spent $2 million on gas, wieners, and Trump hats during their visit. The tourism spending claim ignores the money we lost by barricading the highways and keeping the usual much larger tourism crowd away from Mount Rushmore on July 3. In 2019, 20,706 people visited Mount Rushmore on July 3; in 2018, that day brought 28,287 to the Great Faces—and that was with no $350K fireworks show. The 7,500 allowed to bow before Noem and Trump on July 3 was barely half of the usual daily attendance throughout summer 2019. So even if we accept the Tourism Department’s guess on how much the Trump slobberers spent at this government subsidized campaign rally, the numbers tell us the vendors at the monument and down in Keystone could easily have made twice as much money if the government had not intervened, if Trump and Noem had stayed home, and if we’d just left Mount Rushmore open to the general public all July 3, with no fireworks.
The Rushmore fireworks extravaganza got Kristi her ride on Air Force One and some nice pictures for her 2024 campaign. But it was a net loss for the state budget and no gain for real tourism spending in South Dakota.
The comparison to past July3 visits is illuminating and makes an excellent point about how Trumpist public officials in SD have increased any existing efforts to manipulate information presented to the public to create a false image. While such unfortunate behavior by some people in power has pretty much been around throughout our recorded history it seems to be moving to even more damaging levels (See e.g. Kurt Andersen’s book “Fantasyland” for a description of the history of propaganda in the the US).
https://www.kurtandersen.com/fantasyland
Another “cost” not mention by Goodman is the cost to local government for increased security measures measures due to a presidential visit. All in all, this was nothing more than a Trump/Noem campaign rally paid for in large part by our tax dollars, which certainly gave their supporters a thrill.
When Democrats talk about the benefits of spending government money, they can at least point to real gains in revenues, education, GDP….
…and we Democrats tend to spend your tax dollars on actual public goods and services, not exclusive campaign rallies that shut down national monuments for our political pals.
SDGOPnomics.
South Dakotans, are you pleased to be ripped off again?