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In Pre-Veto Word Game, Noem Calls Tax-Cutting Legislators Liars

Governor Kristi Noem says the sales tax cut the Legislature passed is not a tax cut, and if you say the tax cut is a tax cut, you’re lying:

“These guys, just anybody who says it’s a tax cut, just isn’t telling the truth,” Noem said.

The bill lowers the overall sales tax from 4-point-five percent to 4-point-two percent. Lawmakers included a 4-year sunset clause as a hedge against a severe downturn in the economy. But Noem says she’ll have a difficult time supporting the measure unless it becomes a permanent tax cut.

“Pretty tough, Perry, to do that one. It’s a temporary tax holiday. Anybody else who calls that a cut is lying. Because not only in this bill do they have it sunsetted, they also repeal the Partridge Amendment, which the Partridge Amendment is a trigger that would have made it permanent when we start growing our revenue,” Noem said [Perry Groten, “Noem: Anyone Who Calls Sales Tax Bill a Cut ‘Is Lying’,” KELO-TV, 2023.03.15].

Um… House Bill 1137, which rests on the Governor’s desk right now, cuts the state sales tax from 4.5% to 4.2%. Sure, it only does so from July 1, 2023, until June 30, 2027. But even if its only for four years, it’s still a tax cut.

Noem is playing word games, pretending that she can rename the tax cut a “temporary tax holiday” and get by with branding her opponents liars. I could just as easily say, “Kristi Noem isn’t South Dakota’s Governor; she’s just a temporary officeholder campaigning for President. Anyone who calls her a governor is lying!”

HB 1137 is a tax cut. If Noem vetoes it (and that’s what this word game may be about), she will be vetoing a tax cut, one of the biggest tax cuts in South Dakota history, and her 2024 primary opponents will pounce on that veto as proof that anyone who calls Noem a true conservative is lying.

12 Comments

  1. Loren 2023-03-16 09:20

    “Playing word games?” LOL! Not in a universe where up is down, right is left, black is white, “truth is not the truth,”and “alternative facts” rule.

  2. e platypus onion 2023-03-16 09:47

    Pot meet kettle, ad infinitum.

  3. sx123 2023-03-16 10:03

    It’s an insignificant tax cut.

  4. Mark Anderson 2023-03-16 13:03

    It’s a tiny fraction of nothing. Yipee!

  5. O 2023-03-16 13:53

    Again, more aggressive rhetoric and posturing that seems to justify a veto ONLY pays off if she veto’s the budget. The more she protests, the more more she HAS to reject the object of that scorn, otherwise SHE is making the argument for being ineffectual and intellectually inconsistent. So far, she has cut all possible alignment from any possible posture for calling this a win for her.

  6. Michael Card 2023-03-16 15:54

    I thought the 20% property tax cut followed by another 10% spearheaded by Dave Knutson, Janklow’s chief of staff in the mid 1990s had a much larger effect.

  7. Algebra 2023-03-16 15:57

    the Partridge Amendment was a promise, which has been broken. That’s it. Noem should veto this thing, and tell them to reverse the repeal of the Partridge Amendment.

  8. cibvet 2023-03-16 17:41

    Only the fools who voted for her believed she would actually follow thru.

  9. Arlo Blundt 2023-03-16 17:42

    Casey Crabtree and Wil Whats his name have put out releases lauding their work to “keep their promises” and provide a significant tax cut. It appears that, yes, our Governor is calling them “utterers of untruths”. Mike Card is correct. The Janklow era property tax cuts were significant, though only for property owners. Perhaps, renters got a small dividend, depending on the benevolence of landlords.

  10. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2023-03-16 17:50

    Raising the sales tax from 4.0% to 4.5% in 2016 to fund teacher pay raises was a significant tax increase. Lowering the sales tax from 4.5% to 4.2% actually puts the same amount of money back in taxpayers’ pockets that the 2016 increase took out. Repealing the food tax would have a more significant targeted impact on people in the greatest financial need, but the pending tax cut in the overall sales tax rate is significant.

  11. grudznick 2023-03-16 18:25

    It probably will result in the lower levels of the SILT getting smaller raises this next year.

  12. grudznick 2023-03-16 18:47

    grudznick is going to collect more from what falls under the table at breakfast and send it all to this Mr. Partridge fellow who caused all this rukus.

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