In dissing the proposed referendum of SB 245 Thursday, Governor Larry Rhoden also spread some Noem-era bushwah on his support for repealing South Dakota’s unusual sales tax on groceries:
Rhoden also reminded reporters that in 2023, as lieutenant governor, he and then-Gov. Kristi Noem advocated for removing the sales tax on groceries, but lawmakers declined and instead passed the temporary sales tax cut [Joshua Haiar, “Opponents Seek Public Vote on SD Law Using Higher Sales Taxes to Drop Property Taxes,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2026.04.30].
Ah, yes, Kristi Noem’s 2022 campaign stunt, in which she proposed repealing the tax on groceries just months after fighting exactly such a cut during the 2022 Session, then did a worse job than Democrats of advocating a grocery-tax repeal in the Legislature. Noem then flip-flopped back to opposing a repeal of the sales tax on food, opposing a citizen initiative to achieve her erstwhile policy promise. Noem spent zero cents of her supposedly enormous political capital to boost to food-tax-repeal measures in the 2024 Legislature (2024 SB 163, 2024 SJR 510). As Noem’s Lieutenant, Rhoden was silent on those 2024 measures (I’m not even sure he said much about repealing the grocery tax during the few months when Noem supported the idea). When Rhoden became Governor, he threw no weight behind a 2025 bill to exempt food produced in South Dakota from sales tax (2025 SB 213). And this year Governor Rhoden sent his Bureau of Finance and Management to testify against a bill seeking to zero the food tax while boosting sales tax on other goods to 5% (2026 HB 1281).
As a Senator in 2009, Rhoden voted against exempting food from sales tax (2009 SB 199).
I’m afraid Larry may be suffering from some Trump Derangement Syndrome—the actual detachment from reality that comes from trying to act like Trump. Nothing on the record shows that Larry Rhoden has ever said, “You bet! Exempting groceries from sales tax is a good idea!” He certainly has not exerted himself to enact such an idea. This year his administration actively opposed the idea, and both of his major bills for property tax relief (2026 SB 96 and 2026 SB 245) depend on raising sales taxes on all goods, including groceries.
Law bills that get passed stay passed until the legislatures undo them. Some things are just too complicated to not have lobbists guiding the process, and the referrers of this law bill will probably find that out.
Yes, socialized agriculture, socialized dairies, socialized cheese, socialized livestock production, a socialized timber industry, socialized air service, socialized freight rail, a socialized nursing home industry, socialized water systems, a socialized internet, a socialized infrastructure and now a socialized workforce are all fine with Republicans in South Dakota but then they insist single-payer medical insurance is socialized medicine.