The South Dakotans Against Higher Taxes group opposing Initiated Measure 25, the ballot measure to raise tobacco taxes to fund tech school tuition reduction has filed their final report for 2018. And while not reporting much raised, they didn’t need to, having over 1.6 Million dollars on hand:
South Dakotans Against High… by on Scribd
Spending $1,676,530.24, their efforts were tough to compete with, as evidenced by the results of the election. The group did raise $10,000 in this period from a coalition of business owners opposed to the tax, as well as recorded in-kind donations from Altria, and the South Dakota Chapter of Americans for Prosperity.
A lot of construction money backed this proposal. If only the developers would pay more, there would be a larger pool of tech workers for their development projects. The answer is to increase wages and not tax the little guy and gal, who are not making enough already as it is…
I agree that we can’t tax working families, who aren’t making enough. I agree we need to increase wages. SD must attract (and train) more skilled workers (including technical workers). Increasing the cigarette tax was not going to raise much money — not nearly as much as promised. Meanwhile, it was going to squeeze lower-income South Dakotans & hurt our small businesses. It likely would have encouraged a few people smoke less — which is good — but a sin tax isn’t the smartest way to accomplish that goal. It would have raised some money for technical schools — also good — but we can get that job done in other, more-efficient ways. I believe Kristi’s budget proposes a decent funding increase for technical education, which I’d call a good start.