Bob Mercer says the large number of undecided voters on South Dakota's three big ballot measures results from a lack of information.
Lack of information? Good grief! The Madville Times alone offers undecideds over 140 articles dealing with Referred Law 16 (née House Bill 1234, Governor Daugaard's plan to waste $15 million on education reforms that have no positive impact on student achievement). Voters, you won't find any more comprehensive and evidence-based assessment of RL 16 than right here. Of course, not every voter has the time to read 140 blog posts and the associated, often scintillating comments from intelligent readers across the state, so let me offer a simple summary: Save your school! Vote No on 16!
As for Initiated Measure 15, the extra-penny sales tax to fund education and Medicaid, you can avoid information overload by checking out the four-page fact sheet produced by the South Dakota Budget and Policy Project. The fact sheet provides some useful numbers:
- Total annual amount raised: $182 million.
- Total annual boost to K-12 education: $91 million.
- Funding increase per student: $730.
SDBPP puts that funding increase in perspective with the following chart:
If we increase per-student funding for K-12 education by $730, we'll still be investing less in educating each child than any neighboring state. Now one can say that more money alone doesn't make for more effective policy... but one can also say that we demonstrate the value we place on schools and children by how much we are willing to invest.
SDBBP provides a second chart that tells us who foots that bill (click image to enlarge):
For the folks at the bottom 40% of the income scale, IM15's extra-penny sales tax eats up an additional 1% of their income. The proportional impact on average income for folks in the top 20% is less than half that. Our neighbors in the top 1% see their tax burden increase just 0.1%
In other words, to cover this tax, the bottom 4% of taxpayers have to go without something they buy now—like, say, breakfast lunch and supper—three or four days out of the year. The top 1% might skip lunch one day.
It's not lack of information that accounts for most undecideds on Initiated Measure 15. It's the hard choice we face once get information like the South Dakota Budget and Policy Project's fact sheet: Do we compensate for our Legislature's miserly cowardice and boost our underfunded schools, or do we protect lower-income families from more regressive taxation?
It wasn't hard for me to vote no. I couldn't justify burdening the poorest among us just because the legislature can't get their priorities right. Cowardly!
I won't be conflicted when I vote no on the regressive sales tax increase. The number to keep in mind: $400 million in the education enhancement trust fund that's not being used to enhance education right now. State government doesn't lack funds - it lacks the will to invest the funds it has in education rather than in Wall Street.
There is a long list of agencies that took a huge funding cut the same way education did. I see the legislature taking the dollars freed up from the additional one percent sales tax and restoring those budgets to pre-recession levels.
You vote to raise my food tax to pay for some fat-cat administrator's reserved parking spot and another statue at a big hospital and I will be the first to wag my finger at you when you cry about "regressive taxes" again. In fact, you vote to raise my food tax for just two groups who got cut and you lose your right to whine about regressive taxes. Eh? EH?
Taking $180 million out of the economy (not one penny) will be adverse. Of course there will be more jobs in Pierre to control the kids and their single mothers, teachers, school administrators, and school climate.
Steve, how does this money leave the economy? We collect the tax, but then government turns around and spends it in the economy. We buy school books. We give teachers raises, and those teachers go buy more stuff. We pay for poor folks health care at local hospitals. You can argue that we are redistributing money (we always do in civil society), but the money doesn't disappear.