Instead of using nullification to protect South Dakota from Obamacare's damages, the South Dakota GOP lead legislature has passed SB38 and SB43 which implements Obamacare. Yesterday they Hoghoused HB1141 in order to add the taxes to pay for it. This Keloland report explains:
A vote on a one penny sales tax increase this year could be possible.
Republican Senators amended a bill Wednesday to allow the state to hold an election this November with the anticipation that a group will ask voters to increase the sales tax.
Republican Representative Scott Munsterman says the proposal needs serious consideration because the state isn't going to face budget problems just this year, but for years to come. That's because he says Medicaid costs will continue to go up, and it will crowd out funding for other areas of the budget like education.
Munsterman is calling his plan 'Plan B' compared to Governor Dennis Daugaard's proposed 10 percent budget cuts.
"'Plan B' takes a really good hard look at where are we going to be in 2020," Munsterman said.
Munsterman fears in 10 years, the legislature will still be looking at cuts and a tight budget because of increased Medicaid costs.
And he says that will increase for three reasons:
- First the new federal health care law will add 52,000 new Medicaid recipients in South Dakota, and the state will have to pick up ten percent of the cost by 2020.
- Second, Medicaid costs have risen on their own in South Dakota by nearly six percent every year.
- And finally, an aging baby boomer population will add to the Medicaid burden.
Munsterman says cuts now won't help the long-term problem of increasing costs.
Keloland then echos the Daugaard lie:
An extra penny sales tax is estimated to add up to $160 million to the budget. The current deficit is $127 million.
My analysis shows the 2010 structural deficit to be only $12 million. The 2012 revenue estimate used by Daugaard has an additional $55 million in ongoing revenues. Daugaard is actually proposing a $45 million budget surplus for FY2012, if you do as he says and not count one-time revenues. The $127 million budget crisis is fabricated by Daugaard and the media.
Yesterday the Senate State Affairs passed HB1230 that will use $16 million of the extra ongoing revenue to create a slush fund for the Governor to use for corporate welfare on big projects. The Board of Regents is already getting 100s of millions to provide corporate welfare in the form of taxpayer funded research.
Keep in mind that in 2008 the South Dakota government was $3 billion. After Obama's massive federal spending, South Dakota's government is now $4 billion. And the SDGOP plans to grow it even more by adding another penny of sales tax. The SDGOP tell us that there is not enough for education as they pass $16 million for corporate welfare, and in the next breath, vote to add the cost of a special election.
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