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?