Pierre Americans for Prosperity Meeting

I actually made the Americans for Prosperity meeting over yesterday's noon hour.

Several people attended the meeting including myself, Representative Tom Hackl, State GOP ED Max Wetz, and others as AFP director Duane Sand gave an overview of what they were hearing in their listening meetings across the state.

Duane indicated that through the listening meetings, they’ve gotten over 250 recommendations for further consideration and study.

Property taxes are a consistent theme, as well as educational funding, sales tax, and government spending.

As far as the topics touched on in Pierre, I had to leave as the discussion got really good, but several topics were covered while I was there;
Property Taxes,
Educational funding
Protection of State Trust Funds
Encouraging the feds to not increase income taxes
Local control of revenues
The Food Tax Exemptions and
Caps on city indebtedness.
I thought the local control discussion was the most interesting. It’s clear among those in attendance that people are in favor of returning more local control over taxation, but at the same time, people are nervous that some cities would open the floodgates.

There was also talk about the food tax rebate program, which led to a philosophical discussion over how people at the lower end of the economic scale should have a stake (via paying taxes) in what government spends.

But at the same time, those people in need often find it difficult to navigate the hoops of government programs, and while they meet it economically, they might have trouble meeting the bureaucratic requirements for a program such as the food tax rebate, so those bureaucratic requirements might be reduced to encourage more participation.

Watch for a legislative package to be offered based on the results of the grassroot meetings.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I wonder if the legislature will listen to the recommendations that came from everyday citizens at these meetings?

Very few other groups did anything like this before the session.

Hats off to Americans for Prosperity for organizing the tour.

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