Your letters to the editor for Aug. 11, 2024:
Washington is about to devastate my small business
Why is Washington ignoring one of the most important issues of our time?
That’s all I can think amid the non-stop news cycle of the past few months. Essentially none of our politicians are talking about the fact that small businesses like mine are about to face one of the biggest tax hikes in history. If they don’t take action, we’re about to be devastated, and so will the communities we anchor.
This massive tax hike will take effect next year, which in the world of small business, is basically tomorrow. That’s when many of the 2017 tax reform’s provisions will expire, including the all-important Small Business Deduction, which lets job creators like me deduct 20% of our income. This tax cut helps put small businesses on a level playing field with big corporations. And by the way, big corporations got permanent relief in 2017, while small businesses had to settle for temporary savings.
My story shows how important those savings are. Last year, after 10 years as a city cop, I started my own private investigation company. It’s the biggest risk I’ve ever taken, and as I quickly learned, small businesses face daunting tax and regulatory burdens. One of the biggest reasons I’ve been able to succeed so far is the Small Business Deduction.
Those 20% savings have already helped me start stronger than I anticipated. The extra money has helped me hire four full-time and two part-time employees. It’s also given me the financial freedom to help my team pay for health insurance. And after I filed my taxes earlier this year, I found extra money to invest in new equipment and tools that are already helping my business succeed.
Case in point: I spent a lot of the savings on new drones and license-plate reading technologies, which helped me solve a missing person case earlier this year. That’s the kind of success that brings in new clients, which in turn can help me grow my team. Put simply, the Small Business Deduction is helping me do more and more for our community...
…but not if Washington lets this tax cut die. I’d owe a lot more to the IRS, and to pay the coming tax bills, I’d have to cut back. I’d probably stop paying for part of my employees’ health insurance. I may even be forced to cut back on payroll costs. That means fewer full-time employees, if not fewer employees altogether.
To be clear: I don’t want to make these tough decisions. No small business owner does. But a tax hike forces our hands. After getting my business off to such a great start, a tax hike would suddenly hold us back. Not only is that wrong, but it’s deeply unfair. No big business is staring at a tax hike next year—just small businesses like me.
Congress needs to make the Small Business Deduction permanent. It’s as simple as passing the Main Street Tax Certainty Act, which already has bipartisan support. But if Washington keeps ignoring this issue, small businesses like mine will soon suffer. Our Senators and Representative need to act fast. Small businesses are the foundation of our communities and we need help before it’s too late.
−Steve Flanagan, Madison, South Dakota, owner of Blue Light Investigations in Sioux Falls and member of the National Federation of Independent Business,
The three-step property tax plan
The recent property tax summer study of SD law makers focused on property appraisal values. This is NOT what SD voters wanted. The use of ever-increasing property taxes is simply not sustainable for the SD taxpayer. Here is a Three step Property Tax Plan1. The dollar amount of taxes due will be FIXED at the 2019 level. There will be NO assessment and NO mill levy. Example: If your tax due in 2019 was $2,000. The tax due will stay the same. New construction can be calculated by square foot at the 2019 tax level.2. About 60 % of the property tax goes to schools. How about using the Education Enhancement Trust to help fund schools. In 2023 this fund had over 25 million dollars which is a 6.7 % increase over 2022.3. Increase sales tax by about ½ to 1 %.We need to ask our legislators to fine tune and format this plan into workable legislation.
− Vivian Couch, Buffalo Gap, South Dakota
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My last Olympics
The July 26 Olympic opening ceremony in Paris was a spectacle that injected bacchanalian debauchery into Christian solemnity. Jesus—with high sparkly crown and plunging décolleté—was unmistakably mocked in a drag-queen tableau of the Last Supper.
As the camera panned the long table of “voguing” luridly eye-shadowed disciples, particularly disturbing was not the bearded humanoid in a midnight-blue bustier; it was the little banged brown-haired girl in dandelion yellow, sandwiched near the middle.
Taking place approximately 1465 years before Leonardo da Vinci painted his masterpiece, the original Last Supper, occurring on the eve of Jesus’ crucifixion, has been ritualized in modern day’s Catholic ceremony of the Eucharist: congregants consume the symbolic body and blood of Christ and solemnly recall his excruciating torture and death.
In Paris, this venerated Christian event was hijacked for a cult movement’s deviant political purposes, and with a little girl in its clutches, the cult gloatingly declared, “We have your children.”
It’s curious that Christianity, a religion of peace and forgiveness, was singled out for this burlesque and not, say, Islam.
2015’s Islamic extremism is still a poignant memory. So it doesn’t take much imagination to visualize the Sharia-inspired response—in a country of six million Muslims—to an act blaspheming Islam on a world stage.
But in keeping with Christian grace, it will be forgiven:
Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God.
Romans 12:18-19
− Scott Hammond, Sioux Falls
Trump is being made the bad guy because he's standing up for himself
The definition of propaganda according to Cambridge dictionary is:"information, ideas, opinions, or images, often only giving one part of an argument, that are broadcast, published, or in some other way spread with the intention of influencing people's opinions"Just when I think I the Argus Leader has reached the pinnacle of propaganda Bart Jansen says "hold my beer" and pens an article in the Sunday Argus about Trump having the best justice money can buy. Now, don't get me wrong, Trump has spent more money than 99.9% of Americans could afford to spend to defend himself. That is a given. The man has been impeached twice on charges that did not rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. Then when he thumbed his nose at the Washington elite and decided to run for president again a few years ago, the Washington cabal decided to collude with various state and local prosecutors to concoct felonies to indict him on, some of which had to resurrect charges for alleged crimes that had long since passed the statute of limitation date in the state they were alleged committed in.Mr. Jansen has the audacity in his article to compare Trump spending his own and allegedly contributors money to defend himself against this unpresidented onslaught of allegations heretofore unheard of against a former president and candidate for president, with the plight of a common criminal indicted for crimes who cannot afford to hire a lawyer. If the man had just walked away, none of this would have happened.There is no comparison. Trump is being made to be the bad guy because he is standing up for himself against odds that no one who didn't have a purpose larger than himself would ever stand up for. If they can do it to him, just think what they can do, and in some cases are doing, to the everyday working class American. I would correct Mr. Jansen in one thing. Public defenders who actually take their duties seriously will fight to the end to prevent this type of railroading from occurring no matter what your ability to pay might be. I agree that most public defenders have an impossible work load but if they believe in justice an honestly innocent person will not get the representation they deserve to prevent the same thing happening to them that Donald Trump is paying to protect himself from.It is a sad day in America when the "4th Estate" has turned itself into a propaganda sheet sprinkled with morsels of local news. This article has no place in our local news paper. Outsiders have no business pretending to portray themselves as the voice of the everyday working class Sioux Falls citizen. The purpose of the rights provided by the U.S. Constitution as they pertain to freedom of the press is to provide a watchdog over the very justice system Mr. Jansen chastises in his article, as well as over the legislative and executive branches their document created. Most print and broadcast media entities today fall disappointingly short of the bar set by those who designed our republic and to many Americans it is viewed as a existential threat to the republic as we know it.I suspect this letter will never appear when the ink meets the newsprint at the presses in Iowa, but if there is any sense of justice in the ownership of what once was a pillar of journalism in the state and area it will. I shan't hold my breath.
− Randy Amundson, Sioux Falls
Editor's Note: Bart Jansen covers the Justice Department for USA Today, the larger national publication in the Gannett corporation, the Argus Leader's parent company. It's not uncommon for us to share national news across various Gannett outlets, similar to a wire service. He is not employed at the Argus Leader, and all Argus Leader staff live locally.
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Vote yes to Amendment H this November
South Dakota voters will get to vote on Amendment H in November. It creates oneSouth Dakota Primary. All candidates would be on a single primary ballot, all voterswould receive that ballot and the top two vote-getters would advance to the generalelection. Most importantly, all voters would get to vote!But party bosses hate the idea of letting all voters vote. Democrat leader Dan Ahlersand Republican leader John Wiik are both speaking against it. They want to be able todecide who runs and even who wins in our state. Amendment H lets voters decideelections.Currently, 150,000 independent or unaffiliated voters in South Dakota are excluded fromtaxpayer-funded primary elections. Amendment H ensures that everyone has ameaningful voice in who leads our state by letting all voters vote in the primaryelections.Party run primaries tend to promote partisanship and reward party loyalty. They also result in low voter turnout. Political loyalists and the partisan folks who have messed up American politics tend to dislike open primaries.Vote YES on Amendment H to restore political power to South Dakota’s voters\
− De Knudson, Sioux Falls
A thank you to supporting highway safety
Thank you Abby Streyle, Roland Svartoien, Jeremy Waltner, Mike Miller, EMTs, city ambulance services, fire departments, local law enforcement SD Highway Patrol, Hutchinson County Sheriffs Department, elected officials, petition carriers, 1200 petition signers and everyone who helped convince the South Dakota Dept. of Transportation to expedite the construction of a four way stop at the dangerous Hwy 81 & 18 intersection.
This is what happens when “we” work together for something we can all agree on. This was not a “me” or “I” issue. It was clearly a WE CAN DO THIS ISSUE!
We can never bring back the lives lost, erase the injuries or reduce the suffering that occurred at this intersection but we took a big step in reducing the potential of vehicle accidents, loss of life and injuries at this location in the future. Also, thank you South Dakota Department of Transportation for being proactive and taking this issue seriously.
Please turn in any signed petitions to Abby Streyle at Meridian Corner or me so we can get a final count. Again, thank you to everyone for your cooperative efforts and sticking together to do what is right and good for the travelers of Hwys. 81 & 18. in Southeast South Dakota.
− Frank Kloucek, Scotland, South Dakota
Do not comply with cashless event ticketing
Recently the Sioux Falls Metro Area School Districts, including Brandon, Tea, Harrisburg and Sioux Falls, announced a Cashless Ticketing Policy. Anyone wanting to attend events like football games and band competitions will have to pay online with a credit card and scan a QR code from their smartphone at the gate. There are multiple reasons why we should not comply with this policy. First off, cashless ticketing reduces funding to schools via transaction fees that the district pays. The policy also discriminates against students without smartphones / QR codes, low-income people who use cash as a budgeting tool to avoid high interest rates on credit cards, people with credit issues who don’t have a credit card, parents who don’t think smart phones are a healthy choice for their students, and elderly who don’t know how to use a smartphone/QR code. QR codes track our kids’ locations. I have to also scratch my head that the Gettysburg School district just voted on a device-free environment, while Brandon and surrounding school districts are requiring students to have smartphones to attend events.It turns out that if you contact the school activities director to complain, you can pay with cash/check for activity passes and receive an ‘anonymous’ QR code printout. It’s a pain but apparently it’s possible. It is also my understanding that they will take cash at the event gate after they ‘lecture you about the benefits of having a smartphone and QR code.” I invite the community to join our family in not complying with cashless event ticketing by taking these actions.
− Susan Luschas, Brandon, South Dakota
Amendment H let's all voters vote
I’m thrilled that the top-two open primary election system, Amendment H, is on the November ballot. I encourage voters to say YES on H!Here’s how the SD primary election would work. All candidates for an office would appear on a single ballot. All voters would get that ballot. The top two vote getters would move on to the general election. Most importantly, all voters would get to vote! Including the 150,000 independent voters in SD who currently have no voice in who governs our state.So, who opposes this logical improvement in our election system? The people I have talked to who oppose it value their politics over the voting rights of their fellow citizens. They worry that it will hurt their political party. I hear this from both Republican leaders and Democrat leaders. The political establishment wants to hold on to its power at any cost.Our state will be better off with a fair election system. And our political parties will survive. Vote YES on Amendment H to let all voters vote!− Joe Kirby, Sioux Falls
How to submit a letter to the editor:
Letters need to be roughly 300 to 500 words, and will need to include first and last name, address, city and title. Addresses won’t be publicized, of course, but it’s a way for us to make sure those who submit a letter are who they say they are.
Letters will run on Sundays in print and online as we receive them. There may be moments, however, when we don't have any as we work to solicit interest and actively rebuild this part of our coverage for readers.
You can submit those to News Director Shelly Conlon by emailing sconlon@argusleader.com or submit them through our online form here, which also is sent directly to the news director.
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Why this will be my last Olympics; Why cashless ticketing at schools is bad: Your letters
