Mr. Powers and Mr. Sibson both seem to agree that South Dakotans are taxed too much and our government is too big. Is this true? Let's look at the numbers.
When one looks at state taxation, as I have reported here before, South Dakota has the lowest tax burden in the nation. When we include local taxes, this data base (pdf altert, and go to page 41 for South Dakota), says over the last decade South Dakota has ranked about 45th in tax burden, meaning only five states tax their citizens less than South Dakota.
How about spending? This chart from 2002 has South Dakota 42nd in the nation in per capita spending, while this one (another pdf) from FY 2005 has us 41st. Perhaps things have changed since then, but it seems likely that we are in the lowest 10 states for per capita spending. If anyone has more recent data, send it along.
So we can see that there are few states that tax less and where the government is so lean. These are comparisons of course. It might be that all the other states are ridiculously over taxed and their governments are way too big and so it means nothing that South Dakota ranks below them on these measures. Maybe. I suggest that if anything many states, and certainly South Dakota, both spend and tax too little. The problem is seen in the second chart I linked to above. State and local government in South Dakota is taking about 9% of our income, but the federal government is taking another 20%. If the feds would take less and spend less then it would be easier for state governments, where the basics of government should be in the first place, could do more without the concerns of over-burdening their tax payers.
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