More Federal Context Needed for New Wheel Tax
It’s too bad that the current wheel tax being collected by counties in South Dakota is being sprung on taxpayers without the benefit of context, defined by one online dictionary as “the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.”
Those paying taxes at the Meade County Courthouse in Sturgis were given a one-page handout by the clerk which opened with “The wheel tax recently passed by the county was forced upon us by the state, by making it a prerequisite to participating in the Road and Bridge Grant Fund administered by the South Dakota Department of Transportation.”
The page argues in boldface that “the new law says counties must have imposed a wheel tax to be eligible,” though there is no mention of why the maximum tax of $5 per wheel was demanded. One man in line asked if steering wheels and spare tires would also be taxed.
Missing from subsequent discussion of the “new” wheel tax, however, is the historical context of maintaining bridges. Before the wheel tax of 2015, who paid for bridge repairs?
One common “sugar daddy” system for funding just about everything has been to have the feds collect money through the IRS, then generously give massive funds to each state, once a token “match” is contributed. Come election time, state politicians would brag endlessly about how much apparently “free” pork they could win from the national government.
There was never any mention at the state or local level about the social engineering strings attached by the feds, advocating just about every liberal social cause out there. States that wouldn’t play ball simply would be left high and dry, the implied threat went. Explain that to the voters?
Trouble is, the trickle down funding to states from the feds also guarantees almost complete control by the national government in faraway DC, just the opposite of what the Founding Fathers had it mind. Now the feds are the absolute puppet masters, withholding and manipulating payments to force states to collect new taxes to pay for things like bridges. What’s next, then?
With federal revenue dependence for necessities like bridge repairs now gone or substantially withdrawn, states have no choice but to go for new money like the wheel tax. State politicians have become just middle managers for the feds, haven’t they? Yes, county commissioners are being “forced” aren’t they?
So what do the feds do with the money they’ve saved in bridge repairs? Fund new social programs and free “peace and justice” events, of course. If the 10th Amendment has been unlawfully killed by federal extremists, then is the rest of the US Constitution worth anything?
