South Dakota

Interesting things going on in South Dakota. From the ever-popular site, CattleNetwork.com:

ABERDEEN, S.D. (AP)--The Brown County state's attorney says a decision to give tax breaks to a beef processing plant that'll be built just south of Aberdeen cannot be put to a public vote.

Plant developers say the tax help is crucial for the project.

State's Attorney Mark McNeary says the action of the county commission cannot be second-guessed by voters because it was an administrative procedure.

Administrative actions are not subject to public votes, but legislative actions are.

A lawyer for opponents of the beef plant says he thinks it's a legislative decision to provide a break on property taxes, and it can be put on the local ballot if about 12-hundred signatures can be obtained.

A petition campaign is planned.

The Brown County Commission on Tuesday approved a measure that will provide a tax break of $8.6 million for the new beef processing plant.

The tax break will be provided by creating a special tax increment financing district that allows the increased value of the plant to be refunded in property taxes as improvements are made.

Northern Beef Packers wants to build a plant that could process 1,500 cattle a day at capacity.

Let get's this straight. A large company entices a group of bureaucrats to give them a break on their tax burden. The bureaucrats come through, but the problem is that ordinary small business and property owners are not entitled to the same breaks. The small property owners realize that their chances of attaining the same discretionary tax breaks are slim and costs of doing so are high, so they decide to get together to oppose the corporate favoritism on the whole. But then the state's AG tells the smaller property owners that they cannot challenge the tax break -- it is set in stone.

Wow. I'm sure many of my friends out there who read this blog often wonder why the topic of state tax breaks and incentives interests me. Hopefully cases like these make it a little easier to see why: rent-seeking monopolistic government entities such as economic development boards create more problems than they solve and purport to be above the will of the people.