Gordon Howie: Tea Party Tax Cheat

I'd give credit where credit is due, but the creator(s) of the "Stop Gordon Howie" website still haven't cowboyed up with real names. So credit goes to Jonathan Ellis, who verifies their claim that South Dakota Tea Party gubernatorial candidate Gordon Howie really hates texes... so much that he doesn't pay them.

Ellis checks the Pennington County records and finds the singing real estate agent is over $58,000 behind on 32 properties. Gee, Gordon, are ordinary taxpayers supposed to feel sorry for you for buying more property than you could sell? Are voters supposed to trust you to balance the state budget when you can't rein in your own spending and meet your legal obligations?

$58,000... hmmmm... that would pay for a couple of teachers.

Let's see... Tom Daschle turned out to be $128,000 behind on his taxes due his accountant's mistake. Daschle lost his chance to be HHS secretary. Howie owes us taxpayers $58,000 by choice, by willful resistance to paying his fair share. Anyone who gloated over Daschle's downfall had better cross Howie off his ballot. (I know, most of you Republicans already have.)

According to Ellis's article, not only does Howie have the gall not to pay his taxes, but he also had the gall last year to propose a bill to raise our sales tax to take the tax burden off his real estate business. Gordon Howie. Raising Taxes. Nice. Of course, as the anonymi point out, the Howie family tries evading the sales taxd, too, by taking food from the food pantry.

Gee, Gordon, my family expenses went up this past year. My family income went down. I still paid every penny of my property tax.

I can't wait to see the campaign finance report to see how much money Howie has spent on his own campaign that he could have used to pay his legal debt to us.

Do Howie a favor: vote him down hard on June 8 so he can knock off his silly campaign, sell his extravagant RV, and get back to real work so he can pay his taxes like the rest of us.

----------------------
Note that Daugaard, Knudson, and Munsterman avoid comment in the Ellis article, clearly obeying the principle that you never look back at the guy trailing you. Ken Knuppe takes a swing, though, saying quite simply, "I pay my property taxes" and noting that paying your taxes is part of being a landowner. Knuppe's "Code of the West" includes paying your debts. Republican readers, if you're still toying with the idea of "sending a message" to the party establishment with a Howie vote, why not switch to Knuppe instead? Vote for a real rancher who pays his bills.