Explorers Win 2016 Volunteers of the Year

The CMS Explorers won the 2016 Volunteers of the Year Award from the Chamberlain-Oacoma Chamber of Commerce. The group accepted their award at the annual Chamber luncheon on Thursday, January 26, 2017. Each year, the Chamber gives the award to a person/group that makes a difference in the community by volunteering.

The Explorers Club is a service club for 6-8th grade boys. For more than sixteen years, the organization has served the Chamberlain-Oacoma community and school through fundraising and various service projects. In 2011, St. Joseph's Indian School students joined for the first time and now are active participants in the club.

Since its inception in 2001. the group has raised over $100,000 for their community and school. While that is a significant sum of money, Chamberlain city engineer, Greg Powell,  has said in the past, the Explorers have helped start and fund over $500,000 in projects for Chamberlain including ball fields, playground equipment, swimming pool equipment, fishing piers and other infrastructure.

That money has been used for a new baseball field, scoreboard and lights, a new soccer field, new playground equipment, a new picnic shelter, trees, new slides and other equipment for the municipal swimming pool, a fishing pier in the municipal campground, audio-visual equipment and an AED device for the school, the "Meals on Wheels" program,  Relay for Life, new flag poles at Avenue of Flags, playground equipment at American Creek Park, equipment at Tri-County Veterans Park and a disc (or frisbee) golf course among other things.

January 2017 SDADA Column

NADA began when a group of 30 dealers came to Washington to fight a proposed 5% luxury tax on new vehicles. Advocating for their customers, these dealers successfully argued the automobile is a necessity, not a luxury. Those dealers won that argument and NADA is still fighting for dealers, their employees and their customers 100 years later.

In a time when all trade associations are struggling to find a way to be relevant to their members, NADA still boasts a 90%-plus membership rate. NADA truly is the "Voice of the Dealer" in all it says and does.

Our association has, in Peter Welch, a President and CEO second to none. We have an exceedingly knowledgeable and ultimately professional staff that is always "looking around the next corner" to help protect and advise dealer-members of both threats and opportunities.

I have been fortunate to serve as your NADA Director since August of 2007. In the 9+ years that I have served as director, I have had occasions to fight on the front lines with many of these fine people against threats from the manufacturers, legislators, regulators and disruptors that face our business. I can report that I'd much rather have them on my team than be facing them. They are formidable foes!

The National Automobile Dealers Association is us. It is the dealers in all 50 states; large and small; multi-point dealers and single point dealers; import and domestic; in metro areas and in rural communities; publicly owned and privately held; working together to make our industry better for our businesses, our employees and our customers.

Let us all celebrate that! As we look forward to our nest century, let us remind ourselves that our success lies in our employees and our customers. When we serve them, our industry thrives!

Happy birthday, NADA!

December 2016 SDADA Column

Red sky at night, sailors' delight.
Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.
- from an ancient rhyme often repeated by mariners

It's almost morning in the Trump administration and I see a red sky!

Tax reform is a recurring threat in DC. Every politician that runs calls for tax reform and every incumbent up for reelection calls for tax reform. It's a standard line in every candidate's stump speech. There's been much lip service paid to the topic and very little elbow grease expended.

That could be changing. It would appear that the Republican Congress and the Trump administration are both serious this time - as in they want real tax reform!

House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) released a "Tax Reform Blueprint" in July 2016 that outlined the general provisions of a comprehensive tax reform package. When the new Congress convenes in January, the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, and the Trump Administration will begin developing the actual text for a tax reform bill.

Here's where it gets complicated...One of the provisions included in the Tax Reform Blueprint, the “Border Adjustment Tax” (BAT), has generated significant concern among several industries, including the automotive sector.  The BAT is not a tariff.  Tariffs are taxes imposed on specified imported products (e.g., the 25% chicken tax imposed on the import of light pickup trucks since 1963).

The House Republican proposal (including the BAT) would modify business income taxes in several ways: reduce the rate from 35% to 20%; accelerate depreciation schedules, eliminate all interest deductions; exempt the cost of exported goods from the taxable receipts subject to income tax (they would be taxed in the jurisdiction in which they were sold); and disallow the cost of any imported goods as a deductible business expense.

I Shot an Arrow Into the Air...

After my failed elk hunt of 2013, I would have to wait for nine years to apply for a Black Hills Firearms elk tag. In an effort to get another chance in the Black Hills a bit sooner, I wanted to try archery again. I had owned a bow back in the early nineties but really never spend enough time with it to become proficient.

I bought a PSE bow on eBay in the summer of 2015. I started practicing in September of 2015. I did hunt a bit in 2015 but had a busy schedule during the deer rut and did not get out enough to really see the traffic patterns. I was not very confident with my shot either - maybe 30-35 yards.

This year, I made a commitment to practice as much as possible in September. I spent a half hour each evening that I could and fired 20-25 shots. I was confident up to 45 and would take a shot up to 50 yards.

I got out to watch the deer a bit in September and early October. I knew where they were moving and what was out there.

As the calendar moved into late October, I was getting out for an hour each evening. I saw deer and was getting close to does. I had does within 20 yards. But I did not see any bucks.

Finally, I saw a nice whitetail buck one evening. I saw him several times over the next week and got to within 70 yards of him. But I could not get within a reasonable range.

I started to panic a bit because we had a trip to Spain-Portugal planned for November 3-13 and that was supposed to be peak rut. I'd only have a couple days left to hunt when we returned before the rifle season started and then the rut would be over and the bow hunting would become much more difficult.

I did not get close to anything before our trip. We returned on a Sunday and I was exhausted on that Monday. On Tuesday, I went to Omaha for the Creighton-Wisconsin basketball game and returned home about 2:30 AM.

I had three days left. I had to go to my stores in Winner and Mission on Wednesday and teach religious education that evening. And now the forecasters were predicting a winter storm for Thursday/Friday. My window of opportunity was quickly closing - and fast!

2016 Knust Kronicle

2016 Knust Kronicle

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from the Knusts!

Click here to see the 2016 Knust Kronicle

You can find previous Knust Kronicles and Christmas letters here.

November 2016 SDADA Column

The ground beneath me still quakes from the aftershocks of the 2016 presidential election. Donald J. Trump delivered the most improbable of election victories in United States history as he completely shocked pundits, media and other experts.

Now the business of governing begins. What does that mean for Americans? What does that mean for car dealers?

Fortunately for businesses, Trump will be working with a Republican majority in both the House and the Senate. He should have a decent chance to advance some of his agenda.

He is likely to seek vast cuts in regulations that have hampered the small businesses across our country. This bodes well for car dealers.

Trump has said he would dismantle Dodd-Frank Wall Street regulation. Hopefully, that means he is likely to reel in the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Regardless, the environment is right for NADA's S 2663, our next effort to tame the CFPB, to be passed.

He has indicated a desire to revise our tax system to make our business tax rate more competitive to keep jobs in America, create new opportunities and revitalize our economy. Again, this likely will serve for small businesses well.

NADA's agenda should find a more favorable environment across the regulatory agencies in DC. That should mean less government in our dealerships.

Hopefully, Trump can focus on those issues that will find some consensus in Congress. There are many issues that both sides agree need attention. Mr. Trump, stay with those....and relinquish your Twitter account!

October 2016 SDADA Column

Virtually every dealer, manager or salesperson I know has been put in the position of having to
explain to a customer that one vehicle, with the same MSRP as the identical vehicle sitting next to it, costs $4,000-5,000 more than the other one. Or they have sold vehicles at a significant loss at the beginning of the month in an effort to hit an objective that will allow them to perhaps(!) break even on vehicles they sell at the end of the month.

Manufacturers do not understand the disruption, confusion and malaise they cause with such ridiculous incentive(?) programs. They do permanent damage to their brand, customer-dealer relations and dealer-manufacturer relations.

The NADA Board of Directors had an extended discussion about this topic at our most recent meeting. The frustration, anger and distrust came quickly to the surface as we talked. There was a wide variety of ideas to deal with it but there was not any consensus. Of course, our anti-trust attorney kept the discussion on track and us out of trouble!

The topic is on the agenda for the next board meeting but I'm not confident that NADA is in a great position to really do anything significant (other than have the discussion with the manufacturers) about this issue.

Like most states, South Dakota has a law on the books that specifically deals with this topic (my emphasis added):

South Dakota Speed Goats

After several years of threatening an antelope hunt, and a couple years of applying for tags, Alex and I finally got tags for a 2016 South Dakota antelope hunt. We had applied for Butte County tags because the number of tags was great and we could stay in our cabin.

Butte County borders Wyoming on the west and sits just north of the Black Hills. The Belle Fourche River winds through the middle of the county. There is some irrigated hay and corn along the river but it is almost completely pasture land when you get away from the river. Cattle (mostly black angus) outnumber humans 5 to 1 in Butte County (50,000 to 10,000).

Since neither of us had ever hunted antelope before, the research began shortly after notification that we had gotten tags. Butte County had two antelope units and I found that there was plenty of public land and walk in access for us to hunt in the unit for which we had tags.

We couldn't hunt the opening weekend because I planned to attend the 2016 Ryder Cup in the Twin Cities. So we made plans for the second weekend of the season. We drove out to the hills on Thursday evening after work and got in late Thursday night.

On Friday morning, we took off early for southern Butte County. We were a 45-minute drive from our destination. Armed with GPS and Google maps on the iPad, we were set. Our entire weekend hunt would be in the shadow of Bear Butte.

Bear Butte could be seen throughout our hunt.

We found some Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land that looked good to us and parked the truck. We loaded up our gear and walked about 2 1/2 miles and sat on hills looking out over the flat area adjacent to the Belle Fourche river. We would sit for a half an hour and then move on to another hill.We saw nothing. So about 10 AM we headed back to the truck to find a new area to hunt.

September 2016 SDADA Column

Our South Dakota delegation (Chairman Dutch VanSanten, NADAPAC Chairman Bruce Eide, NextGen delegate Bryan Boocock, and Myron) just returned from the NADA Washington Conference. I got a bit different view of the event this year as Legislative Affairs Chairman.

We are very fortunate to have two Senators (Thune and Rounds) and a Congresswoman (Noem) who understand and support small business issues. I can assure you that this is not universal. As I visit with directors from others states, they are increasingly frustrated with their representation and how Washington works (or doesn't work!).

At last year's conference, we focused on urging support for H.R. 1737, which nullifies the CFPB’s flawed auto finance guidance, requires the agency to study the true impact on consumers before issuing new guidance, places provisions for a public comment period and requires the CFPB to consult with the agencies that currently share jurisdiction over the indirect auto finance market.

After the Washington Conference last fall, the bill passed by a veto-proof majority vote of 332-96; including 88 Democrats! Once again, dealers got it done.

This year, we had over 300 dealers and ATAEs take to the Hill to advocate for S.B. 2663, the companion bill for H.R. 1737 on the Senate side. We urged support for and action on the bill.

Like H.R. 1737, the bill was written on a bipartisan basis and it deserves bipartisan support. But whether a Democrat or Republican, both have recognized a simple truth: Every consumer deserves access to competitive financing and great rates when they buy a new car or truck.

NADA hopes to get it passed in a "lame duck" session after the election. There are a lot of groups betting against the dealers. We'll see what happens!

August 2016 SDADA Column

I believe the next fight coming between the automobile industry and federal regulators is on the fuel economy front. The battle will be over whether to relax the Obama administration’s future mileage targets. While the direct combatants may be the feds and the OEMs, the dealers (and our customers) will be in the crossfire.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that government regulators said that U.S. auto makers aren’t on track to meet the administration’s fuel-economy standards, but added that the "industry does have the technical ability to meet them" even in the face of cheap gasoline prices.

Last November, the New York Times suggested the reason there aren't more electric cars on the road is because that car dealers won't sell electric cars. We have not hit Obama's goal of 1 million electric cars on the road because of the nation's car dealers.

I'm guessing that you're like me in that you just want to sell whatever your customers want to buy. If there was an overwhelming demand for electric vehicles, dealers across the country would be stocking more of them and selling more of them. But there isn't and we're not! We know that the competitive forces among OEMs compel them to do the same thing - build the vehicles customers want to buy.
My real concern in this upcoming fight is the plight of the light duty truck - specifically the pickups our South Dakota customers drive on a daily basis.  They need a full size truck to do their work. It is work station, an implement, an office and perhaps, even their family vehicle.

While I hope I'm wrong, I don't believe we will see a full-size pickup that will get 50 miles per gallon anytime soon. If we do, I just hope that the OEMs that I represent can offer one!

In the mean time, we do not want the federal regulators to handicap ag producers, working people, outdoorsmen and other truck buyers by downsizing and depowering their pickups.