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Rep. Franson introduced a letter from the law firm of Seaton, Peters & Revnew. Douglas P. Seaton wrote the letter. Rep. Franson read this section from the letter:

The family child care providers affected by the proposed legislation can only be properly described as private sector under the HLRA and can not be converted to “public employees” simply by saying so. Federal law mandates that it is an unfair labor practice for an employer to “…dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of any labor organization or contribute financial or other support to it…” 29 U.S.C. 158 (a)(2) Yet the legislation purports to create a framework to form a union of employers and business owners and as such, is directly contrary to Section 8(a)(2)’s prohibition against employer interference financial contribution to a union. The election called for in the legislation would provide for representation of these employers by unions, giving the employers an impermissable voice in the administration of a union.

It appears as though private employers can’t be converted to being public employees just because the DFL says so.

Throughout the night, childcare providers lobbied legislators when the legislators entered the hallways.

At one point in the debate, Rep. Mike Nelson, DFL- St. Louis Park, spoke on Rep. Ron Kresha’s amendment mandating the print on all unionization drive literature have “at least 14 point font” characters.

Rep. Nelson held up a card that he said the unions were handing out. He said that the card easily passed that test, adding that the amendment was frivolous. Minutes later, Rep. Joyce Peppin returned from talking with the childcare providers still in the Capitol hallway at 4:05 am.

She held up another card that the childcare providers gave her. She then said that much of the print on the card was a small font size.

Time after time during the font size debate, Rep. Nelson said that the BMS, aka the Bureau of Mediation Services, “has been doing these elections for 40 years and they’ve been doing a fine job.”

Finally, Rep. Sarah Anderson, R-Plymouth, asked if the BMS’s work had ever been audited. Rep. Nelson admitted that he didn’t know if they’d been audited, at which point Sarah Anderson asked “Then how do you know that they’ve been doing a fine job?”

The DFL held steady on each of the first five amendments, defeating the GOP amendments with either 69 or 70 votes. (They needed 68 votes to defeat.)

It’s important that I state this about Rep. Peppin’s holding up the union literature with fine print. I don’t think Rep. Nelson is a liar. I think AFSCME gave him the card he held up and told him that’s the size of the font they’d be using. I further think he simply bought their story. Finally, I don’t have any trouble believing that AFSCME wouldn’t hesitate in lying about this. These aren’t nice people. Let’s remember this:

Last month, Dawn Bobo, owner of Village Dollar Store in Union Grove, Wis., was asked to display a pro-union sign in her window. Ms. Bobo, a self- described conservative Republican, refused and received a letter from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees asking her to reconsider.

“Failure to do so will leave us no choice but do [sic] a public boycott of your business,” the letter said.

That’s right. AFSCME threatened to undermine a business owner’s ability to make a living if the owner didn’t support them. AFSCME Council 5 is the Minnesota union pushing childcare unionization.

This post on the Strib’s Access Vikings blog is particularly amusing. Here’s what I thought was amusing:

This morning at the Capitol, Governor Mark Dayton became the latest to question the Vikings on the Kluwe topic.

“I don’t feel good about it,” Dayton said. “I mean I’m not in position to evaluate the role and their punting abilities. But it seems to me the general manager said right after the draft that they were going to have competition. Well, then he brings the one guy [Locke] in, he kicks for a weekend and that’s the competition? I mean, I just think sports officials ought to be honest about what the heck is going on. Same way I think public officials should be honest about what’s going on. So that bothers me probably as much if not more than the actual decision.”

I agree that it’s important for public officials to be honest. Where was Gov. Dayton’s insistence on honesty when told politicians that the revenues from e-tabs would cover the state share of the Vikings stadium? Tons of people from across the political spectrum questioned whether they’d generate the revenue they needed. They criticized the funding mechanism loudly and persistently.

It’s now known by anyone who’s read a newspaper the last month that the e-tabs funding mechanism is a terrible failure. Needing $35,000,000 this year for the Vikings stadium, e-tabs generated $1,700,000, a $33,300,000 shortfall. That isn’t falling a little short. It isn’t even falling well short. That’s falling laughably short.

If you fall short by $300,000 or $400,000, people can reasonably say that it was just a tough year. You can’t say that when you fall short by 90+ percent.

As for the Vikings cutting Kluwe, his activism on the gay marriage issue caused the Vikings to rethink him as their punter. I didn’t read where they disagreed with Kluwe’s position on the issue. I did read where Kluwe’s punting suffered in terms of consistency in September and October, which they attributed to Kluwe’s advocacy.

The Vikings had the right, in fact the affirmative responsibility, to insist on Kluwe doing the job he was making $1,500,000 for last year.

In other words, the Vikings determined that Kluwe put a higher priority on his advocacy than on his profession. When a player is making $1,500,000 a year, that player’s team has a right to expect professionalism.

Kluwe didn’t live up to that expectation.

This weekend, RNC National Committeeman Jeff Johnson announced his candidacy to be the next governor of Minnesota. The DFL’s response was predictable:

DFL Chairman Ken Martin said Minnesotans will notice his ambition.

“Jeff Johnson is a classic politician trying to climb the ladder. He left the Minnesota House of Representatives to run for Attorney General and failed,” Martin said. “Now after a short time as a Hennepin County Commissioner, he wants to run for another statewide seat. Minnesotans will recognize this personal, restless ambition for what it is.”

The Alliance for a Better Minnesota released a statement from Executive Director Carrie Lucking in response to Johnson’s campaign.

“Jeff Johnson will ask Minnesotans to forget his record o extreme votes at the expense of the middle class during his time at the legislature,” Lucking said. “Amnesia is not a winning platform for Minnesotans in 2014.”

Ken Martin’s response is feeble. If he thinks winning election to more than one office is a bad thing, then he’d better apologize for One-and-Done-Dayton. Gov. Dayton served a single term as State Auditor. Later, he served a single term as U.S. senator. Now, he’s Minnesota’s governor.

While both men have held more than one elected office, that’s where the similarity ends. Jeff Johnson hasn’t had to rewrite his entire budget like Gov. Dayton has. In fact, Gov. Dayton has rewritten his budget twice, once in 2011, once this year. Jeff Johnson hasn’t been rated one of America’s “Five Worst Senators”[11] by Time magazine. Likewise, Jeff Johnson wasn’t nicknamed “The Blunderer” for temporarily closing his DC Senate office in 2004 because of an imagined terrorist threat.

Another dissimilarity between Jeff Johnson and Gov. Dayton is Commissioner Johnson’s Golden Hydrant award:

The latest Golden Fire Hydrant award goes to the Property Tax Study Project, an endeavor Hennepin County has funded on and off for the past decade.

Bottom line (and pardon my crudeness): Government is giving the finger to the taxpayers of Hennepin County as it spends taxpayer money to lobby the legislature for increased taxes on those same taxpayers.

The Project began several years ago and is funded jointly by the counties of Hennepin, Ramsey and St. Louis, the cities of Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth and the school districts of those same three cities. Each entity allocates approximately $10,000 each year to the Project.

The Project essentially funds one “consultant” (who happens to work for Matt Entenza’s liberal Minnesota 2020 think tank) year after year to prepare a report that pretty consistently says the same thing: Minnesotans are not taxed enough. That report is then used to lobby the legislature for increased taxes, apparently in hopes of obtaining more money for cities, counties and school districts in Minnesota.

Isn’t it great that taxpayers funds a consultant for a progressive think tank? If you think, like most people think, that think tanks should be funded privately, then you’ll agree with Jeff Johnson, not Gov. Dayton.

Ms. Lucking, is highlighting the metro slush fund for MN2020 one of those “extreme votes at the expense of the middle class” that you’re referring to? I’m betting that protecting taxpayers’ wallets is better than ignoring liberal local government contributes to a liberal slush fund.

Gov. Dayton needlessly shut down state government two years ago. Now, with a dysfunctional DFL legislature, he’s wasting the taxpayers’ money while chasing businesses from Minnesota. It’s time Minnesota dumps Gov. Dayton once and for all. We can’t afford 4 more years of his counterproductive policies.

This Strib op-ed is about as whiny as I’ve read in recent years. It also isn’t credible. Here’s a sample from the op-ed:

The recent exchange between Gov. Mark Dayton and some community members in a discussion about increases in legislative pay (“Dayton says forum crowd in Shakopee was ‘juvenile,’?” May 1) illustrates a common problem.

In Minnesota and across the United States, government is continuously cited as something terrible, and members of an opposing party are fair game for insults and ridicule.

First, the treatment Gov. Dayton received was mild. I’ve watched the video. The crowd didn’t erupt. They mildly expressed their displeasure with Gov. Dayton’s policies. Second, government is immoral, not evil, when they spend money foolishly. Like when a city spends $50,000 each for 10 artistic drinking fountains, rather than $60,000 total for the drinking fountains. It’s worth noting that, after spending $500,000 on the artistic drinking fountains, R.T. Rybak had to lay off police officers.

In short, elected officials will get respected when they don’t spend the taxpayers’ money foolishly or make decisions that are counterproductive.

This won’t happen:

So disrespect of government officials seems to be at an all-time high. Perhaps it is time to lower the level of our rhetoric and raise the level of respect for our democratic government by acknowledging that those elected to office were supported by a majority of voters.

If this were put into practice, union stewards’ heads would explode. Their thugs’ tactics would have to stop. In 2011, I covered several townhall meetings hosted by Sen. John Pederson, Reps. King Banaian and Steve Gottwalt, including one at the Haven Township town hall. Public employee union member after public union member berated these elected officials. They were treated like human piñatas. In my opinion, Sen. Pederson, Rep. Banaian and Rep. Gottwalt had earned the right to respond in kind. They didn’t.

A month later, prior to the shutdown but after the session, Sen. Pederson and Rep. Banaian were invited to a union event to explain their votes on the budget. It’s important to note that the unions contacted them the afternoon of the event. It’s important to note that neither legislator attended the ambush (my words). It’s noteworthy that the unions had 2 empty chairs on the stage of the Atwood Theater. The event organizers then told the audience (the theater was less than one-third full) that Sen. Pederson and Rep. Banaian couldn’t be bothered to attend, omitting the part about them not getting the invitation to the event until that afternoon.

It’s getting tiresome to have people who want to grow the private sector economy while limiting government to the things it’s supposed to do per the Constitution are vilified while people who want government to do everything are applauded for their compassion.

Gov. Dayton, the DFL legislature and the DFL’s special interest allies haven’t hesitated in vilifying conservatives at every opportunity. They’ve gotten personal, too. They’ve accused Republicans of being racists because Republicans disagreed with President Obama’s policies.

Suggesting that conservatives hate government and think it’s evil is spin. It’s also highly inaccurate. Conservatives just want government to live within its means. Conservatives want to know that the taxpayers’ money is being spent wisely. They don’t want to hear about drinking fountains that cost $50,000 each. They don’t want to hear about universities spending taxpayers’ money on events that teach women how to have better orgasms.

The people attending the Shakopee town hall are tired of DFL politicians taking their taxes for granted. They expressed that frustration loudly because their other attempts went unnoticed. If politicians ignore the people, it’s only natural that the people will use whatever way works to get heard.

Tags: Mark Dayton, Townhall Meetings, State Government Shutdown, Drinking Fountains, Union Thugs, DFL, King Banaian, Steve Gottwalt, John Pederson, MNGOP

Spring brings new hope to just about everyone. Everyone but gun control advocates, it seems. Based on this article, it sounds like gun control advocates are having a miserable spring:

Rural Democrats’ opposition to changing Minnesota’s gun laws casts doubt on what legislation, if any, will pass this year to tackle gun violence.

A group of at least eight Democrats from outstate Minnesota are standing firm against virtually any expansion of the state’s background check system. Together with Republicans, who need just six votes from across the aisle to block a bill, those Democrats hold the keys to shape, or sink, any gun legislation.

Bills to ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines in Minnesota were quickly dropped, and an effort to impose universal background checks for gun sales was whittled down in the House to a bill that would close the so-called gun show loophole.

Advocates and lawmakers backing gun control measures acknowledge the possibility that even that bill won’t pass. Senate legislation for universal background checks is in limbo as top Democrats there wait to see what happens in the House.

The St. Paul Democrat who led an unsuccessful push to impose universal background checks on gun sales hopes a bill will hit the House floor for debate in the next two weeks. House Speaker Paul Thissen wouldn’t guarantee they’ll take up a gun bill this session, but said he wants to have the debate.

When the Newtown tragedy happened, gun control advocates stepped forward, saying that this was the best chance they’d ever get to pass sweeping gun control legislation. That’s true. If they couldn’t pass sweeping gun control legislation after that, they’d never pass sweeping gun control legislation.

Now that this coalition of rural DFL legislators and GOP legislators has formed, the gun control advocates are staring at another humiliating defeat. This is a major defeat for Speaker Thissen, Rep. Hausman and Rep. Paymar, especially Speaker Thissen. His inability to keep his caucus together on this issue indicates his agenda isn’t Minnesota’s agenda. Rather, it says that the metro DFL’s agenda is significantly different than the rest of the state.

Tags: Gun Control, Assault Weapons Ban, Michael Paymar, Alice Houseman, Paul Thissen, High Capacity Clips, Gun Control Advocates, DFL

This statement on Workday Minnesota’s website is spin. Take this statement:

MAPE, the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, and AFSCME Council 5 denounced the corporate-backed “United for Jobs” initiative as a misleading and deceptive paid advertising campaign. The ads target Governor Mark Dayton’s proposal to raise more revenue for public services by raising taxes on the wealthiest Minnesotans.

“While the TV and radio ads are designed to make the audience believe that ‘United for Jobs’ wants to safeguard Minnesota families and small businesses, in reality, ‘United for Jobs’ is funded by corporate advocacy groups that want to protect the pocket books of their multi-millionaire members,” the unions said.

Here’s the TV ad that’s been running for about a week:

Here’s the transcript of the ad:

NARRATOR: Minnesotans pay some of the highest taxes in America. Now some Minnesota politicians want you to pay even more. They’d raise the income tax to be the second highest in the country to fuel a nearly $2 billion spending increase. There’s a more responsible way. Go line-by-line. Cut the waste. Do your jobs. Make government more efficient and effective. Be accountable for every taxpayer dollar you spend. Tell Gov. Dayton and DFL legislators they don’t need more of your money. They need to spend it better.

While it’s true that the ad highlights the DFL’s proposed income tax increase, it’s misleading and deceptive to say that the ad “targets Gov. Mark Dayton’s proposal to raise more revenue for public services by raising taxes on the wealthiest Minnesotans.”

First, the ad highlights the need for politicians to “go line-by-line” through the budget and to “cut the waste” from the budget. In that context, the focus is on the legislature to do its job of spending the taxpayers’ money wisely.

Second, the ad points the spotlight at “Gov. Dayton and DFL legislators,” not just Gov. Dayton. That’s perfectly appropriate because it highlights the fact that Gov. Dayton, Sen. Bakk and Speaker Thissen are threatening to raise the rates on regressive taxes as well as raising the top income tax rate. Then there’s this statement:

The unions said the ads also mislead the audience into believing that the Governor’s tax proposal for the wealthiest 2 percent of Minnesotans will raise taxes on “hard-working Minnesotans” – insinuating that all Minnesotans will get a tax increase. This is not true. The Governor’s proposal is a targeted tax increase to have the wealthiest pay their fair share, the unions said.

The unions’ statements are intentionally misleading. Their leadership knows that the DFL’s tax bills propose raising the tax on cigarettes by $1.60 per pack and the liquor excise tax from $4.60 a barrel on beer to $27.75 per barrel.

Sin taxes are necessarily regressive. They hit people who aren’t “the wealthiest Minnesotans” because they’re paid by everyone regardless of income. I’d love hearing Eliot Seide explain how AFSCME’s statement is accurate. In fact, I’d sell tickets to that event. I’d sell popcorn at that event, too. It’d be fun watching Seide slip and slither, twist and turn while doing his best to not answer my questions.

Seide, Gov. Dayton, Speaker Thissen, Sen. Bakk and their allies know this ad hits them hard. That’s why they’re responding with this dishonest counterattack.

Seide and company better be prepared to spend tons of money on their advertising campaign because the DFL has given these pro-business groups tons upon tons of ammunition with their tax bills. They’d better pack a lunch for this fight because AFSCME and MAPE will be fighting this fight for quite awhile.

Tags: Tax Increases, Cigarette Tax, Income Tax, Special Interests, Eliot Seide, AFSCME Council 5, MAPE, Middle Class Tax Increase, Tax The Rich, Mark Dayton, Tom Bakk, Paul Thissen, DFL, United For Jobs, Capitalism, MNGOP

It anything comes through in this statement, it’s the DFL’s stated intention to spend the taxpayers’ money recklessly. Here’s an example:

Aiming for a course correction after a decade of disinvestment, the House and Senate are likely to take up historic education bills next week at the State Capitol. Some the features of those bills include:

• Investing in what works – early learning: New investments to fund early education and all-day kindergarten, helping Minnesota students get on the right track early.
• Strategic funding for K-12 schools: Increasing per pupil funding for Minnesota schools throughout the state.
• Reducing college tuition and debt: Making the first investment in higher education in a decade to ease the burden of skyrocketing tuition and student debt.

Rep. Pat Garofalo ripped the DFL as out of control during this speech during the DFL tax increase debate:

There were 2 highlights during the speech. Both related to the silica sand tax included in the House DFL tax increase bill.

Here’s what Rep. Garofalo said about that tax:

You’re gonna actually tax an industry out of existence with a tax on silica mining. I actually had a liberal activist say to me they thought that by raising taxes on silica mining, they would somehow impact the fracking in North Dakota. (Laughter in background) Spoiler alert. They’re gonna get the sand from other states. Doesn’t matter. It’s gonna have no impact whatsoever on other states’ ability to do fracking of natural gas and oil but it will kill jobs here. And it’s not business groups saying that. It’s not small businesses saying it.

We’ve heard from the local 49ers. We’ve heard from the local unions. In fact, members, this is how totally delusional this tax increase is: Mark Dayton actually labeled the House DFL silica sand tax “ridiculous.” So when a tax increase is so high that Gov. Dayton labels it ridiculous, you know you’re checked out for lunch.

That’s stunning. A DFL activist thinks that killing jobs in Minnesota will shut down the Bakken. That isn’t stupid. That’s beyond frightening. And that isn’t the most frightening part of this.

The truly frightening part of this is that Gov. Dayton, the man whose every thought is to raise taxes, thinks the silica sand tax is “ridiculous.” When a taxaholic like Gov. Dayton thinks that a tax increase goes too far, red flags should go off immediately.

I wrote here about the differing DFL tax bills, characterizing them as disastrous and counterproductive. Little did I know just how disastrous and counterproductive the DFL tax bills were. This is downright frightening.

Tags: Tax Increases, Silica Sand Tax, Paul Thissen, Unemployment, Cigarette Tax, Environmentalists, Mark Dayton, Tom Bakk, Sales Tax, DFL, Unions, 49ers, Fracking, Bakken Oil Field, Natural Gas, Pat Garofalo, MNGOP, Election 2014

Last week, DFL senators introduced the details of its proposed E-12 education budget. Unfortunately, it’s doomed for failure because its emphasis is on a failed policy. Dr. John Kern’s analysis of the return on investment for early childhood education shine a bright light onto the myth that a $1 investment into early childhood education programs will produce a $17 return on investment, aka ROI.

First, a little background is in order to introduce Dr. Kern to Minnesotans. Dr. Kern is an independent research scientist with BS and MS degrees in Mathematics and a PhD in Statistics and is regularly hired by state and federal agencies and Fortune 500 companies involved in the USEPA Superfund Program negotiating $500M+ environmental risk management decisions. Dr. Kern has testified about such issues before the National Academies of Science as well as on behalf of the United States Department of Justice as an expert witness. Dr. Kern derives no part of his income from education-related issues.

In other words, Dr. Kern’s skills have thoroughly equipped him to do statistical analysis of public policies. Next, here’s the list of early childhood education studies Dr. Kern analyzed:

I recently conducted an independent review of the studies repeatedly cited by Grunewald and other proponents of publicly funded universal early childhood programs and offered to provide the results of my evaluation to the Legislative committee on All-Day-K.

The primary studies cited by Rolnick, Grunewald and virtually all others include:

• High Scope Perry Preschool Study
• Abecedarian Project
• Chicago Child Parent Center

Some additional studies I reviewed include

• Minnesota School Readiness
• Michigan School Readiness
• Minnesota Burnsville District 191 All-Day-K
• Clark County Nevada Full-Day-K
• Tulsa Oklahoma Pre-K
• Head Start

Here’s part of Dr. Kern’s analysis of the various studies:

Primary Findings
The consensus I found is that: 1) socioeconomic conditions are the single largest determinant of success in school and life, 2) benefits of intervention accrue primarily to children in dire socioeconomic circumstances, and 3) benefits to the general population are minimal, fading by third grade, presumably because they are getting what they need in their home environments.

This information is particularly noteworthy:

Dr. Rolnick teaches (PA5490) “Economics of Early Childhood Education”, suggesting his expertise in the latest research. Yet, the Perry Pre-School Study is the sole source of data supporting his claim of a ten- to seventeen-dollar return on investment from ECE.

I reviewed Dr. Rolnick’s calculations and indeed, the benefits for 123 pre-school children studied in Ypsilanti Michigan, were giant—50% reduced incarceration rates. However, in their policy discussions, Rolnick and Grunewald downplay the nominal 50% incarceration rate in this community. Yes, the return on investment supporting now famous claims of 17-dollar ROI…are based almost entirely on money saved by reducing incarceration rates from 50% to 25%.

In spite of the highly unusual nature of the circumstances surrounding these children’s lives, proponents of these programs regularly extrapolate a 17 to 1 ROI to every dollar spent on virtually any early childhood program. It is extremely cynical or delusional that Rolnick and Grunewald fail to emphasize the critical caveats to these estimates based on just 123 subjects from one pre-school in desperate need of help.

It’s important that we pay attention to these important caveats. It’s foolish to think that the ROI on K-12 education spending will be 17:1 when the incarceration rate didn’t start at 50%. Reducing a high incarceration rate apparently accounts for most of this report’s 17:1 ROI. Where’s the ROI on K-12 education funding when the incarceration rate starts at 5%?

The DFL is only too happy to cite this bogus statistic because it’s great political cover. With that bogus statistic in their arsenal, they’re free to propose massive payoffs to the teachers’ union.

When this funding free-for-all ends and the DFL’s policies fail, which will happen, Minnesotans will have less money, the state won’t have a well-trained work force and the DFL will be forced to explain why they thought their failed proposal had a chance at succeeding.

At a time when the DFL has proposed gutting teacher accountability and qualiity, Republicans should be insisting that teacher quality be the first priority. Spending lots of money on teachers that aren’t qualified in math and science is just throwing money away.

This is a terrific time for the GOP to make a stand. They’d get credit for insisting that teachers be qualified to teach high school math and science at a time when too many high school math and science teachers aren’t qualified:

“…more than 900 MN teachers over the past 5 years have violated licensing rules… including 62 who taught with no license at all. Violations mostly involved instructors teaching the wrong subject or grade level affecting as many as 57,000 students…”

That’s just the tip of the iceberg:

The Sauk Rapids-Rice school district has four teachers with ‘elementary education’ degrees teaching secondary math or science.

When Greg Vandell left, only 19% of students graduated grade proficient in math. With unqualified teachers teaching math, that statistic isn’t surprising. If anything, it’s surprising that that statistic isn’t higher.

If the GOP wants to give itself a major advantage in 2014, they should announce a new initiative, starting with an inner city and outstate listening tour. Focus should be on dissatisfied minorities and disgruntled suburbanites who aren’t satisfied with the DFL’s status quo throw-more-money-into-a-failed-system approach to education. By listening to dissatisfied people, by stating that the MNGOP’s goal is to improve teacher quality, by touting a parents- and students-first agenda, the DFL would be left in the dust defending a failed system.

There’s a price I pay for watching @Issue and Almanac each week. That price is worth it, though, when I watch and people like Matt Entenza regurgitate the DFL’s chanting points on raising taxes. Tom Hauser asked him if it was a PR blunderfor the House to introduce their $2,500,000,000 tax increase on April 15, the day Minnesotans were paying their taxes.

After quickly dodging that question, Entenza cited a study that showed spending had decreased by $500 per person the last 10 years. Then he said something I’ll crucify him for saying. Here’s what he said:

Part of what Democrats are responding to is an election where people said ‘We’re tired of higher class sizes. We’re tired of roads that are falling apart and a Human Services Department that doesn’t work as well as it should.

I can’t wait for Mr. Entenza to explain how raising taxes on liquor, income tax and cigarettes will fix a single pothole. How will raising these taxes reduce class sizes, especially considering the fact that the Thissen House won’t pay off the school shift that they call a budget gimmick?

Mr. Entenza, how will raising taxes on cigarettes raise revenues this time? The last 2 times they’ve been raised, revenues from that tax have dropped.

Citing the fact that per person spending has decreased by $500 a person means nothing. Businesses wouldn’t survive if they didn’t figure out new ways to deliver goods and services more efficiently. Why shouldn’t government be required to do the same? Why shouldn’t I think that money isn’t being spent efficiently when I hear that $30,000 of a professor’s $73,000 a year salary is paid for managing a community garden?

The premise behind the DFL budget is that a) every penny of the last budget was spent efficiently, b) every penny of the last budget was spent on needs, not on their special interest allies’ wish lists and c) every penny that was spent last time needs to be spent again this time.

There isn’t proof that that’s the case. The DFL’s mantra that we need to ‘invest more’ on education and transportation without giving taxpayers specific justifications is getting tiresome. The devil is in the details. How much of the increased spending on K-12 education is being pissed away on excessive amounts of administrators and all-day kindergarten? How much are taxes getting raised to fund transit? Those tax increases don’t fix a single pothole.

Shouldn’t the case be made to defund transit while boosting funding for road, bridge and pothole repair? Shouldn’t the case be made that spending K-12 money on administrators is stealing money that would be used to reduce class sizes? Will the DFL tell us how much of the K-12 funding has gone towards reducing class sizes vs. how much was spent on increasing the size of the school districts’ administration?

The DFL’s scam is about to get exposed. Money isn’t being spent efficiently. It isn’t getting spent only on Minnesota’s highest priorities. The DFL’s tax increases won’t fix a single pothole.

In short, Minnesota’s taxpayers are getting stiffed.

Tags: Matt Entenza, Tax Increases, Cigarette Tax, Income Tax, Liquor Tax, Potholes, K-12 Education, Administration, Transit, Pork, Paul Thissen, Cronyism, DFL