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Taxpayers League of Minnesota eUpdate
1. Taxpayers League Live! with David Strom.
2. How much do you hate the rich? The DFL is betting a lot.
3. An “emergency” bonding bill that’s only 3% emergency.
4. Why Democrats in charge can be a good thing, Part 1.
5. The deadline for passing new legislation has passed…
1. Taxpayers League Live! with David Strom.
Tune in this Saturday to AM 1280 The Patriot from 9 – 11 am when David will be joined by Chris DeLaForest and Jon Berlau. DeLaForest, a third-term State Representative from Andover, will join David during the first hour to talk about the House DFLs property tax “relief” bill and why the Left has yet to come up with any better funding mechanism for government than “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” Berlau, author and director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, will talk about this latest book, Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism is Hazardous to Your Health. Folks, if you only read one book on any aspect of the Left’s unholy religious trinity this year, Eco-Freaks should be it (multiculturalism and socialist economic policy being the other two legs on their nebbish stool of foolishness). Eco-Freaks will tell you everything you need to know about why environmentalists hate Africans (because they won’t let them use DDT to combat malaria), how more lives could have been saved at the World Trade Center on September 11th if asbestos was used to insulate the entirety of both buildings (and not just a handful of floors), and why the fur-worshipping, nerf-herders at the Animal Liberation Front feel the need to vandalize Ronald McDonald Houses.
Also, be sure to tune in at 10:05 am for the Capitol report with Phil Krinkie. Up this week: taxes, taxes and more taxes. $4 billion worth and heading straight for you.
2. It’s been awhile since we’ve had an old fashioned class warfare fight.
But since that’s what the DFLs plan calls for, that’s what we’re going to get. Seemingly marching to the same crazy drummer, the House and Senate this week served up their respective plans for property tax relief – and if you have a job, happen to provide jobs or own a building where jobs are housed, you may want to get a number ready for U-Haul. The House plan, which aims to provide property tax refunds to 90% of Minnesotans, does so by creating a new 4th tier income tax bracket and tying property tax payments to a person’s ability to pay. TheSenate plan provides $300 million worth of property tax relief to homeowners by hamstringing companies who do business overseas and raising property taxes on businesses at home. Sound like a good deal? It is if you’re a business owner looking for one more reason to relocate to Arizona. But if you’re stuck here like the rest of us, prepare to pay more for everything you buy. You don’t think companies are going to benevolently absorb the new cost of doing business in Minnesota, do you?
3. Have they no shame?
“No good deed goes unpunished.” And that’s certainly the case with this year’s bonding bill. While odd-numbered legislative years are normally reserved for emergency capital investment appropriations – which providing money to Browns Valley for flood relief and repairs at the Oak Park Heights prison certainly qualify – this year’s bill has been hijacked by bonding fetishists looking to send a few bucks in pork back home to home to key legislative districts. Among the “emergency” appropriations; $2 million to plan a high-speed rail line between Chicago and St. Paul (because millions in federal subsidies to Amtrak isn’t enough), $300,000 to buy a swamp next to an elementary school in Brooklyn Center, $1.2 million for more nature trails and $30 million so Duluth can build another sheet of ice at their entertainment and convention center.
Of course, while all this is bad, maybe if last session’s House GOP majority wasn’t so quick to acquiesce to back-to-back billion dollar bonding bills, we wouldn’t be seeing these kinds of problems today. Just a thought.
4. From Kimberley Strassel in Thursday’s edition of OpinionJournal’s Political Diary.
“In the battle against earmarks, kudos are due to Minnesota Democrat James Oberstar and Florida Republican John Mica, who serve respectively as chairman and ranking member of the House Transportation Committee. This week they unveiled the first-ever bill to disclose the names of Members who sponsored individual earmarks. What makes the duo's name-dropping all the more laudable is that it wasn't strictly required. Under new earmark rules enacted earlier this year, some members felt the transportation bill should get a disclosure pass since it largely corrected errors in the 2005 transportation bill and didn't provide new spending authority. But Messrs. Oberstar and Mica decided to err on the side of sunshine. Meanwhile, the new transportation bill can be found at www.gpo.gov by searching for House Report 110-62. It includes 30 pages of earmark disclosures, or some 255 earmarks in total. Most are fairly technical, but it's a start. Disclosure may not prevent future Bridges to Nowhere but it will certainly mean more public humiliation for those who demand such pork.”
5. …but coming up with new ways to waste time is always welcomed.
Here it is, stupid in it’s purest, undiluted form:
House File 2252 – Sustainable growth working group established. This piece of legislation asks for $100,000 to bring together a blue-ribbon panel of folks who can literally have nothing better to do with their lives than talking about ways to make government more intrusive. What follows is the verbatim text from the legislation. Be prepared to taste their fury:
“The working group must identify strategies, recommendations, and process for implementing state-level coordination of state and local policies, programs, and regulations in the areas of housing, transportation, natural resource preservation, capital development, economic development, sustainability, and preservation of the environment. The working group must identify sustainable development principles that will guide decision making in Minnesota. The working group must gather information and develop strategies relative to the strategic use of state resources, to be consistent with statewide goals of sustainable development.”
The Taxpayers League of Minnesota's E Update is written by Mark Giga
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