Taxpayers League of Minnesota eUpdate

1. The David Strom Show presented by the Minnesota Free Market Institute.
2. The Taxpayers League of Minnesota 10 year anniversary celebration.
3. I’m starting to think our state’s hostility to small business owners is never going to change.
4. Charlie Rangel v. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
5. Note to U of M Athletics Director Joel Maturi: No one misses Gopher football.

1. The David Strom Show presented by the Minnesota Free Market Institute.
Tune in this Saturday to AM 1280 The Patriot from 9 – 11 am when David will be joined by Dr. Rick Hess, Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and Rich Stanek, Hennepin County Sheriff.

2. The Taxpayers League of Minnesota 10 year anniversary celebration.
On Sunday, November 18th at the Lafayette Club in Minnetonka Beach, join the Taxpayers League of Minnesota for a celebratory roast of our chairman and founder Mike Wigley (the genesis of Mike’s “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” moment can be found here). The list of roasters is, of course, long and distinguished and includes some of Minnesota’s most prominent political movers and shakers like Congressional Representatives Michele Bachmann and John Kline, former Speaker of the Minnesota House and current Commissioner of Labor Steve Sviggum, TCF Chairman Bill Cooper and Politics in Minnesota co-author Sarah Janecek.
Individual tickets are $150 (and table sponsorships are available), so if you’re interested in attending please contact Jordan at (651) 294-3590 ext 203 or jordanm [at] taxpayersleague [dot] org.

3. I’m starting to think our state’s hostility to small business is never going to change.
“October 10, 2007 - Today, the Tax Foundation released its 2008 State Business Tax Climate Index. The Index ranks how ‘business friendly’ the 50 state tax systems are, providing a roadmap for state lawmakers concerned with keeping their states tax-competitive.
“Keeping a state competitive in today's global market can be difficult, but there is one factor lawmakers have direct control over: the quality of state tax systems. The Index measures how well a state's tax system encourages investment by maintaining a broad tax base and low rates.
“‘There's no question that states are competing with one another for companies, jobs, and people,’ said study co-author Curtis Dubay. ‘Taxes matter to businesses, and the states with better business tax climates will reap the rewards.’
“The Index ranks states based on the taxes that matter most to businesses and business investment: corporate tax, individual income tax, sales tax, unemployment tax and property tax. The states are scored on these taxes, and the scores are weighted based on the relative importance or impact of the tax to a business.”
So where did Minnesota rank this year? Well, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that we moved up one spot from last year. The bad news is that our ranking now sits at 41 – which wouldn’t be so bad if we annexed Canada, Mexico and all the South American countries starting with the letter, “B.”
So until we find a President with the lebensraum bug in his (or her) shorts, we’re stuck at the Politburo-pleasing end of the survey.
Hmm. I wonder where we’d be if the liberals got even half of what they wanted last session. Hmm.

4. Charlie Rangel v. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Cong. Charlie Rangel (D-NYC) has a plan to stop the coming Alternative Minimum Tax pinch (for an AMT primer, click here). In order to save millions of Americans from a tax they shouldn’t have had to worry about in the first place, Rangel wants to slap a 4% surtax on incomes over $150,000. Somehow that doesn’t seem right, so I’ll let Larry Kudlow explain:
“Basically, the top earners are going to see a big tax hike from 35 to 44 percent. Capital-gains taxes are going to go up. Small-business taxes are going to go up. And large corporate taxes would go down under this plan.
“…Wall Street and Main Street are worried about recession. Is this the right time to be talking tax hikes for anyone?
“And he [Rangel] doesn’t deal with the impact on small businesses. Small businesses add serious firepower to our economy. They are our biggest job creators. So going from 35 percent to 44 percent would be rather punitive.
“Another problem I have with this plan is the issue of competitiveness. Look, foreign countries are in fierce competition with us. If we head in the wrong direction on taxes, we’re going to risk serious movement of capital and investment away from the United States.
“There is another option, however. Over in the House, Paul Ryan, Jeb Hensarling and others [ed. including Michele Bachmann] also want full-scale reform. They want to eliminate the AMT. They want full-scale tax reform and simplification. Their plan consists of two rates — 10 percent and 25 percent — and abolishing virtually all of the other so-called loopholes. Now that’s what I call big-bang, pro-growth, tax reform.”
The plan Kudlow is talking about is the Taxpayer Choice Act from members of the Republican Study Committee (details of which can be found here).
The plan is simple, doesn’t burden individual groups of taxpayers and, most importantly, introduces the concept of “choice” into the tax system. Brilliant.

5. Note to U of M Athletics Director Joel Maturi: No one is missing Gopher football.
I’m no expert in conducting multimillion dollar negotiations but it seems to me that if you’re going to write an opinion piece in the Star Tribune criticizing Comcast for refusing to provide the Big Ten network to basic cable subscribers, you should probably have some kind of product that people are complaining about not receiving. Because that’s what you were hoping for, right Joel? That Friday’s readers of Op/Ex section would be so impassioned by your words that they would call Comcast and demand that they broadcast the Big Ten network? Good luck with that.
I recommend that all of you click on the link above and read Maturi’s piece. After about four paragraphs of his whining, ask yourself this: “why would anyone pay for a something they were getting for free last year, AND, we were already kind of paying for to begin with?”
I’ll admit, at the start of the season I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be watching any Gopher football games on TV. But now my guess is that more and more casual fans – people who watch the Gophers because it’s the Minnesota thing to do – have found better ways to spend three hours on a Saturday afternoon (particularly since hockey season has started). Maybe if you start scheduling games with MIAC teams you can remain competitive and recoup some of your lost fan base.

The Taxpayers League of Minnesota's eUpdate is written by Mark Giga