e-update 12/18/09
1. Racino: Hello Senator Day!
2. $1 billion Train to Nowhere
3. CLEAN-Up Your Act
4. At Least One DFLer Gets It
5. What’s Another Trillion?
1. Racino: Hello Senator Day!
In a surprise announcement last week, Senator Dick Day said he will resign from the State Senate to lead a newly organized effort to bring slots and more revenue to Minnesota. Unwilling to solve the state’s budget shortfall with fiscal restraint, the newly minted president of “Racino Now” aims to feed the growing beast of government by installing slots at Canterbury and Running Aces.
In what could be a dream come true for billionaire-Vikings owner Zygi Wilf, Senator Day hopes the proposal will raise $125 million per year, including money for a new Minnesota Vikings stadium.
In an all too familiar twist, Senator Day doesn’t realize that the state has a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
To read more click here.
2. $1 billion Train to Nowhere
Based on the directive of one Minnesotan to “Just get it done,” state transportation official Dave Christianson has vowed to see a passenger rail line from Minneapolis to Duluth is built without regard to the price tag.
People have told me they didn’t care what it costs,” said Christianson, who oversees all state rail projects. Despite a deep recession and a looming state deficit, Christianson said, “...when I went to Cambridge, the day after the newspaper article in which I said it could cost $1 billion, people shook my hand and said, ‘Get’er done.”
Relying on the infamous words of Larry the Cable Guy, it appears Christianson will forge ahead with little to no regard for spending taxpayer dollars on a train to nowhere.
To read more click here.
3. CLEAN-Up Your Act
Leaving their Minnesotaconstituencies behind in favor of more worldly endeavors, Minnesota State Reps. Kate Knuth (DFL-New Brighton) and Jeremy Kalin (DFL-North Branch) headed for Copenhagen, Denmark, this week to participate in the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
In lieu of pursuing ways to solve the state’s looming budget deficit, Knuth is attending as a policy mentor and will make presentations at two events.
Both Knuth and Kalin are members of the Coalition of Legislators for Energy Action Now (CLEAN).
To read more click here.
4. At Least One DFLer Gets It
In a surprisingly bold and refreshing article published in the Pioneer Press last week, Senator Tom Bakk, chairman of the Senate Tax Committee, bravely went where no other Democratic candidate for governor has gone. Bakk took a page from the Taxpayers League playbook and said that Minnesota can’t realistically tax the rich enough to erase the state’s projected $5.4 billion deficit in the next biennium and can’t afford to pump a boatload of new money into schools when the state is awash in red ink.
In stark contrast to the worn out rhetoric still being preached by the other DFL candidates, that taxing the rich is the way to go, Bakk said, “It seems to me that almost all of the candidates are leading people to believe that there’s any easy solution to our problems. But none of those solutions are realistic.”
Maybe the other DFL gubernatorial candidates should take Bakk’s advice – stop blowing smoke and realize taxing the rich is not the answer.
To read more click here.
5. What’s Another Trillion?
In an apparent signal that the United States’ currency printing presses are working overtime in Washington D.C., Congressional Democrats are slated to vote on raising the national debt ceiling from $12 trillion to $13.8 trillion. The vote could come before the end of the year, an effort to minimize possible political blowback in the 2010 midterm elections.
It appears that Congress received its credit card statement in the mail, but instead of sending payment they have asked for an increased line of credit. At this rate, taxpayers will be paying off this credit card into perpetuity.
To read more click here.
