No Constitutional Tax Increase

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Phil Krinkie

Ph: (612)919-4945

ST. PAUL – The Campaign finance reports released this week show the Vote Yes proponents have raised and spent over $3.5 million to pass the $11 billion dollar Constitutional Tax Increase.

Included in the donations is a $1 million dollar donation from Alida Messinger, a Rockefeller family member and ex-wife of former U.S. Senator Mark Dayton; $50,000 each from students Andrew and Eric Dayton, $250,000 from Mary Lee Dayton, $100,000 from Ralph and Peggy Burnett of Coldwell Banker Burnett Realty; and not surprisingly, $25,000 from John and Sage Cowles, the family that use to own the Star Tribune newspaper, $45,000 from Jim Pohlad and Mary Pohlad, the same Pohlad family that owns the Minnesota Twins and recently benefited from a taxpayer funded stadium.

While the Vote Yes campaign is collecting hundreds of thousand from art benefactors, they never mention that nearly 20% of the sales tax increase revenue will go to arts, entertainment and cultural heritage.  Other organizations that will benefit directly from the tax increase are also making donations including; $15,000 from the Minnesota Orchestra and $6,711 in kind contributions from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts,  Guthrie theatre $8,872, Friends of Minnesota Public Television $8,000, Minnesota Opera $3,155, the Ordway $5,900, and the Walker Art Center $22,450.

These arts benefactors and organizations are big supporters because they will be receiving $2 billion dollars of the $11 billion dollar sales tax increase.  Yet the Vote Yes group never mentions the billions art groups will receive in their ads.

“It’s interesting that the Vote Yes tax campaign does not mention that over $2 billion of the money collected will go to arts and entertainment and only broadcast scare tactics about our drinking water,” said Phil Krinkie, President of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota.  “All these special interests donating to the campaign are lining up to get their slice of the pie.

For more information go to www.nosalestaxincrease.org.

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