Apparently, Gary Gross has acquired psychic powers. He has an interesting post describing his hatred of taxes and projects his beliefs onto the whole Minnesota voting populace. Interestingly, though, Gary doesn't explain how Minnesota has lost jobs for the fourth straight month given that Tim Pawlenty and Republicans have "held the line" on taxes for the past five years. Somebody really ought to tell Gary that simply saying it doesn't make it true.
Tarryl Clark uses this press release to essentially place all the blame on Minnesota’s weakening economy on Gov. Pawlenty’s shoulders. The sad truth is that the DFL should accept responsibility for attempting to ruin Minneosta’s economy by proposing crippling tax increases to pay for their unsustainable spending increases. Here’s one paragraph that got a chuckle out of me:
“Minnesota’s economy continues to struggle, but the governor refuses to do his part to lend a hand,” said Senate Assistant Majority Leader Tarryl Clark, DFL-St. Cloud. “Each month, Minnesotans are seeing more and more job opportunities disappear. It is imperative that we do whatever we can to jumpstart our state’s economy.”
I emailed Tarryl a couple weeks ago with the suggestion that the DFL work with Gov. Pawlenty to cut taxes next session. I still haven’t gotten a reply from her on that, nor do I expect one considering the subject matter. The DFL hates GOP-proposed tax cuts almost as much as Superman hates Kryptonite or vampires hate wooden stakes.
Essentially placing the blame? Gary, perhaps you could put down the partisan blinders for a moment and read the release objectively. Clark never blames Pawlenty for the weakening economy, an economy, by the way, that has seen no tax increases yet still is losing jobs. What Clark does say is that Pawlenty has not done enough to WORK WITH the overwhelming majorities built by the DFL in the state House & Senate to solve these economic woes. Also, how does one honestly blame the DFL for ruining an economy that has seen NO job growth in four months and in which they have gotten none of these taxes passed? At what point do you place any blame at the feet of the man who has been the head of state for over four years?
I’d just like to second Gov. Pawlenty’s quote about maintaining Minnesota’s prosperity:
“What my DFL friends don’t understand is you can’t government your way to prosperity. You have to have a real economy,” he said. “So their answer is ‘We’d have a better economy if the governor would spend more government money on projects and raise taxes’?”
While platitudes are wonderful things and make us all feel warm and fuzzy inside, perhaps Tim could provide us with an actual plan to get our economy rolling again. If the Governor spent as much time working with the legislature to come up with a compromise as he does coming up with funny slogans with which to slam Democrats we might not have seen 27,000 jobs disappear in the last four months.
Please tell me how this Transportation Bill will create a net a 60,000 job increase. How will it accomplish that when people will be leaving the state in droves? The message from the school levy elections wasn’t nuanced. It was quite clear. It said that voters were tired of the annual tax increases & that they weren’t going to take it anymore. They were tired of being treated like the DFL’s ATM machines.
The DFL is free to ignore that message but they do so at their own peril. The DFL is attempting to ignore the message that Rockville citizens are sending, too. That’ll lead to their demise:
Excellent question, however, you may want to explain first how you know that "
people will be leaving the state in droves". I do enjoy how you have made the opinions of the people of Rockville, however important they may be, the opinions of people across Minnesota. An honest assessment of the
levy votes this year shows that roughly
TWO-THIRDS of all levies passed on all questions while only
ONE-THIRD failed outright. How this can be a clear message of opposition to levies or taxes is beyond me, but you keep believin'! I was always under the impression that 66% win is a pretty hefty victory.
Last session’s tax bill would’ve created the highest marginal tax rates for small businesses in the nation. It would’ve driven up state commercial property taxes, too. There isn’t any doubt that those tax increases would’ve driven small businesses out of the state, too. Despite all that, Tarryl wants us to believe that the DFL tax increases will create prosperity? I won’t buy into that.
When Bill Clinton increased taxes in 1993, the economy was growing. Increasing taxes when the economy is weakening isn’t smart policy. Increasing taxes at that time will hasten, deepen & lengthen the coming recession.
During W’s first term, Democrats complained about the middle class squeeze. If they were to pass, the DFL’s tax increases on small businesses would be the ultimate middle class squeeze because it’d drive up unemployment. If you want to see what massive tax increases does for an economy, just look at Michigan’s. The only thing preventing Michigan from sliding into a deeper recession is the new $600 million business tax cut to draw new businesses to the state.
Well of course you won't buy that Gary, you show just how blindly partisan you are in the above paragraphs. The economy under
Clinton, not his doing and the economy under W., super awesome! This economy, under the tutelage of President Bush and Governor Pawlenty, has seen little progress for anyone other than those at the very top so if you could please explain to me when this magical time will come when these low taxes and massive tax cuts for wealthy will "
trickle down" to the middle class I would be very much appreciative. You speak in only hypothetical's when referencing the tax increases proposed by the DFL (which, by the way, are interestingly labeled
taxes for DFLers and
user fees for Pawlenty) but we have actual data on the
state of things in an
anti-tax climate and it ain't looking so good.
Gary, you can hate taxes all you'd like, but it really doesn't do you any good to assume that others around you share your fear of government "investment". You know what happens when you assume, don't you?
1 Response to "Gary, Reading People's Minds Again?"
That 1/3 of the school levies failed, with many by 60-40 margins, is significant. I don't recall that many levies failing in the same year ever. Winning 60+ percent of elections is a great year when you're dealing with House or Senate races but it isn't with school levies.
Furthermore, feedback that I've been getting says that people are fed up with the tax increases.
When I worked the Benton County fair booth this August, we had numerous people who weren't associated with the BPOU tell us that "$5.5 billion in tax increases." We didn't tell these people how much the DFL attempted to raise them. They knew independent of us telling them.
Furthermore, David Winston, a well-respected national pollster, said that overwheliming majorities of the people he polled, including independents, strongly opposed tax increases.
Try refuting my opinions all you want but methinks something's happening when Oregon refuses to raise cigarette taxes by $0.85 per pack to pay for children's health insurance. Methinks something's happening when Washington State overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative requiring a 2/3 majority to increase taxes.
Feel free to ignore this unmistakeable message all you want.