Why Conservatism Needs To Find a Message Delivery Vehicle
Posted by Andy on May 1st, 2007
I think this should scare the crap out of any limited Government conservative.
If the people of Minnesota so easily believe that taxing the producers and employers of this state is *the* solution to higher property taxes, anyone involved in spreading the conservative, or Republican for that matter, messages ought to be tarred and feathered and never work in the movement again.
Folks, your cities, counties, and schools are why your property taxes are going up. They are spending like drunken sailors, and you are flitting the bill. Plus your homes are worth more than they were 6 years ago.
In this instance, failure is not an option. We can’t afford to go down the DFL’s road. The DFL is trying to make class envy a political tool, and the right side of the spectrum should be able to easily fight that notion. The people the DFL wants to steal money from and redistribute it to pay for the spending binges locally, number more than people realize. The targeted taxpayers for the grab, are employers, businesses, and investors.
If the foolish people who believe you can tax your way out of spending problems get their way, Minnesota’s economy will be set backwards by generations. It will be decimated. There will be no growth, there will be no job creation. All that will be left is an growing Government to pick up the private sector slack. And that is exactly what the DFL wants.
My conservative brothers, we’ve got to do better. We’ve got to educate the people what’s right and what’s wrong.What the DFL is pushing is just plain wrong. Let’s hunker down now, and fight for hearts and minds. minnesota is not lost forever, so long as we don’t let the DFL ruin this state.
Veto first, then get back to educating the public that government stealing money from people to bail out local government spending binges is not a good thing.
Local control should rule. No more municipal welfare. Let the County Board members, City Councils, and School boards face the voters. Let them explain why they are taxing the pants off property owners. Don’t bail them out.
The cure for high taxes is high taxes.
Vote the bums out folks, that’s how you can lower your property taxes. The solution to your problem cannot be found in St. paul, because the people who will flit your bill this time, may not be there next time, to save your behind. You’ll have to pay sooner or later.
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May 1st, 2007 at 9:51 am
Actually, this push poll should scare liberals far more than conservatives. The only way they reached 60% on the tax increase questions was by tying it to property tax relief & education funding.
Even then, they didn’t get the support that Q3 got, which was how many people supported Gov. Pawlenty’s plan.
Follow this link for more on this push polling.
May 1st, 2007 at 4:58 pm
One reason why I hate polls….
The “public opinion poll” is one of those modern facts of life that I can do without. Largely that is due to what I learned in college about the methodology of polling. The pollster that tells you that they are not looking for a predetermined……
May 1st, 2007 at 5:05 pm
I just want to ask what is “fair” about taxing some of us more so that others can SUPPOSEDLY pay less? There’s nothing fair about that, at all, especially when most of us won’t see a nickel of it. Part of the tax increase goes directly to local governments, most of it goes to people whose property taxes exceed 2% of income (which is far from all of us), and the rest depends on local governments not continuing to raise taxes. Like that’s going to happen.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:37 pm
If I ran a news service, there’d be no endless loops of Anna Nicole, Princess Di, etc, and no polling results per se. I’d let candidates talk about their own polling in interviews, but that’s it. It depends too much on how, when, and who you ask.
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:38 am
Clarification - part of the Democrat “property tax relief” goes directly to SOME local governments - only about 45% of the state’s population lives in places that still get LGA. About 25% live in townships, and the other 30% live in cities that have been permanently eliminated from the LGA formula. Why? Because they have relatively strong home values, and low local spending.
The state has followed a philosophy that a person’s property taxes should be proportional only to the price of your home - so if you paid $70,000 for a post WW2 story-and-a-half in “Greater Minnesota” your property taxes should be one-third of the property taxes of a suburban resident that paid $210,000 for the same home - even if your outstate city has far more services, and spends far more per-capita than the suburban city. The Dems budget includes big increases in LGA - but only for the cities that already spend a lot of money. So the people who live in cities that have been paying their own way, and living within their means will see little or no “property tax relief” and the people who live in cities that spend like drunken sailors will be rewarded.
There are some property tax credits based on income in the Dems bill, but these would not help suburban businesses at all, and would still give suburban residents far less tax relief than their urban or outstate city counterparts. Given that suburban taxpayers already get a very poor return on their state tax dollars (an average of 50 cents on the dollar or so) and the urban and outstate residents get huge net gains on their state tax dollars, the end result will be to further punish the suburbs, in order to feed the never-ending appetite of the rest of the state.
Just imagine what things would be like if Gov. Pawlenty wasn’t standing in their way with his veto pen.
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:37 am
Does anyone (Wendy) remember what happened the last time that the state gave the cities and counties in the name of property tax relief? I mean it was NOT that long ago……….
In the Ventura administration, the state handed out money to cities and counties and instead of going DOWN (like everyone involved claimed it would) TAXES KEPT GOING UP!!!!!
Throwing money at the cities and counties is not the answer…..holding the line on city and county spending is the only thing that is going to ensure property tax relief. The state can not “control” cities and counties that are drunk on spending. Only when the citizens stand up to the out of control spending will property taxes start going down.
LL
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:11 am
I am not saying that the state should be increasing income taxes to provide property tax relief - the Dems “plan” will actually make things worse - taking pain away from the tax payers in the biggest spending cities, and placing more on the backs of places that don’t spend as much.
The takeover of the school taxes was quickly eaten up by school tax increases - and the appetite for more school spending is insatiable. Just last week the St Paul teachers pension folks were at the capital asking for even more state subsidy for their pension, while refusing to make structural changes (increased contributions and limitations on benefit increases) to make the fund stable on its own.
The Dems, however, are counting on people to not really pay attention at the local level - from 2002 to the present, some cities have had nothing but cuts, and some cities have had a combination of cuts and aid increases. The cities that are screaming the loudest are generally the ones who are now getting MORE than they got in 2001, while other cities, that have had only cuts, and no longer get any aid from the state, have been quietly letting the big spending, high aid cities get away with their rants. Many of the non-aid cities spend less per capita than the highest aid cities get in LGA. Former State Auditor Pat Anderson tried to point that out, and they crucified her, and the voters pretty much just sat back and let it happen.
The DFL wants you to get mad at the local elected officials in the (largely Republican) suburbs - where cities don’t get any aid, while protecting the locals in their strongholds, by feeding them lots and lots of aid, while letting them plead poverty when they still raise property taxes so they can ask for more aid. Don’t let them get away with it. Check into your city’s actual situation, and find out if you are placing the blame in the right place.