We need to keep the pressure on Pawlenty NOT to have a special session. Here’s what I sent him.

See Governor, There is Plenty of Money

Don’t call a special session

Dear Governor Pawlenty,

The Star Tribune is reporting something I am sure you already know, the new 35W Bridge will cost between $220 to $270 million. And I am sure you remember that the Federal Government has pledged $250 million. So why do we need to rush into a special session for the rebuilding?

We can make any needed funding add ons in February when the Legislature is schedule to come back.
Please don’t call a special for the 35W bridge.

The Federal Government has has declared the Southern Minnesota counties affected by the flash flooding as disaster areas, and emergency funding is on the way. Emergency services and support staff are in place. Having the Legislature come back for that now, seems premature as well.

We don’t even know what they need from St. Paul.
Please don’t call a special session before the needs and costs  are identified.

There is no critical need for a special session Gov. Pawlenty, so don’t call one. The public will understand that the media and DFL are trying to politicize the tragedies, if you would just stand up to them and their pressure. Just tell them you don’t believe in giving them a blank check.

There is no imminent need for a special session Gov. Pawlenty, so don’t do it.

Sincerely,
Andy Aplikowski
Blaine, MN
(phone)
andy [at] residualforces.com

You can also find more ways to send Pawlenty a message at Minnesota Majority.

Well, I am playing in the Millard Filmore golf tournament today, and then attending the post golf BBQ and fireworks extravaganza at The Feet Household, so I’ll be out of pocket if you will.

Then on Sunday i am headed to Eckernet’s blogwar.

Have a good weekend if I don’t have a chance to see you at one of them events.

Needless to say, posting will be light.

Can anyone say “worthy of a primary challenge”?

Two local Republicans who voted to uphold a gubernatorial transportation veto last session are calling for a special session.

Representatives Kathy Tingelstad of Andover and Jim Abeler of Anoka want their former House colleague, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, to call a special session  this fall to address transportation.

I am now walking away from my keyboard.

I have the feeling this will bring about the end of Republican unity in the Legislature and Party, but none the less, Gov. Tim Pawlenty is going forward with plans for a special session.

After huddling for hours behind closed doors with legislative leaders, Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Wednesday that a special session to deliver flood relief to southeastern Minnesota and bridge funding is now “likely” and could be held in mid-September or earlier.

It “is” going to happen, as I have been saying for a while now.

“We reached some general understanding of the need for a special session,” Pawlenty said. “I think it’s headed in the right direction.”

Frankly Gov. Pawlenty, I believe it is heading in the left’s direction.

In a private letter sent to legislative leaders Tuesday, Pawlenty had laid out an agenda centered on flood relief, a “limited bonding bill” for roads and bridges, property tax relief and a comprehensive transportation package that could include “a reasonable gas tax increase.”

(You can see the letter by clicking here. pawlentyaug21letter.pdf)

The governor had said in an earlier letter that he wanted the gas tax increase to be temporary and offset by income tax reductions for low- and moderate-income wage earners.

That would be a revenue neutral tax shift folks. Don’t buy the spin from Pawlenty for one second. “Offset” is code word. All he is doing is taxing every single driver in the state more and cutting only a select few people’s taxes. It is a ‘revenue neutral’ tax increase on every Minnesotan.

He sounds like a Democrat for pete’s sake defending this kind of crap.

And after the talks yesterday, where is the Gov?

Pawlenty said Wednesday that he is not insisting that the gas tax be temporary or be offset by other revenue reductions. “It’s just a concept,” he said.

In other words, the Democrats wouldn’t budge, and now Pawlenty is stuck between a rock and the tax increase he himself already said he’d support. As I told one Republican insider a few days ago, this whole special session push from Pawlenty was just plain stupid, and thinking he could trust the Democrats to stay with in his framework, or honestly negotiate was very very troublesome. More troubling was the fact that the Republican Caucus was not solid. We’ve seen numerous RINOs (yes Brent there are still some there) publicly support a tax increase. Sustaining the veto is NOT an option anymore.

He [Pawlenty] acknowledged that he has gotten “some” pushback from Republicans for supporting a gas tax increase to deal with infrastructure deterioration symbolized by the Interstate 35W bridge collapse. “They’re not all that excited about it,” he said.

I am hearing that it is not just rank and file Republicans, but some members of the Legislature who are quite upset have privately voiced concerns over the ideas being discussed.

Earlier in the day, state Republican Party Chairman Ron Cary said that a gas tax increase should be a “last resort,” and that the state had not yet done a thorough enough assessment of needs.

Last resort? Nope, it is unneeded, especially since there are millions in rainy day funds for MNDOT.

For pete’s sake, what happened to the “priorities”?

Republican house leader Marty Seifert seems to be the only one sounding remotely concerned about letting the DFL back in.

“If you want a special session to be speedy, don’t be greedy,” he said with a smile. If legislators expand their list of demands, he said, “that becomes more problematic.”

The Feds have already thrown $250 million into the 35W pot. We don’t know the final costs, so we don’t know how much more, if any, we would need on the state level.

The Feds are also likely to throw in for the Southern Minnesota flooding relief.

So why do we need to rush to a special session?

Oh, that last line from the Pawlenty letter, I suppose. “Property tax relief”

You remember how the DFL planned to deal with property taxes last session don’t you? Well let me remind you, by raising taxes on businesses. We have a Minnesota economy on the verge of a recession, and here we are talking about tax increases, when we keep having budget surpluses. (ahem! that means there is plenty of money already coming in)

The other angle the DFL is chomping at the bit for is increases in LGA (municipal welfare).

And here’s the governor proposing a tax increase on gas and then opening the door for the DFL to try to raise business taxes again, and open the door to having the state bail out the Municipal level spending addicts who are the ones to blame for the high property taxes in the first place.

WTF!?

Is Governor Pawlenty trying to undo all the good will he gained from conservatives last session? Is he trying to do what he thinks is right or needs to? Does he care that he is likely to destroy what is left of the Republican party in the process?

Because frankly it sure seems like he may be trying to make things worse. We got out of the last session with out absolute liberalism taking the reigns, why in the world would he want to let them have another shot?

Does the phrase taxing peter to pay paul mean anything to politicians these days?

That was Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s (D MN) answer to bridge and infrastructure.

Out of $3 trillion dollars in the Federal budget, she can’t find any money for bridges?

Nope this morning on FOX9 news from the MN State Fair, she said to raise taxes on people making more than $366,000 and also raise taxes on oil companies.

I wonder if the anchor, Alex Kendall was giddy with glee.

As I posted on last night, Freedom’s Watch started running ads in Minnesota in support of victory. The Strib picks up on the story today.

WASHINGTON - A group led by a former Bush White House staff member is starting a $15 million advertising campaign that will attempt to shore up support for the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ads will air in Minnesota markets with the aim of putting pressure on lawmakers to continue their support of the war in Iraq.

The ads, which began running Wednesday in 20 states and more than a dozen congressional districts, are sponsored by a new group, Freedom’s Watch. They end by providing a toll-free number for viewers to call their representatives and urge them to support the war and its funding.

You can read the rest here, but the ads are the real story.

I know some people on the left think Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror, but they aren’t the ones we’re fighting in Iraq and they aren’t the ones who will topple our allies if we do leave Iraq. We’re facing an enemy that knows no borders, and they don’t really care where they fight.

We can’t afford to lose this war. We can’t afford to fail. So why does the left in America demand that we do? Is their hatred for a man or a political party worth weakening our country? Well, their political leaders have declared defeat already.

What if we can win if we just try?

Please call 1-877-222-8001 and tell your Member of Congress that defeat is NOT an option!

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure.

From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years.

These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.” Alexander Tyler (Where I got it from)

Is this the end of our great Nation? Frankly, we’re getting closer and closer I fear. Everyone has their hands out, demanding this and that. All of them fall under the circumstances in the quote above.

Will America someday only exist in the history books or faint memories? Not if I have any say over it.  But it is getting harder and harder to fight back against the powers that want to do what is unsustainable. Government cannot afford to provide everythign to everyone, except for one circumstance, when it takes away from one to give to another.

Folks, that’s exactly the sort of government behavior that our forefathers revolted against.

More to come.

That’s what his letter to legislative leaders about a meeting today says.

Property tax relief is on his list of what he would call a special session for.

But no where does he state that increasing revenue in a time of surpluses is off the table.

The meeting was to take place at 1:00 PM today. In it he mentions his Aug 10th letter…. Anyone have that?

Molosus over at Freedom Dogs has a pretty good reminder of just where the DFl priorities were back in April 2007.

In a meeting held in a conference room with no television access, out of the view of citizens they are meant to represent, the DFL controlled rules committee voted last week to DOUBLE the budgets for House Committees.  The budget was increased from $324,000 to $646,000.

Republican House Minority Leader, Marty Seifert issued a press release which I think reflects the sentiments of the majority of Minnesotans…

“This gross increase in legislative bureaucracy is excessive and unnecessary,� said House Republican Leader Marty Seifert. �I am shocked the House Democrats doubled their own budget at a time when families are trying to pay their property taxes and live within their means. We need investments in Minnesota, not investments in the Legislature.�
“I don’t know a lot of regular, hard working Minnesotans getting back-to-back pay raises within a year,� Seifert said.  “When I talk to truckers, waitresses and secretaries, I know that they are not getting these types of raises.”

And the DFL Legislature (behind closed doors) even went so far as to raise their mileage allowances, no doubt to fund the gas tax increases they longed to pass.

Another concern to Seifert is that House Democrats increased legislators� gas payments for inner district travel. Under the formula, one rural Democrat lawmaker could take home over $1600 each month in district mileage.  These increases come only a few months after the DFL majority legislature voted themselves both a pay raise and a per diem increase in the last session.

I find it ironic that the people who are trying the hardest to raise the price of gas by increasing gas taxes are the first to meet at the capitol and give themselves protection by raising their gas mileage payments, courtesy of the state treasury” Seifert said..

How soon we forget of the power and money grab the Democrats got away with last session. And now, today, they are going to reach deeper into your pockets to pay for their mistakes in priority.

Pawlenty is seeking an agreement on a  “Comprehensive Transportation Bill” in order to call a special session.

I am worried. VERY VERY worried.

Filed under: Socialized Transportation