Posted on 03/07/2015 1:37:45 PM PST by TurboZamboni
If you picked up a Star Tribune last weekend, you might have read two seemingly unrelated stories. On Saturday, news of a $1.9 billion surplus, with the state budget growing to $42.5 billion for the next two years (“Surging surplus raises the stakes, Feb. 28). On Sunday, a solid piece of investigative journalism about political cronyism on the Iron Range (“Range agency deep into DFL politics, pockets,” March 1).
What if these two stories were related? Researchers at Indiana University published a study last year that explored the impact of public officials’ corruption on the size and allocation of state expenditures. Their findings? Corruption is expensive! In the 10 most corrupt states, the cost of corruption was calculated to increase spending by 5.2 percent. Thankfully for Minnesota’s ranking, the study looked at corruption and state spending from 1997-2008, missing the explosion of growth in state spending under DFL Gov. Mark Dayton and the recent ethical problems of the DFL Party. These trends in Minnesota should alarm taxpayers and policymakers alike.
The trend in state government spending is unmistakable. When Dayton took over, the general fund budget was $34 billion. Last week’s forecast predicts it will grow to $42.5 billion. That represents 25 percent growth in just five years. Even the $5 billion deficit in 2011 didn’t slow down the growth in state spending — it went up almost $1 billion that year. And the $2.1 billion tax increase passed by Democrats and signed by Dayton in 2013 put spending growth on steroids.
Ethical problems within the DFL Party have grown from one or two isolated events into a full-blown culture of self-interest. Every week there is a new story showing DFL politicians’ self-interest triumphing over the concerns of the people they represent:
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Note to Claire Wolfe: there’s no longer a doubt. It is time to start shooting the bastards. (Re: “ America is at that awkward stage; it’s too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.”)
Reagan had the best take...whose money is it? If Minnesota has a $1.6 billion surplus, it means that the states taxpayers have been over taxed by $1.6 billion. Why not give Minnesotans a $1 billion tax cut and watch the state’s economy take off? Dayton and the DFL will simply come up with more worthless ways to spend this surplus and then come back and say they need to increase taxes.
This is Minnesota. Republicans for the most part will all concede once the State gets it, you are never going to get it back.
So they’ll make a bunch of deals that if they fill some potholes, the rats will still get their bike paths.
oorruption is not confined to the DFL.
not by a long shot.
#3 They will want more “light rail” trains and bike paths.
What’s up with this? Is the owner or editor of The Red Star on vacation? That’s three articles in the last week or so that have attacked the Democratic/Farmer-Labor Party. The next thing you know is that they’ll start questioning the need for thousands of Somalis or light rail.
hat’s just crazy talk!!! :-)
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