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I'm sorry, but as a Minnesotan I've gotta say that this where the rubber meets the road. For the record, I value the family farm and am an agricultural producer myself, but, as a conservative I have to ask myself why is the government financing all of these things in the first place.

If you'll recall, the Minnesota Historical Society, for decades, was a tiny hole in the wall down on Clinton Ave near the Art Institute. It was housed in a converted home. During Arne (RINO) Carlson, the MHS was catapulted into its multi-million dollar showcase facility in St. Paul near the Capitol. Their budget is huge and their politics are, too often, left of center. In any event, upgrading their ticket on the gravy train was another example of free spending largess that has brought Minnesota its crushing tax burden.

I mourn for the loss of the family farm (one was lost in our family) but NO LESS that I mourn for the loss of any other business that free people pour their lives into in pursuit of their happiness. The solution to the precarious situation the family farms are in is not in a government program or grant or subsidy but, IMO, lies more realistically in getting government out of the business of distorting markets. Losses and change are part of free markets.

For whatever value the Kelly farm may hold, sustaining its budget is as much a mistake as protecting any golden calf. Pawlenty's budget is $1,000,000,000 more than '02-03 and is still the largest budget in Minnesota history. Even still, Pawlenty has red-penciled $4,500,000,000 in requested increases that programs just like this are clamoring for.

If you really wish to pay a thousand more dollars for every man, woman and child in the state to pay for the Kelly farm budget and every other sacred cow down the road, you have to ask yourself, why on earth would I call myself a conservative and favor smaller government and lower taxation?

Am I missing something about the critical importance of preserving the Kelly Farm budget, or is this just a case of preserving a personal perk?

Farmerfriend, I see that you are from California. I also take in good faith your well meant intents behind this post. However, the budgetary crisis California finds itself in should be instructive about how government spending should not be run (let alone Davis' handling of your ongoing energy debacle).

Please realize that Minnesota (and our nation for that matter) is in the same kind of budgetary crisis. Our common crisis is due to unrestrained spending on issues, projects and matters that never should have been civil expenditures in the first place. The point is that everyone must realize that reversing the rule of socialism is going to cost every one of us something.

In fact, as administrators fight back against 'cuts' (and please realize that Pawlenty's budget is an INCREASE not a CUT), their intent will be to slash items that hurt the public in ways that will manipulate people to do things just as this email alert is doing. IOW, the intent will be to hurt taxpayers in ways that will make them lose the stomach for doing what needs to be done.

Can anyone seriously imagine ever getting to the real core of government waste, i.e., wealth redistribution and social programs, without cutting through a jungle of boondoggles aimed at the middle-class and special interest groups?

Not one-half mile from where I sit typing this post, the University of Minnesota operates the historical Gibbs farm in the era of the last half of the 19th century. Is this farm as important to our culture and history and future as the Kelly Farm? I doubt it, and I question the operation of this farm as well as another add-on component of the University of Minnesota's hugely bloated budget.

I don't mean to be harsh and denigrate the experience that these farms can provide (I actually plan to visit the Gibbs farm with the kids), but seeing them cut loose from the purse of government is a greater good than any value an afternoon watching somebody churn butter will provide.