Free Republic

ST. PAUL (AP) - For more than a year, Tom Thompson has read the glossy brochures, taken the phone calls and even received personal visits from the Republicans fighting for the party's backing in the 6th Congressional District. On Saturday, Thompson and 324 other party delegates will narrow the field of four to one. State Sen. Michele Bachmann is leading in a hard-fought race that also includes businessman Jay Esmay and state Reps. Jim Knoblach and Phil Krinkie. But the endorsing convention at Monticello High School could get unpredictable if Bachmann doesn't clear the 60 percent threshold needed for an...

tax by any other name stings just as much, the way Rep. Phil Krinkie sees it, so why not make it the law that almost any money state government collects from citizens be officially counted as a tax? A bill proposed by Krinkie, R-Shoreview, chairman of the House Taxes Committee, would do exactly that, defining as a tax any payment demanded by government except a direct price paid for a specific service, and blowing a rhetorical hole in his governor's proposal to raise millions in state revenue through new and higher fees, surcharges, revenue accelerations and so forth. Should Krinkie's...

As usual, the Star Tribune's March 22 editorial "Moderate ground/Support Dorman-Greiling" couldn't be further from the truth. First, Rep. Mindy Greiling, DFL-Roseville, is an unabashed liberal who during her tenure in the Legislature has been a consistent voice for higher taxes and unlimited spending. Secondly, as it turns out, after six years in office, Republican Rep. Dan Dorman, R-Albert Lea, is not the fiscal conservative he promised his constituents he would be in that all-important first election. Instead he has morphed into a veritable tax-and-spend liberal -- most recently joining with Greiling in proposing a whopping $358 million increase in...