Let there be compromise in Minnesota politics!
by Charlie Leck
We are struggling here in Minnesota, as many states are, with how to reduce expenditures without injuring the heart and soul of the state. In an opinion column in our local paper yesterday, Mike Sweeny, the newspaper’s Chairman, put it this way:
“The pounding of local government aid and of higher education has gone far enough. It is beyond efficiency and beyond forcing reform. It is now at the point of threatening the mission. And the voters know it. Significant majorities say they want a mix of cuts and revenue to solve our budget crisis.”
The reduction of expenditures in the state has reached a crisis point. The cutters argue that the voters have demanded this. Yet, no one really wants to injure the state to the point that it will not be able to compete for a talented labor force and creative business leaders. The cutters are damaging our state’s transportation system – both its road and highway infrastructure and its mass-transit system. The cutters are weakening the state's education system at a time when it is already reeling. No department has escaped – law enforcement, parks, recreation, fishing and game, the environment, health and medical care – and all of them will be weakened.
The cutters have gone too far and public opinion around the state has said so. Minnesotans are a proud people. This has always been a state a cut above most. The cutters are bringing great injury to this state and those who follow them will need to rebuild, at great expense, what is being destroyed.
The Governor has called for reasonable compromise. The people of the state agree with him. The revenue stream must be increased.
Tony Sutton, the head of the Republican Party is the road block. His opposition to compromise is sickening and the people of the state are finding it so. He is single handedly destroying his party by his stubbornness and the people will have a 2012 message for him if he does not desist.
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Locally we need to be just as aware - elections for Mayor and 2 council seats this fall for Independence are so important. We need to keep up streets and pay for good fire and police. That might mean we keep taxes the same or increase. We have decreased the last few years on the budget, which we could do, but we may not be able to do much longer with the housing market the way it is. We do not have lots of extras in Independence as is - so we need to pay close attention. Lynn
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