The DFL is out for every penny you make!

On Saturday, April 19, I attended the Town Hall Meeting of my State Representative Sandra Masin 38A. This was my first attendance to one of her Town Hall meetings. My wife had previously attended one of Masin's meetings and came away unimpressed. I was disappointed with how the meeting was run and what I heard from the elected representatives present. What I thought was to be an opportunity to discuss local and state political issues with my representative turned out to be a three way DFL tag team match of Masin, Shelley Madore 37A and Will Morgan 40A. Nearly 50 people  attended and I must assume many were supported since they seemed to be the ones who were called on, and by a first name basis.

The 10:00 AM meeting started twelve minutes late. We were told that everyone would be allowed to ask only one question by Representative Morgan who was the moderator. No follow up or second question allowed until everyone else had a chance to ask their first question. Unfortunately, we were not told until 11:25 AM that they only had the room until 11:30 AM. At my count only nine questions were asked, because nearly every question was answered by all three representatives. They still found time to introduce the Minnesota Speaker of the House, Margret Anderson Kelliher, who spoke for about 15 minutes on that evil Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty and his attempts to stop the DFL from taking every penny they think they need from your pocket.

What troubled me more was what I heard from these first term officials. To sum up their rhetoric during the 1 1/2 hour meeting: Republicans who do not vote for tax increases are bad people, but the DFL is good since they need more of your tax money to spend. I nearly fell from my chair when Representative Madore said that the State of Minnesota must do a better job of educating special needs children so that the can hold future jobs, "because I need their tax moiney!"

Minnesota’s biennium budget is over 35 billion dollars and that is not enough money? Wisconsin, a state with 400,000 more residents, operates on a biennium budget of 28 billion. Our problem isn’t a lack of tax money; it’s a lack of proper spending priorities. These freshman representatives were elected in 2006 promising fiscal conservative values. Instead the DFL spent our surplus of 2 billion dollars, and have put us nearly a billion more in debt.

Minnesota is over taxed, plain and simple. Productive workers, retirees and companies are leaving our state in droves because of taxes! In November we need to elect Republicans who understand roads, bridges and jobs are far more important than bike paths, gorilla cages and super expensive light rail trains.