Truth Surfer

Slash and Burn the Middle Class and Poor, and Oh Yeah, Lie about it! The MN GOP know their budget is not good news for Minnesota communities, cities and citzens...so they decided to use fantasy numbers ...as if the truth won't come out eventually. Come on GOPers, let Minnesotans know based on real numbers what to expect with your budget instead of using the 'good ole boy' numbers taken from lobbyist that stand to gain from our pain. On Monday the Minnesota Department of Revenue let Republican House Taxes Chair Greg Davids know his omnibus tax package would raise property taxes for homeowners and businesses across the state while making the tax system more regressive. In other words, thier budget would make families feel more tax and fee pain while those making over $100,000 a year would receive tax breaks. In their own words : "... reductions for the wealthiest Minnesotans are substantially greater than for average Minnesotans" In the GOP alternate universe, the...

Education: In the old days they would burn books, now they just cut education funding . In Minnesota the GOP are proposing to cut $411 million from higher education funding. In effect, they are burning books. Shorted sighted, ignorant and opportunistic comes to mind...guess they want our children to be like them! Health care: Gallup reports today on which states have the highest and lowest rates of residents without health care coverage. Minnesota is ranked as the third best state in the country for the lowest rates of uninsured. But if we enact the GOP cuts, look for Minnesota to topple into the bottom states...sigh... 1. Massachusetts, 4.7% uninsured 2. Connecticut, 9.9% uninsured 3. Minnesota, 10.5% uninsured 4. Hawaii, 10.6% uninsured 5. Pennsylvania, 11% uninsured 5. Vermont, 11% uninsured Energy: Not saying we should necessarily label all nuclear power as bad...but what's going on in Japan should all give us (including the MN Reps!) pause to rethinking and evaluate the ris...

There's something immoral about Rep. Doug Wardlow (R-SD38) not wanting to pay taxes while receiving a salary from those same government taxes as a Minnesota Representative from Eagan. And something is really wrong when Doug Wardlow goes out of his way to imply that government providing for the poor, sick, seniors, children, veterans denies the opportunities for churches and neighbors to help them....How's that moral gobbledygook worked so far ? Brian Rusche of the Joint Religious Legislative Council does a good job of fielding Wardlow's leading questions. Doug Wardlow is trying to imply some kind immoral behavior if the Government helps it's own citizens. Wardlow wants the religious community to agree with his flawed logic that creating more poor for the wealthy to have an opportunity to help them is better than paying taxes. Just another outrageous spin of nonsense... if Doug Wardlow was serious than he'd be advocating fair taxation across economic groups instead...

When things don't add up, I do the math....and while I've always had a knack for math... apparently others find it more challenging... The Prince of Mythical Statistics Minnesota Ex-Governor Tim Pawlenty told Fox network " You have public employees making more than their private-sector counterparts . They used to be under-benefited and underpaid. Now they're both over-benefited and overpaid...it needs to stop." I'm just guessing that Timmy got confused among other things by the percentages as a report from the Labor and Employment Relations points out: "on average, state and local government workers are compensated 3.75% less than workers in the private sector ." Professor Jeffrey Keefe of Rutgers University revealed that public employees are under compensated compared to similarly skilled private sector counterparts. This study joins numerous other studies with the same finding. But really it's like arguing about the volume of water in a raind...

Low pay, long hours, dwindling resources, constant threats of layoffs and defunding, lowering standards for teaching (alternative licensing), attacks from parents, elected officials, school boards, labeled the 'villain du jour' of education ...Are there incentive for teaching today? Given the current all out assault on the public school system and teachers especially... there will be teacher shortages . Who hasn't gotten the message that being a teacher is a bad and lowly career choice ? The media, elected officials, special interests and general public have all attacked teachers for poor performances, missed marks, failed grades, and labeled them as 'bad apples' wasting taxpayers money. We've ask teachers to be beholden to test scores, and abandon significant curricular content, after all ...the only resulting value to their jobs and salaries is testing outcomes . Then wonder why our kids can't compete in today's market place beyond passing a standard...