This is not normally a political blog. It is not becoming a political blog. But politics intersects with life, so here it is. (And rest assured, I have another post in the pipeline with cute pics of the kids and some warm fuzzies for your soul.)
So the Clean Water, Wildlife, Cultural Heritage and Natural Areas Amendment sounds good and all. What's more Minnesota than clean water and wildlife? And that's all we hear about is the clean water part: lakes and streams. Maybe the wildlife part.
But arts? With an election in two days I was starting the research on the parts of the ballot that I don't hear attack ads on every second. Seriously, I tried to watch some of the news last night and for several commercial breaks, every commercial was a political attack ad. I'm sick of it.
And the ads for this amendment aren't much better. The one side is, "Who wouldn't want to pass clean water on to our kids?" And the other side is, "Don't you realize it sounds nice but will make your taxes go up?"
This all misses the point.
First, there's a sales tax increase. A Constitutional Amendment is not a place for a sales tax increase. Good grief. That's the job of the legislators we send to the capital.
Second, this isn't just about clean water. There's also clauses in here about funding money into the arts and cultural heritage. Again, I'm sorry, but a Constitutional Amendment is not the place for that. A bill on the floor of the Legislature where our elected representatives can hash it out is the right place. Putting it on a Constitutional Amendment where there's little public debate and no one is talking about anything besides clean water is low down dirty rotten.
I'm tired of the games. At this point I'm not holding anybody faultless. It's just a general comment. Things like this get me though. There's too much power; too much money.
I saw a bumper sticker the other day.
"Peace is inevitable. Why not now?"
Has anyone looked at the human condition lately? War and chaos are inevitable. Men exploiting other men is inevitable. Anything else takes a whole lot of work, cooperation, vigilance and the grace of God.
-N
3 comments:
This amendment is only a good deal if you accept the premise that an additional $300 million per year (the amount to be raised by the sales tax increase) can't be found in a biennial state budget that is currently at almost $35 billion, and has nearly doubled within the last ten years.
But it's not a never a good deal because they shouldn't monkeying with the sales tax in the Constitution. Specific matters of taxation should be handled by the legeslators we pay to handle that.
That is why we elect them and pay them isn't it?
Sure. I was just making a related point. If our legislators were courageous enough to cut other spending or vote for a tax increase themselves, there would be no reason to dabble in California-style direct democracy.
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