Shot in the Dark

Category: Taxes

  • Eggs For The Omelet

    The Warehouse tax is going to cause all sorts of damage – and some GOP legislators want to do something about it: Reps. Tim Kelly of Red Wing and Pat Garofalo of Farmington said lawmakers must act soon because the looming sales tax on warehousing services is already prompting businesses to delay planned warehouse expansions.…

  • Unintended Consequences

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: USDA buys food products from eligible vendors, then gives them away to schools and eligible poor people. The purpose of the program: “The Agricultural Marketing Service’s Commodity Procurement Staff purchase a variety of food products in support of the National School Lunch Program and other food assistance programs. These…

  • Back On The Shelf

    It was the humblest and most obscure among the DFL’s orgy of tax pushes this past session.  And it may be the one that has the broadest impact fastest The DFL imposed a tax on warehouse services this past session; basically, if it goes into a warehouse, you pay for it.  And pay.  And pay. …

  • Turd-Polishing

    Desperate to keep the stadium finance “plan”…er, afloat, the state is making another big push to try to sell “E-Pulltabs”: In Duluth on Tuesday night, about 35 charities and bar owners showed up for a chance to test-drive all the electronic pulltab and bingo games now available in Minnesota. They got tips from charitable gambling…

  • The Death Of A Million Cuts

     When the DFL-controlled legislature started jacking up taxes, we tried to warn ’em.  “North Dakota’s gonna eat Northwest Minnesota’s lunch”.  But did they listen? Pffft.  They know what “A Better Minnesota” means, peasant! Oh, the left trotted out its talking heads.  “It’s really fairly marginal”, said the heads, snug in their academic offices in the…

  • Chanting Points Memo: “The DFL Cuts Property Taxes!”

    One of the DFL and media’s (ptr) hoariest chanting points is the idea that “Republicans raised property taxes!”, and that the DFL – due to its tender regard for the middle class – is hotly engaged in cutting them. This is a classic low-information voter play, of course; the state doesn’t set property taxes.  City and…

  • We’re From The Government And We’re Here To Help

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Student loan fraud has nearly doubled since 2009. Something about 2009 sounds familiar. What happened in 2009? Oh yeah, that was the last year private lenders made student loans. After 2009, the federal government took it over as part of Obamacare, so the interest paid by students would offset…

  • All The Facts That Fit (The Narrative)

    Dems must smell their own blood in the water for next year; they’re frantically trying to attack the notion that tax cuts help create jobs… …in the minds of those who don’t check the facts. This one’s been popping up on Twitter lately: State-Level Tax Cuts Don’t Boost Job Growth Study Says bit.ly/X1m24L #wiunion #wiright…

  • And They Say DFLers Don’t Get Economics

    Let’s say, hypothetically, that you live in a city. And in that city there are 19 big companies.   They have everything that makes up a big enterprise – a CEO, executives, management, stores, labs, manufacturing plants – in your city. And then the economy picks up.  And the 19 big companies hire more people,…

  • We Can Call It The “Pony Bottle Express”

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: In response to the legislature’s anticipated 600% tax increase on beer, I’m starting an express delivery service running between Hudson, Wisconsin and St. Paul. Please post this Want Ad on Shot In The Dark: “Wanted, young, daring fellows, must be over 18 and expert driver, willing to risk death…

  • Strib: “2+2=38 Billion, Winston!”

    The Star Tribune Editorial board, in a piece that reads like Lori Sturdevant, holds forth on the DFL budget proposal, such as it is – and illustrates the Strib’s deep institutional hypocrisy along the way. The editorial is stupid, hypocritical, and awash in institutional self-interest disguised – like all of Sturdevant’s work – as populist dooo-goodism: No sales…

  • And Here You Go

    The new Vikings stadium has been unveiled. About a year after $500 million in public money was approved by the Minnesota Legislature for a new Vikings stadium, the curtain was pulled back Monday, May 13, to let the public see what the $975 million facility will look like. The new design was unveiled at a…

  • Janteloven, Wobegon And The DFL

    In Scandinavian society – including the parts of it that transplanted themselves to Minnesota, the Dakotas and the U.P. – there’s an aggressive modesty about people; they don’t talk much about their accomplishments; they don’t set themselves out from the crowd much; they take some pains to conceal any gains they’ve had. Scandinavian writers christened…

  • Voting With Our Feet

    A groundbreaking new report by the Center of the American Experiment (henceforth CAX) shows what a lot of us are seeing in our own lives, social circles and workplaces: Minnesota sucks, and people are leaving. Says the CAX: There’s no question that Minnesota’s tax policies directly impact economic growth and opportunity in the state. There…

  • 300 Million Hostages

    No news here; the Sequester, like every “school layoff” in every city that isn’t Detroit, is basically the same as everyone’s old alcoholic significant other threatening to kill themselves; an abusive, co-dependent way of browbeating and bullying people into giving in.   The “cuts” – really a whiz-in-the-wind reduction of an increase – are designed…

  • Picking Winners

    Remember when Democrats claimed to be for the little guy and against big institutional businesses? Obama supports the “Marketplace Fairness Act”, which would tax online purchases: Senators advanced the bill in 74-20 procedural vote on Monday evening, just one vote short of the backing it received in a test vote last month. Twenty-six Republicans joined…

  • Happy April 15th!

    It’s like Easter for Democrats.

  • Hard To Believe This Slipped Past

    Joe Doakes from Como Park writes: From the March 19, 2013 Pioneer Press article on Democrats’ e-bingo gamble, “As of late February, budget planners were forecasting about $1.8 million in tax revenue from charitable gambling in fiscal year 2013 for use on the stadium. Estimates last fall had been about $15 million higher, Massman said.”…

  • The Budget Chainsaw Horror Show

    I got this via email today from a regular correspondent who works for a state agency; I’ll add emphasis to the key parts:  “A friend of mine at [another state agency] told me about the hype and reality of his situation.” “The national association to which the state agency is affiliated with has sent out…

  • That Does Sound Drastic

    If someone as dense as Maxine Waters were a Republican…: …oh, why bother. For every example of a dumb Republican hounded from office by the Democrats’ “Praetorian Guard” media, there are several Democrats who are worse, and rule on in splendid invincible density, forever and ever, amen.

  • Just Keep Repeating To Yourself…

    …that raising taxes in a recession isn’t face-palmingly stupid: “In case you haven’t seen a sales report these days, February (month-to-date) sales are a total disaster,” wrote Murray in a February 12 email to executives. “The worst start to a month I have seen in my (about) 7 years with the company.” The recent hike…

  • Democrat: “We’re Screwed”

    Even some DFLers – the thin film of them that actually have to manage things in the private sector – are figuring it out. This piece has made the rounds; it’s from the San Fran Chronicle, in a piece that gurgitates a whooooole lotta Minnesota myths: “We’re screwed,” [Printing company owner Dik] Bolger said, if…

  • The Definition Of Insanity…

    …to paraphrase Albert Einstein, is to keep trying to use taxes to engineer society even when you know it doesn’t work. Last month, we talked about Governor Messinger’s Dayton’s plan to jack up cigarette taxes by a buck a pack.  Raising cigarette taxes never works; revenues plummet because people avoid the taxes the best they can, and…

  • Slouching Toward Hawley

    First things first: Charlie Quimby of “Growth and Justice” and Dave Mindeman of MnpACT are two of a small, select set of Minnesota liberal bloggers who needn’t be under police surveillance or at the very least restraining orders.  I’m just giving credit where it’s due (although the idea that a group can be named “Growth and Justice”…

  • Not So Happy To Pay For A Better Minnesota

    Minnesota newspapers, largely, supported Governor Messinger Dayton and the DFL.  They largely not only bought the “Alliance For A Better Minnesota’s” bill of goods hook line and sinker, but most of them worked tirelessly to propagate it, and to squelch dissent from it. They studiously avoided, almost completely, any reporting that would have impeded the…