As I pointed out this morning, the notion of the “Budget Deficit” is at best a bit of manipulative spin; at worst, it’s an outright fraud on Minnesota voters and taxpayers. Especially taxpayers.
We walked back a couple of the more toxic myths about the Minnesota budget this morning, including the thing all Real Minnesota Taxpayers have to keep trying to hammer home with your friends, relatives and neighbors; the “deficit” is a fraud.
And yet that’s only scratching the surface of the myths in this deeply abusive media meme.
“Were Balancing The Budget On The Backs Of The Poor”: On the one hand, Minnesota pays among the most-generous welfare benefits in the country – “good” enough to draw people to Minnesota to cash in. It’s seem we have some room to pare things back without really hurting anyone. But the statement itself is yet another fraud.
And on the other hand, if hard times call for shared sacrifice, then why are “the poor” exempt from…keeping their funding the same, or at the very most to an inflation-adjusted increase, as well as a trimming of the most gratuitous fat?
And by that, I mean as opposed to having “Health And Human Services funding jacked up by, ahem, 37% – which is what the DFL-dominated Legislature “forecast” for the 2012-2013 biennium two years ago (see page 4 of this PDF file).
Is the DFL planning for 37% more poor people? Or are we going to subsidize the poverty we have 37% more?
“Holding The K-12 Budget SteadyWill Gut Education”: Except that the DFL’s budget “forecast” planned to increase K-12 funding by 7.6% – with almost all of it going to increasing Teachers’ Union salaries and headcount. It’s yet another case of the DFL trying not only to insulate its biggest constituency – government and its employees – from the economy the rest of us have to live with.
Budget cuts will “force” property tax hikes: Yet another bit of fraud. Cuts to “Local Government Aid” will make local governments responsible for (more of) their own spending, which is currently taken care of by state taxpayers. Local Government Aid was intended to help smaller, poorer cities afford some of the amenities they couldn’t afford – luxuries like water treatment, sewers, actual roads and the like. It has become a subsidy of DFL-controlled city governments.
Indeed, the budget is chock-full of little deficit-building subsidies for one DFL favored class or another. The legislature is going to be addressing quite a number of them – in the interest of controlling the deficit – soon.
Stay tuned.
“There will be panic in the streets if the state does not continue to award itself near double-digit percentage budget increases!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ydqjqZ_3oc
Glad that you pointed that out Mitch!
A friend of mine actually pointed out the number of welfare moochers that come to MN for the cash, using a PO Box, then skeedaddle back to Illinois a couple of years ago. When I challenged him on it, we went to a Mail Boxes Etc. in Woodbury on the three separate days when the welfare checks came out and I couldn’t believe the number of newer high end vehicles with IL plates that pulled up, in several instances, more than one occupant ran in, then came out carrying a tell tale yellowish envelope.
Now, the demonrats have simplified it for them by giving them the pre-paid cards. Unbelievable! Because the idiots running the state don’t require proof of residency, abuse has been PROVEN (PROVEN, Doggy) to be rampant. The tracking of the usage of these cards, show them used for all sorts of vice, gambling, booze, etc. and as far away a Hawaii!
Your 1st link is broken, and your 2nd link study is 16 years old. Been keeping that one in your pocket for a while?
Boss, what you’re describing should not be allowed to happen. Hopefully our republican house and senate will fix that problem while continuing to support those who actually need the help.
Disc;
I agree! I have bent Geoff Michel’s ear on this more than once and he agrees. Everyone needs to call or write their state reps and tell them to stop it.
The crazy thing about that “backs of the poor” meme is that it has no basis in reality. Even making the wild-eyed assumption that money spent “on the poor” actually goes to the poor (most of it doesn’t), trimming the budget for social services means that eligibilty gets trimmed at the TOP end. That is, those who are the LEAST poor get a reduced or eliminated subsidy, while the poorest of the poor continue with their full freebie.
Maybe we should consider something as simple as Wisconsin did a few years ago: they simply required everyone to sign up for employment as a condition to continue receiving welfare, and 20% simply refused to accept the checks. Apparently, free money is a disincentive towards weaning yourself off of the free money.
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