Is There Some Benefactor, Somewhere…

…that pays liberal pundits to be gratuitously smug, patronizingand condescending?

In an editorial in the Fairbault Daily News, editor Jaci Smith goes all Mommy on us:

You can’t have it both ways.

Although Smith does, in fact, try to have it both ways.  We’ll get back to that later.

This was a lesson I learned early in life.

I coveted a friend’s toy and wanted her to let me play with it, yet I never wanted to share my favorite toy.

“You can’t have it both ways,” my mom used to tell me. “Either you play only with your own toys or you play with others’ shared toys and you share yours as well.”

A good lesson but apparently one that some state legislators haven’t learned.

Smith – like the rest of the peanut gallery of outstate editorial writers who seem to be longing to sit for a day in Lori Sturdevant’s seat – says Steve Drazkowski and Pat Garofalo, who’ve been warning voters that their school districts got increases, and urging them to vote down referenda to increase taxes yet more, should just shut up:

Garofalo and Drazkowski claim that the state boosted spending to school districts in the budget passed this summer and that the 133 districts statewide seeking levy increases (or the continuation of an existing one) are “double dipping.”

“Despite these very generous funding increases — paid for by you, the taxpayer — 133 school districts statewide are considering asking their local property taxpayers to pony up even more money — the largest number that would call for a vote in a decade,” Drazkowski wrote in a recent newsletter.

Smith says it’s a local thing,and state pols should just. Butt. Out.

Thankfully, Faribault’s GOP Sen. Mike Parry disagrees. He said in a recent interview with the Daily News that referendums are local issues, to be handled locally.

That’s true, as far as it goes.  But here, Editor Smith, er, tries to have it both ways.  Garofalo and Drazkowski are exercising their First Amendment rights to tell people the facts as they see them.  As Legislators, they have no control over how local districts run their affairs, or what local voters vote for.  But they have the same right to speak that anyone – me, Bud Froemking at the liquor store in Faribault, or Jaci Smith for that matter – has.  Both have the advantage of the bully pulpit of elected office – which doesn’t negate their right to speak…

…any more than that of the Teachers Unions and the other groups from outside Faribault that will be speaking, and no doubt ponying up money, to try to push the levy through.

So since Mommy Editor Smith has reminded us that we can’t have it both ways, I wonder which one she’ll pick?

2 thoughts on “Is There Some Benefactor, Somewhere…

  1. You can’t have it both ways.

    Jaci has to apologize NOW to the B part of the GLBT movement or face the wrath of the DFL.

  2. Isn’t wanting the State taxpayer to fund local services but not to even opine (much less vote) on their level of spending “trying to have it both ways”?

    It seems to me that the people picking up the tab always have a right to weigh in on how much it is.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.