Via Gary Gross at Let Freedom Ring, GOP State Rep Steve Gottwalt  blows the whistle on some gratuitous DFL overreach:

ST. PAUL – State Rep. Steve Gottwalt, R-St. Cloud, said he is shocked by the number of anti-business bills being pushed by the [DFL] House majority this session. With Minnesota facing a $6.4 billion budget deficit, Gottwalt said the best thing the Legislature could do this session is help more residents find work.

“Besides solving our budget deficit, the most important task lawmakers have this session is to approve policies that help retain and create jobs,” Gottwalt said. “Instead, Minnesota House Democrats are repeatedly proposing job killing tax increases.”

Gross follows up with a question for the DFL – especially DFL rep. Tom Bakk, who’s been leading the “tax ’em til they drop” faction of the DFL: 

I just posted a criticism of the Senate DFL’s job-killing tax increases. At the heart of that post is this question for Tom Bakk: If people are willing to travel across the Minnesota-Wisconsin border to save $20 in liquor taxes, why does Sen. Bakk think that a small business wouldn’t move across the Minnesota-South Dakota border to save $50,000 a year in in come taxes?

Short of building a wall with minefields and dogs to prevent escape, y’mean?

Oops.  I should erase that last bit. I  know DFLers who read this blog…

Gottwalt lists some examples of, er, gross DFL overreach:

Gottwalt listed several House proposals that could significantly hamper the way employers conduct business:

● HF 2031, which prohibits Minnesota from purchasing products from the Willmar-based Jennie-O Turkey Store at the request of unions. Gottwalt said if Democrats succeed in blacklisting this Minnesota business, there would be nothing stopping them from going after any business at the request of unions or other special interests.

While I’m not anti-union by any means – unlike most DFLers, I’ve been in a union – this is the kind of thing that needs to be jumped on with heavy boots.  When unions start using the power of government to get their payback, society is screwed.  This is the sort of thing that dragged the British economy into the toilet in the ’60s and ’70s. 

● HF 644, which sets mandates on companies with city contracts, regulating who they must hire, but exempting union labor contracts.

Ditto.

Gross:

Gottwalt added that the real job killer is the $4.4 billion tax increase proposed by House Democrats. That includes a new income tax bracket. The new 9-percent bracket would place Minnesota among the nation’s highest income taxes.

“Keep in mind 92 percent of small businesses in Minnesota pay taxes through personal income taxes, meaning that any income tax increase will directly hurt our small employers and economic recovery,” Gottwalt said.

So what we have here is the DFL paying back its markers to the unions, serving as a thuggish enforcer for their wishes.

(And wouldn’t a law that singles out a specific company for non-criminal reasons take a big steaming dump on the Fourteenth Amendment?)

Keep it going, DFL.  You’re making this whole “opposition pundit” thing easier and easier.