Adding Insult to Injury
By Mitch Berg
Jeff Johnson, over at the Hennepin County Taxpayer Watchdog blog, notes that HenCo is spending taxpayer money to lobby for higher taxes
Bottom line (and pardon my crudeness): Government is giving the finger to the taxpayers of Hennepin County as it spends taxpayer money to lobby the legislature for increased taxes on those same taxpayers.
The Project began several years ago and is funded jointly by the counties of Hennepin, Ramsey and St. Louis, the cities of Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth and the school districts of those same three cities. Each entity allocates approximately $10,000 each year to the Project.
Money taken from the children’s mouths, in the case of the school districts.
The Project essentially funds one “consultant” (who happens to work for Matt Entenza’s liberal Minnesota 2020 think tank) year after year to prepare a report that pretty consistently says the same thing: Minnesotans are not taxed enough. That report is then used to lobby the legislature for increased taxes, apparently in hopes of obtaining more money for cities, counties and school districts in Minnesota.
And, indirectly, to support the advancement of any number of other MN2020 objectives, including the harassment to extinction of Minnesota’s charter schools.
Government’s chief objective, at least in Henco, Ramco and Duluth, seems to be purely to perpetuate itself.
September 2nd, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Just one more reason moving four blocks south was one of the best things I’ve done in the past 10 years.
Those of you living in any of the cities and counties listed would be well advised to get on the phone ASAP and instruct the party of the second part to stop funding a pack of leftist paperhangers.
September 2nd, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Better than that, I’m mailing Jeff $200 to keep up the good work.
September 3rd, 2009 at 4:36 am
Mitch, did you mean Jeff WALKER?