{"id":510,"date":"2007-02-27T04:05:29","date_gmt":"2007-02-27T10:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php\/index.php\/2007\/02\/27\/give-til-it-hurts\/"},"modified":"2007-02-27T09:52:13","modified_gmt":"2007-02-27T15:52:13","slug":"give-til-it-hurts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=510","title":{"rendered":"Give Til It Hurts"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m occasionally reminded that in my native North Dakota, state legislators haven’t gotten a pay raise since the 1890’s.\u00a0 They still (the last I checked) make $5 a day, plus a very modest per diem<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Business gets done.\u00a0 Bills get paid.\u00a0 North Dakota’s high school achievement scores (for whatever\u00a0standardized test scores are\u00a0worth) are up there with Minnesota’s at the top of the national rankings.<\/p>\n

Minnesota’s legislators, on the other hand, on top of a mid-60K<\/strike> 30K annual salary [Corrected – my bad.\u00a0 I was thinking of the constitutional offices], get $66 a day in expense money.\u00a0 Not enough, says the DFL-controlled legislature; they want a 45 percent raise.<\/p>\n

Craig “Cap’n Fishsticks” Westover has another plan.\u00a0 He’s reaching out with his heart:<\/p>\n

I am initiating an “Adopt a State Senator” campaign<\/strong>. What greater satisfaction could one have than sharing a little more of what you’ve earned with an overworked and underpaid public servant \u2014 someone like little Larry.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Little Larry lives in Minneapolis and drives all the way to the state Capitol in St. Paul every day the Legislature is in session. There is nothing worse for a legislator than to be sitting in his car on a congested freeway hungry and thirsty. Imagine pulling into a Starbucks and having to choose between a grande cafe mocha and a ham and Swiss bagel. On a meager $66 per diem there may not be enough money for both. Our state senators face tough choices like that every day.<\/p>\n

But you can help our senators with your contribution of just $30 per day, or about $4,000 per legislative session. That’s right! For just the cost of a 50-inch flat-panel plasma HDTV and premium HDTV service, you can ensure they never again have to choose between city tap water and Evian.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And maybe Larry can get a more recent head shot.\u00a0 The one shown above was apparently taken during his “I Heart the Bay City Rollers” phase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m occasionally reminded that in my native North Dakota, state legislators haven’t gotten a pay raise since the 1890’s.\u00a0 They still (the last I checked) make $5 a day, plus a very modest per diem.\u00a0 Business gets done.\u00a0 Bills get paid.\u00a0 North Dakota’s high school achievement scores (for whatever\u00a0standardized test scores are\u00a0worth) are up there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-minnesota-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}