WIT AND HUMOR – A FUNNY SITE BY BOB WAYNE

I get the biggest kick out of their description: A non-partisan, non-profit grassroots taxpayer advocacy organization for Minnesota. “Non-partisan”? “Non-profit”? That’s like saying the Jewish Defence League is non-denominational. Or the Pope’s not a Catholic.

This is an organization of cheap Republicans who want everything (like government services, street lights, police, fire, top-notch schools, parks, nice lakes, snow removal, etc.) but without that ugly necessity of paying for it. They remind me of people like Robert Kiyosaki who have no business ethics and despise anyone who does.

Kind of like our idiot governor who thought he’d cut the cost of snow plowing by not paying for any overtime for the poor bastards driving the trucks. That sure ended in a hurry. Funny what happens to services when you refuse to pay for them. They go away.

We compete for the best college professors at the University of Minnesota. Why waste all that money on college professors? And new lab buildings? Ask the CEOs of any of the major corporations that are headquartered here.

When my wife was 14, her family moved from Long Island to San Diego. When she got there, she found that her education was two grades above the kids in San Diego. Was it because she was smarter than the kids in San Diego? Nope. She just grew up in a school district where they weren’t afraid to pay for the best teachers and support them.

I grew up in Michigan, just outside of Detroit. I know what it’s like to live in a “low tax” state. The highway guardrails are rusty and bent. The roads are broken and full of potholes that never get fixed. There’s trash along the side of the roads. You can’t take your kids to the park because the equipment is falling apart and rusty.

You don’t notice it when you live there. You just think that’s the way things are. Then you move to a state like Minnesota where, yes the taxes are higher, but the roads are clean and well maintained. The parks are clean and well maintained. The schools are high quality and the teachers turn out impressive students. And you have one of the top university systems in the country that produces excellent graduates who contribute to the quality of life, government taxes, and attract great paying jobs to the state’s economy.

When people start whining about their taxes and you elect a governor who promises to lower taxes, sure, at first it’s nice not having any new taxes. But the services get a little lower quality every year. The state starts falling behind other states for quality of life, health care, education. It gets harder to attract new business here so you build some stadiums. Try some fancy marketing.

And then one day, you look around and you’re competing against Louisiana and Arkansas for the state with the highest teen pregnancy, the highest high school drop-out rate, the lowest income levels, and yes, the lowest taxes.