Voo Doo Economics

The Speaker of the Minnesota House decided to play economics professor in yesterdays Star Tribune.

An interesting thing happened April Fools' Day at many gas stations: The price at the pump actually dropped, locally and across the state. Keep in mind that this was the day Minnesota actually added to the gas tax for the first time in 20 years.

Yep - that is a true statement....but she neglects to mention that the price jumpped 20 cents a gallon the very next day!

By now, we are all too well aware of the volatile nature of global energy markets. Threats from world leaders made thousands of miles away or a hurricane closer to home can cause the price of oil to reach new records. More recently, the weakening dollar has pushed it up over $100 a barrel.

Again, true...but one there is two ways to fix those problems that no one seems to talk about...drill our own oil and build more refineries....something that we can not due because of legislative action by the Democrats and their "Green" backers.

While this continues year after year, states are struggling to find money to keep roads from crumbling. Borrowing has become a popular alternative to the gas tax, which is constitutionally dedicated to pay for roads and bridges. Here in Minnesota, the debt on the highway fund has grown by 650 percent in just the past five years. Our tax dollars are being diverted to pay off that debt instead of being used to fix roads and bridges.

Well I can think of one way to correct that.....how about we quit diverting transportation dollars (dollars that are supposed to go to roads and bridges) to things like transportation and bike trails? As has been discussed in the past, the majority of the $6.6 million dollars in the last "transportation" bill goes to transit and other non-road projects!

This spring, Minnesotans will see highway crews finally going to work on
long-neglected stretches of road.

Um....Madame Speaker....I don't know about your end of the metro, but I have not seen the road crews OFF of the roads this season. The old joke is that there are two seasons in Minnesota - winter and road construction! Road construction season lasted all year long down in this part of the world. Governor Pawlenty and Lt. Governor/former MNDOT Commissioner Molnau supervised record setting road construction project increases. Those "long-neglected stretches of road" have been getting attended to, Madame Speaker....no thanks to the DFL.

Our tax dollars are being diverted to pay off that debt instead of being used to fix roads and bridges.

Um, no....our tax dollars that should be going to roads are going to things like bike trails and fighting obesity....how do those projects fix our "long-neglected roads"?

Republicans and Democrats now seem to agree that Minnesotans voted for change in
2006. They voted to invest in our schools, not for more cuts. They want affordable health care to become a reality and not just a slogan.

Actually what the people did not vote for was going from a $2.2 billion surplus to a $925 million deficit! What we did not vote for was the government taking over every single aspect of our lives and we did NOT vote for a failing economy. What the people voted on were candidates that "claimed" to be more fiscally moderate than the Republicans who were in office. As we have seen in the last 12 months, thi DFL caucus is anything BUT fiscally moderate....contrary to the Speaker's claims.