Fraters Libertas

This Thing Will Pay for Itself

In today’s paper, Star Tribune editorial page employee Dave Hage takes pains to summarize the results of Governor Pawlenty’s efforts to deal with a $4.2 billion state budget deficit by not raising taxes. Or should I say he gives pains, since his funeral tone and dismal predictions of catastrophy have literally given me a headache.

Non-rhetorical question, do even lefty, government employee types who demand double digit increases in government spending in order to facilitate their purchase of lake homes enjoy reading this type of thing? The black midnight of despair bleeding out of every Star Tribune editorial, do the good liberal people of Minneapolis really want to read this?

If so, let me know. I’d like to understand your mindset better (and get you in contact with some depression counselors). If you don’t, please let the Star Tribune know - fast. Since Hage is warning of more, much more, to come:

Minnesota will pay for these decisions [to not raise taxes] -- in sicker people, weaker schools, a less competitive workforce. Indeed, the state already is paying a price, as our editorial page will document in a periodic series of editorials starting today.

It almost sounds if he’s threatening us. Saying Minnesota is going to pay for Pawlenty’s decision to not raise taxes by having to read a Star Tribune series of editorials devoted to this issue. I think they may have finally found the pressure point to get me to demand a tax increase.

But just when he stumbles upon the right combination of words to inspire action, Hage loses me again with this:

But the cuts of 2003 went far beyond pruning. They broke faith with a long and successful Minnesota tradition of investing for the long run. The question is not whether Minnesota could afford that tradition, but whether it can afford to abandon it.

His response to those who claim we can’t afford a $4.2 billion tax increase is ‘how can we afford not to’? If this whole editorial writer thing doesn’t work out for Hage, he’s got a bright future in door-to-door encyclopedia sales.