COLD, CRIME AND COLLECTIVISM
The governor of Minnesota wants to send checks for $1,000 to 2.5 million households. If you make less than $75,000 you qualify. Couples earning less than $150,000 get $2,000. The governor can propose this because the state has a 17-billion-dollar surplus this year. Prudent management of the state’s financial affairs would suggest holding on to this money for a rainy day. With the economy retrenching, future deficits are possible.
Despite the surplus the government still wants to raise taxes as much as 4% on capital gains. This will continue to drive affluent people out of the state and hurt the economy. Already warmer environs like Naples, Florida have scores of former Minnesotans happy to not pay the onerous state tax. High taxes and bitter cold will exacerbate the outward migration of wealthy investors and their capital. The Wall Street Journal writes, “Each of the new tax schemes would speed up the flight from the states trying to impose them.”
The Journal further states, “These are awful ideas – anti-growth and ruinous for the incentive to work, invest and take risks.” Giving people money they didn’t earn often does more harm than good. Our generous welfare benefits are not helping to reduce crime. Minnesota residents face worsening threats to their safety. People fear riding on the light rail system while others will never go downtown. Enforcement of motor vehicle laws is in a shambles. The police are vilified, and crime goes unpunished. All this dysfunction stems from the runaway social sympathy of the progressives and socialists running our state and its cities. Their bad ideas are changing Minnesota for the worse.
