Fifty-six percent of respondents said that they were not willing to pay more in taxes in order to reduce the deficit, and nearly as many said they were not willing for the government to provide fewer services in areas such as health care, education and defense spending.
There you have it. Don’t raise taxes, and don’t cut spending. I understand that neither of those options are particularly pleasant, but eventually we’re going to have to make tough choices to solve our budget problems, in Minnesota and in states all around the country.
Jeff - the problem is many people CANT pay more taxes. We are broke. When I see what legislative per diem is, I see plenty of dollars that can be cut from government.
Yaz- I really had no idea what legislative per diem was and now Im researching it. What an abused system, thanks for the hat tip.
Given all the waste in state and federal government, I don’t know how any politician can justify raising taxes.
Holy threadhack. Go search “per diem” on MDE. Yuck.
Trollminator please.
Per diem is chump change, compared to the rest of the state budget. “Plenty of waste” — where? Anyone can come up with a few foolish sounding projects here or there (e.g. Marty Seifert can move to eliminate desserts in prison), and it’s easy to rail against teachers’ or public employees who always want more money (unlike the rest of us selfless masses) but when it comes to making deep, meaningful cuts, that’s a different breed of cats.
yaz, guyg, and the rest of your ilk, cut the rubbish about “PLENTY of places to cut.” Let’s hear specifics. Roads? K-12 education? Health care (again)? None of this thousand hear, thousand there thinking — real cuts. Let’s see what you have.
Let’s see the Republicans come out for a unicameral State legislature if they want smaller government and to save money. Will never happen in a million years as the GOP wallows in the trough of elected office.
The highest taker of per diem monies took roughly HALF of what he was entitled to by law.
Trillions of dollars being spent on government and the Democrats think we can’t cut anything without hurting education or roads. We just spent stimulus money on a bike path to the Twins stadium. Yep, nothing to cut.
Exactly what I’ve been talking about. Come up with a couple of small projects oyu can make sound foolish, then declare there’s LOTS of things to cut.
It’s sad that your type has defined political discourse in this country.