so true.

Bills in the Senate and House of the Minnesota State Legislature will have a detrimental effect on the rural economy.  Hub cities like Duluth, St. Cloud, Brainerd, Bemidji, Moorhead, Mankato, Marshall, Rochester… have a high number of professional State employees that help the local economies keep going.  The dollars they spend take the extreme wags out of the tails of the Dog we call the economy.  What do you think a reduction of up to 25% of the take home pay for those folks will do.  Oh yeah, remember these were the folks that man the job centers, colleges and universities, highway departments, health and human services sectors, emergency managers…and on and on….

The following is an excerpt from MPE Grassroots on Google Groups. I am reposting it so that word gets out there as to the shenanigans in the Legislature. Time to call a spade a spade and see what we have become beholden to:

Subject: Senator Parry and other hypocrites

Andy, you are absolutely correct on all points except one: Parry doesn’t work close to 6 months of the year as a Senator. He IS a part-time state employee who gets full-time benefits. Parry is an arrogant, small business owner (Godfather’s Pizza in Waseca, MN) who is playing games with our lives and trying to make a name for himself in hopes of being able to run against U.S. Representative Tim Walz. Obviously if Parry was serious about employees having to pay more for their pensions, he would have included his buddies in law enforcement (Parry bragged about having been a law enforcement officer in the past during his last campaign). Parry said the reason he left police and firefighters out of his proposal to make all public employees pay 3% more is because they don’t receive social security benefits. What he doesn’t state is that police and firefighters pensions DWARF those in the MSRS and PERA general plans. Their pensions are more costly to taxpayers than general ones and their payouts (even without social security) are far beyond that what MOST employees receive.  It should be noted that State Representative Tony Cornish, R-Lake Crystal, who is or was the Chief of Police in Lake Crystal, is one of the co-authors on the bill which would take all MAPE members receiving the Correctional Pension Plan (CERP) out of the plan. So apparently Senator Parry and Representative Cornish want the power to pick and choose who gets the best pensions! Again, it’s the HEIGHT of HYPOCRISY!

I AM NOT ADVOCATING THAT ANY PUBLIC EMPLOYEE’S PENSION BENEFITS BE REDUCED, ONLY POINTING OUT THE HYPOCRISY OF THEIR ACTIONS!

Please email and call Parry and Cornish and let them know that we don’t appreciate being pawns in their game.  It may also be a good idea to remind them that they are part-time citizen legislators, and as such, they should relinquish their pensions completely.

— A member

The cost of no new taxes

from the Hunger Solutions Minnesota

 

We are quickly learning that we cannot afford a “cuts only” approach.

Health and human services omnibus bills will impact tens of thousands. The legislature’s budget targets call for deep cuts in health and human services.

Some examples:

• working people who would lose access to affordable health care,
• people with disabilities who would no longer have services that help them live independently,
• policies to make it very difficult for parents trying to get off welfare to pursue education and training related to jobs.
• The transportation committee has proposed mandatory fee increases for bus fares in the metro area.

— all in an effort to solve the state’s budget deficit with cuts alone.

MN Budget Project Blog about the Senate health and human services omnibus bill will impact tens of thousands of Minnesotans

See your legislators in person or watch the following broadcasts.  It just might inspire you to run for office.

 

Minnesota House television webcast:  www.house.mn/htv/schedule.asp

Monday, March 28:

 

12 p.m. – (live) House floor session

Agenda: HF42 (Davids) Omnibus Tax bill; HF1140 (Beard) Omnibus Transportation Finance bill

 

2 p.m., or at the call of the Chair – (live) House Ways and Means Committee

Agenda: HF1049 (Gunther) Omnibus Jobs and Economic Development Finance bill; HF1039 (Hamilton) Omnibus Agriculture and Rural Development Finance bill

 

 

A recommended read from a subscriber:

Door County’s Peninsula Pulse Locked Into The Wrong Debate – We bite again

by Myles Dannhausen Jr.

 

We are so easily played.

For two weeks, we’ve gleefully sunk into a relatively petty debate about pension contribution percentages, health care benefits, and wages for middle class Americans. Often, this argument has devolved into simple jealousies, of one middle class worker upset that another has, thanks to a strong union, better wages and benefits than they have. It often sounds unsettlingly childish: “I don’t have that so you shouldn’t.”   more

 

Hi, This maybe a good item for MPE.

Put your money where your best interest is -

Drawing on donor reports that individuals and corporations must file with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), we’re identifying many of the largest givers to last year’s Republican victors in the House and Senate.  List

– A member

Curtis & Leroy saw an ad in the Starkville Daily in Starkville, MS. and bought a mule for $100.

The farmer agreed to deliver the mule the next day.

The next morning the farmer drove up and said, “Sorry, fellows, I have some bad news, the mule died last night.”

Curtis &Leroy replied, “Well, then, just give us our money back.”

The farmer said, “Can’t do that. I went and spent it already.”

They said, “OK then, just bring us the dead mule.”

The farmer asked, “What in the world ya’ll gonna do with a dead mule?”

Curtis said, “We gonna raffle him off.”

The farmer said, “You can’t raffle off a dead mule!”

Leroy said, “We shore can! Heck, we don’t hafta tell nobody he’s dead!”

A couple weeks later, the farmer ran into Curtis &Leroy at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store and asked.

“What’d you fellers ever do with that dead mule?”

They said, “We raffled him off like we said we wuz gonna do..”

Leroy said, “Shucks, we sold 500 tickets fer two dollars apiece and made a profit of $898.”

The farmer said, “My Lord, didn’t anyone complain?”

Curtis said, “Well, the feller who won got upset. So we gave him his two dollars back.”

Curtis and Leroy now work for the government.

They’re overseeing the Bailout Program.

Limit all US politicians to two Terms.

One in office-

One in prison.

—Anonymous via a forwarded email…