GOOD POLITICAL ADVICE FROM ANOTHER COUNTY

The following is a copy of a Letter to the Editor that appeared in local papers exactly as written by a Mora, Minnesota resident concerning DFL Senator Tony Lourey and DFL Representative Tim Faust of that legislative district.

It is interesting to read the letter carefully to see if you can find any significant place that ultra-liberals SENATOR RICK OLSEEN and REPRESENTATIVE JEREMY KALIN voted differently from ultra-liberals Lourey and Faust and the rest of the free-spending liberals.

Clearly DFL legislators are captives of the special interest groups that own them and they are not about to vote against those who fund them. Back home they put on a smiley face and down at the Capitol they do what they are told and you and I pay the bills they rack up.

The letter follows:

"Dear Editor: Now that the 2008 legislative session is over I thought it would be a good time to look at just what our State Senator Tony Lourey (Rick Olseen?) and State Representative Tim Faust (Jeremy Kalin?) accomplished during this last session in regards to our taxpayer dollars. Both of the gentlemen were given the opportunity to vote on eleven bills that could either raise our taxpayer dollars or not.

Senator Lourey chose to increase our tax spending 10 of the 11 times, while Representative Faust had a 100 percent voting record of increasing our tax dollars. I don't know about you, but that doesn't seem to me like they're working in our best interests.

So, if they are not working on our behalf whose behalf are they working on? Well here again voting records can show that. Back in 2007 one of the first issues taken up by Senate lawmakers was a 45 percent increase in their "per diem", a daily allowance for meals and incidental expenses. The increase from $66 per day to $96 per day is on top of a legislator's annual salary of $31,140, plus monthly housing and travel expenses paid year round. And guess where all that money comes from? You guessed it, the taxpayers pockets.

As long as we are on the topic of tax increases I wanted to inform the readers that they will have the opportunity to vote on a 3/8 of a cent sales tax increase on the ballot on November 4th. As projected by the Minnesota Revenue Department, by 2011 this tax increase will siphon $276 million out of taxpayers' pockets to be divided up among four new pots of money: 33 percent to the Outdoor Heritage Fund, 33 percent to the Clean Water Fund, 14 percent to the Parks and Trails fund, and 20 percent to the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. It's not often that we Minnesotans get a clear choice between between raising taxes and fiscal responsibility. . . . . . . . . . ."

End of quoted letter to the Editor