Surplus or not, Governor wants higher taxes on rich

Surplus or not, Dayton wants higher taxes on rich

Rachel E. Stassen-Berger
Minneapoolis Star Tribune
December 7, 2011

Projections of a surplus rather than a deficit may have caught Gov. Mark Dayton by surprise, but that doesn't mean he's giving up on his signature issue of taxing the rich.

"I'm not dropping that," Dayton said of his proposal to raise taxes on millionaires. "We will come in with it as the lead in to the 2013 session, regardless of the outcome of the election."

In a wide-ranging interview this week with the Star Tribune, Dayton said he remains committed to a long-range plan to raise taxes on the wealthy despite Republican opposition. A Senate leader last week pronounced Dayton's tax-the-rich agenda dead after hearing of the state's $876 million surplus.

For 2012, Dayton will turn to plans for robust job growth and government reform that may be less sexy, but more durable and provide more common ground with the Republicans that rule the House and Senate.

"I think it's great," said Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, R-Buffalo, of Dayton's 2012 plans. Koch, who spent much of last session at loggerheads with the DFL governor, said his new plan "aligns perfectly with our agenda, which is jobs and reform."

The alignment may fall short of perfect.

Dayton wants to pass a Vikings stadium bill and a bonding bill in the opening weeks of the legislative session, which starts on Jan. 24.

Both, he said, are key ingredients in jump-starting jobs and providing lasting infrastructure improvements.

Republican House and Senate leaders are barely convinced that the state should subsidize a stadium at all and their bonding ceilings tend to be far lower than those of DFLers.

DFL Senate Leader Tom Bakk, of Cook, said the $775 million figure outlined by Dayton is a starting point. For Koch, it already sounds too rich.

That kind of opening divide tempers Dayton's optimism about passing a state borrowing bill in the session's first month.

"It probably won't be," he said.

'Reforming' government

Agreement on the size of government has proven elusive, but Dayton could find a lasting accord with Republicans on streamlining government -- even at the risk of dismaying some DFL stalwarts.

Republican lawmakers, who spent much time after the summer's government shutdown noodling reform ideas, say they welcome a change from the usual tax hikes-vs.-spending cuts fight.

That fight is "a distraction from the focus that we really need to have, which is to make sure the money we are spending is accomplishing things that we want done," said Assistant Senate Majority Leader David Hann, R-Eden Prairie.

Despite ideological clashes earlier this year that brought government to a standstill over the summer, Dayton said he is eager to work with Republicans on making government run better.

"If they have other ideas of their own, we will welcome those," Dayton said.

Acrid aftertaste remains

Dayton's bitterness over his brutal first legislative session has not completely evaporated.

He attributes last session's gridlock and the 21-day government shutdown that followed to "fiscal irresponsibility on the part of the Republicans."

Dayton said he learned in the 2011 session that for some Republicans, ideology "trumps any personal relationship, so I don't put as much stock in that effort as I did a year ago."

Even so, he said, there is room for cooperation.

"I'll get along with those who are going to prove themselves willing to get along with me," Dayton said, praising Koch, House Speaker Kurt Zellers, R-Maple Grove, and stadium experts Sen. Julie Rosen and Rep. Morrie Lanning.

For their part, Republicans say the state is seeing the consequences of that ideology -- a forecasted state surplus for the first time since 2007.

Koch said it time to let the past be past and quit the name calling.

Still calling to 'tax the rich'

While he will not push for higher taxes next year, the governor wants to make one thing clear: He still intends to "tax the rich."

Addressing a group of county officials earlier this week, Dayton said: "I don't believe that we will achieve real budget stability -- and certainly not budget sufficiency -- until we replace one-time gimmicks like school shifts and tobacco borrowing with a more progressive state income tax."

Last week's surplus projection may have made that task more difficult.

"It's hard but it's not impossible," said Ben Goldfarb, executive director of Wellstone Action, which trains and supports Democrats. Goldfarb said Dayton can and should, keep making the pro-tax argument as a "crystal clear statement of values."

It's an argument that has worked for Dayton before. After campaigning and winning on a platform that openly promoted higher taxes for the wealthy, Dayton continued to pitch his solution throughout a deficit year and the three-week summer shutdown. His poll numbers remained high.

Republicans remain staunchly opposed to higher taxes, saying it risks the state's fragile recovery and could chase away the very job creators the state needsto attract.

For now, Dayton said he is taking the issue to the people -- not their lawmakers.

"It's just the reality of the session," he said. "We will accomplish what we can. And then we will see what the people of Minnesota will decide."

He attributes last session's gridlock and the 21-day government shutdown that followed to "fiscal irresponsibility on the part of the Republicans."

That fiscal "irresponsibility" brought you the 800+ million surplus, Governor. Here's the deal though.... Dayton's "cutoff threshold" for what constitutes "rich" is married couples filing joint tax return earning $150K annually. Does that sound like rich to you? Sounds like two successful married upper-middle class individuals making around $75K each to me!

Jack wagons like Dayton and Obama see folks in this income bracket no differently than the 1%! Rich and successful middle class folk are one in the same in their minds. Minnesota Democrats' candidate of choice may very well consider their constituents among the "rich" that aren't paying their "fair share", right along with the 1 percenters! Obama is already on record as making this his platform issue for his reelection bid. The war on (and so called disappearance of) the middle class.

Who exactly is it that’s waging war on the middle class here??

TexasBlue wrote:

He attributes last session's gridlock and the 21-day government shutdown that followed to "fiscal irresponsibility on the part of the Republicans."

That fiscal "irresponsibility" brought you the 800+ million surplus, Governor. Here's the deal though.... Dayton's "cutoff threshold" for what constitutes "rich" is married couples filing joint tax return earning $150K annually. Does that sound like rich to you? Sounds like two successful married upper-middle class individuals making around $75K each to me!

Jack wagons like Dayton and Obama see folks in this income bracket no differently than the 1%! Rich and successful middle class folk are one in the same in their minds. Minnesota Democrats' candidate of choice may very well consider their constituents among the "rich" that aren't paying their "fair share", right along with the 1 percenters! Obama is already on record as making this his platform issue for his reelection bid. The war on (and so called disappearance of) the middle class.

Who exactly is it that’s waging war on the middle class here??

Sure it's the rich. Who do you think the rich are? Small business owners of actual businesses don't make that much. Doctors do, and so do lawyers, though, who can register themselves as personal corporations.

When you talk about stadiums and roads that need repaired and bridges and the republicans keep sending jobs overseas you need SOMETHING in your budget to cover it. This makes sense...especially at a time when the republicans are filibustering ANY help to states to keep up with their need to increase teachers, fire fighters and police.

Hoooray.....

Cookie Parker wrote:Sure it's the rich. Who do you think the rich are? Small business owners of actual businesses don't make that much. Doctors do, and so do lawyers, though, who can register themselves as personal corporations.

Pure unadulterated BS. My uncle is a "small business" owner (a farmer) and so is my father (big repair business). They make good money and my uncle rakes in the dough by using every deductible that's available to him. He also voted for Obama (he's a lifelong Dem) and now regrets it. My dad has to deal with city and state BS in his business (St. Paul suburb). That fact alone costs him a lot of money. My dad is considered wealthy by you leftists terms, yet he lives like he's not well off. Gee, I wonder why that is?

Cookie Parker wrote:When you talk about stadiums and roads that need repaired and bridges and the republicans keep sending jobs overseas you need SOMETHING in your budget to cover it. This makes sense...especially at a time when the republicans are filibustering ANY help to states to keep up with their need to increase teachers, fire fighters and police.

Hoooray.....

GOP sending jobs overseas? Bullshit on that. It's a bi-partisan thing that happened there and is not tied to any single party or person. You're going to have to do better than that.

Again, show us the filibusters like you stated in another thread.

I'm going to call you out on this one. With a surplus of almost 900 million and the left is still bitching about taxing the rich. Instead of talking about all the other BS, let's talk about this here... the subject of this thread.

Class fucking warfare. Plain and simple. I don't by into any of the spin anymore. It's gotten too silly.

Tex, go to the following link and cut and past the copy of "We Used To Make Things..." in this thread. It should prove highly relevant to this topic.

www.boortz.com/weblogs/nealz-nuze/2011/dec/08/we-used-to-make-things/

I'd do it but I can't from my phone.

We used to make things here in Wisconsin

Tim Nerenz, Ph.D
TimNerenz.com

We made machine tools in Milwaukee, cars in Kenosha and ships in Sheboygan. We mined iron in the north and lead in the south. We made cheese, we made brats, we made beer, and we even made napkins to clean up what we spilled. And we made money.

The original war on poverty was a private, mercenary affair. Men like Harnishfeger, Allis, Chalmers, Kohler, Kearney, Trecker, Modine, Case, Mead, Falk, Allen, Bradley, Cutler, Hammer, Bucyrus, Harley, Davidson, Pabst, and Miller lifted millions up from subsistence living to middle class comfort. They did it - not “Fighting Bob” La Follette or any of the politicians who came along later to take the credit and rake a piece of the action through the steepest progressive scheme in the nation.

Those old geezers with the beards cured poverty by putting people to work. Generations of Wisconsinites learned trades and mastered them in the factories, breweries, mills, foundries, and shipyards those capitalists built with their hands. Thousands of small businesses supplied these industrial giants, and tens of thousands of proprietors and professionals provided all of the services that all those other families needed to live well. The wealth got spread around plenty.

The profits generated by our great industrialists funded charities, the arts, education, libraries, museums, parks, and community development associations. Taxes on their profits, property, and payrolls built our schools, roads, bridges, and the safety net that Wisconsin’s progressives are still taking credit for, as if the money came from their council meetings. The offering plates in churches of every denomination were filled with money left over from company paychecks that were made possible because a few bold young men risked it all and got rich. Don’t thank God for them; thank them that you learned about God.

Their wealth pales in comparison to the wealth they created for millions and millions of other Wisconsin families. Those with an appreciation for the immeasurable contributions of Wisconsin’s industrial icons of 1910 will find the list of Wisconsin’s top ten employers of 2010 appalling: Walmart, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Milwaukee Public Schools, U.S. Postal Service, Wisconsin Department of Corrections, Menards, Marshfield Clinic, Aurora Health Care, City of Milwaukee, and Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs.

This is what a century of progressivism will get you. Wisconsin is the birthplace of the progressive movement, the home of the Socialist Party, the first state to allow public sector unions, the cradle of environmental activism, a liberal fortress walled off against common sense for decades. Their motto, Forward Wisconsin, should be changed to Downward Wisconsin if truth in advertising applies to slogans.

There is no shortage of activists, advocates, and agitators in this state. If government were the answer to our problems, we would have no problems. The very same people – or people just like them – who picketed, struck, sued, taxed, and regulated our great companies out of this state are now complaining about the unemployment and poverty that they have brought upon themselves. They got rid of those old rich white guys and replaced them with…nothing.

Wisconsin ranks 47th in the rate of new business formation. We are one of the worst states for native college graduate exodus; our brightest and most ambitious graduates leave to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Why shouldn’t they? Our tax rates are among the worst in the nation and our business climate, perpetually in the bottom of the rankings, has only recently moved up thanks to a Governor who now faces a recall for his trouble.

In 1970, the new environmental movement joined unions and socialists in a coordinated effort to demonize industry. When I was in college, the ranting against “polluting profiteers” was like white noise – always there. They won, and here is the price of their victory: in 1970, manufacturers paid 18.2% of Wisconsin’s property taxes – the major source of school funding - and in 2010 those who remained paid 3.7%.

So who is it that caused the funding crisis in our schools and the skyrocketing tax rates on our homes? It is the same ignoramuses who are sitting on bridges, pooping on things, and passing around recall petitions. The unemployed 26-year old in the hemp hat looking for sympathy might look instead for some inspiration from Jerome I. Case, who started his agricultural equipment business at the age of 21, miraculously without an iPhone 4s.

Mr. Case got rich by asking people what they want and making it for them. He did not get rich by telling people what he wanted and waiting for them to do something about it. If you want to declare war on your own poverty, memorize that.

In the last decade alone we have lost 150,000 manufacturing jobs in this state – over 25%. And it’s not just jobs that have been lost; the companies that provided them are gone. Those jobs are not coming back, no matter how long we extend unemployment benefits pretending they are. The 450,000 people who still work in manufacturing in Wisconsin are damn good it at, but we are now outnumbered by people who work for government. A significant number of the latter are tasked with taxing, regulating, and generally harassing the former. While it is true that many manufacturers chased low-wage opportunities on their own, many more were driven out of the state by the increasing cost of doing business here.

It is a myth that unions improve wages. If you consider only the 1,000 jobs in a closed shop, you might think an average union wage is, say, $30/hr. But if you add in the zero wages of the 10,000 jobs lost in companies chased out by union harassment, the average of all 11,000 union workers is reduced to $2.72/hr. Do you know the average wage of union iron miners in this state? Zero. And the left is fighting hard to keep it that way in Northern Wisconsin - looking out for the working man, they call it.

It is also a myth that free trade causes job losses. Over the past three years, U.S. manufacturers sold $70 billion more goods to our Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partners than we bought from them. Conversely, we suffered a $1.3 trillion trade deficit with countries where no FTA’s exist. I doubt that kids are going to learn that in our government-union monopoly schools – it doesn’t fit the narrative.

No one wants to see another person suffer in poverty, and liberty is the best economic policy there is. The great industrialists of Wisconsin took less than a generation to lift millions up to a life of dignity, pride, prosperity and good will. When enterprise was free and government was limited, we all prospered.

Those great men of industry were not anointed at birth to be rich; they rose from nothing to great wealth through their own hard work and the value they added to their employees and their customers through choice, competition, and voluntary exchange. That is the only sure path to real prosperity; the debt economy is a temporary illusion.

Look again at the list of our famous industrialists and the list of our current employers. Who would you wish your child or grandchild to grow up to be? Who do you think will do more good on this earth – Jerome I Case and his tractors, or the Coordinator of Supplier Diversity at Milwaukee Public Schools?

If you chose MPS, then apply now – that job is open, and it pays up to $72,000 plus benefits and early retirement. Go in peace and save the world. Me, I'm going with the tractor guy.

This is EXACTLY what is wrong in FAR too many of our states today.

The "progressive" lefist agenda is directly responsible for the flight of industry from our shores, leaving Americans the poorer for it and substituting individual production with collective dependency.

It should be a criminal offense to be a leftist.