It's The Basics, Stupid

That's Katherine Kersten's advice to candidates this year. It's sound advice, something that I've come to expect from her. Here's one of Ms. Kersten's observations:
Two familiar issues topped the list of concerns: education at 22 percent and taxes at 15 percent. What gives? Some say taxes are a dead issue. After all, a recent report found that Minnesota has dropped out of the top 10 most highly taxed states. And education? Our kids' ACT scores are among the nation's highest. So why do more than one in five of us think education is a problem?
It's pretty easy to understand that people are far more worried about the actual, and therefore more personal, issues than theoretical possibilities like global warming.
Taxes first. Might the issue poll so high because Minnesotans believe we turn over too little of our paychecks to the state? The Gang of 200, wealthy folks who recently signed a full-page ad in the Star Tribune under the auspices of the Growth & Justice think tank, say they want to pay more. They want many of the rest of us to pay more, too, including some families earning as little as $45,000 a year.

But I'll bet my last nickel that most Minnesotans think our tax burden is still too high. I hear people saying that they pay a lot and don't see where all the money goes. Perhaps Minnesotans learned a lesson about government spending in 2003, when Gov. Tim Pawlenty closed a $4.5 billion budget deficit without raising taxes. He set priorities, reallocated funds and made targeted cuts.

Life as we know it goes on.
This should be the scariest thing on the Democratic horizon. If I were in their shoes, I'd be very worried. If people figure it out that they can keep more of their money and life will still be good, Democrats will be left without an issue to run on.


Posted Friday, July 21, 2006 2:37 PM

June 2006 Posts

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