MN Rep Still Wants More Taxes

*UPDATED* I recently signed the Tax Cut Petition, www.TaxCutPetition.com, calling upon my elected officials to implement a Minnesota taxpayer's bill of rights.  I received a reponse from my MN State Representative Carlos Mariani Rosa of Saint Paul district 65B. Here is that email.

Wil:

Thank you for your email.  I appreciate your views and the opportunity to respond to them. 

As you know, Minnesota is facing the largest deficit in the history of the state: $6.4 billion over the next two years.  Unlike the federal government, we are required by our constitution to have a balanced budget.  This means we have some tough choices to make. 

No one is denying that the state provides valuable services to the people of Minnesota: even the Governor's plan pays for essential services like schools, roads, public safety, and health care. The difference between Governor Pawlenty's "No New Taxes" approach and the approach of the Minnesota House is that Governor Pawlenty's plan involves charging $1 billion to the "state credit card" and forcing cities and counties to raise their local property taxes by $600 million (by his own department's estimates).  I believe that it is irresponsible to pass the buck of paying for things we use today (police, teachers, road workers, judges, etc) onto future generations, or to force local property owners to foot the bill and then claim that he did not raise taxes. 

I believe that we as a state need to be open and honest about how we tax our citizens, and need to make taxes fair and progressive so that people are supporting their government based on their ability to pay.  While I agree that in these tough economic times, we need to be strategic in cutting costs where we can responsibly, the bottom line is that a strong, productive, and safe community cannot exist without essential services that benefit the public, both now and in the future.  I believe that we should be transparent and honest, and make sure that tax burdens do not unduly fall on the backs of those who are less-prepared to pay. 

I appreciate your email and your concerns.  I appreciate this dialogue and hope that you continue to contact me with issues that are important to you.  We might not always agree, but I take my responsibility as a state legislator seriously, and appreciate the chance to discuss these important matters openly and honestly.

Sincerely,

Carlos Mariani Rosa
MN State Representative

It seems that they know we exist and they just don't care.

I could not let the lies and misinformation in this email go unanswered. So I responded with the following.

How about cutting non-essential services ie. cash for illegal aliens via various welfare programs and Government paid health care.  Eliminate city aid for the large cites in the Twin City metro area. They should have enough of their own tax base.  Fire Government employees, there is no reason the State of MN should be the states largest employer.  You people have had surpluses in years past and yet proposed tax increases, now we have a short fall due to over spending and yet again you want to raise taxes.  The answer is not taxing us into our graves. Maybe you never learned that taking money out of the economy to fund a bloated Government actually slows economic growth.

You state "I believe that we as a state need to be open and honest about how we tax our citizens" this would be a novel concept. I've never heard an honest word about the State economy and taxes from you or your side.  Tax and spend is wrong.  You can not tax us out of a recession and you can not spend enough Government money to get us out of a recession.  You absolutely have to let the money stay in the hands of the productive people, those of us that work and/or own/operate small businesses.  You've spent more a than enough of our money already.  How many more businesses are you planning to tax out of this State? Each and every tax increase costs us employers and jobs.

You state you want "to make taxes fair and progressive".  They can not be both.  Either taxes are fair and everyone is taxed evenly or they are "progressive" which is just a fancy way of saying punishing those that create wealth, jobs and fuel the economy.  I'll take fair taxation and let everyone be taxed evenly such as a flat tax would do.   You want people to pay taxes "based on their ability to pay". This is insane. I don't pay for my groceries based on my ability to pay. Your twisted idea would have me paying $20 for a loaf of bread while giving others the bread for free along with $5 cash to boot.  This is a wrong headed plan.  Cut spending and cut taxes. It's our money.

Almost half of the States budget goes to schools. The main problem I have there is they never have enough even though they are experiencing declining enrollment.  It's time to get a grip on wasteful spending in the schools.  I certainly remember suffering with dead weight teachers whose only goal was to stay employed long enough to retire.  Well it's time to fire them.

I take my role as a "tax slave" to the State quite seriously also. I'm done being overtaxed. We showed up en-mass to tell you to cut taxes and cut spending. You laughed in our faces with the tax and spend bills you presented to our Governor.  You insult those of us that are over taxed by claiming we do not pay our fair share.  You go out of your way to harm small businesses with punitive taxation.  I've worked for small businesses for the past 15 years and I grew up in a small family business. I've been your target of insults and higher taxes most of my life.

I also take my role as a voter seriously. You've never received my vote in the past and your never getting my vote.  Remember my name, it may oppose you on the ballot someday!


Wil Genovese

One man with courage makes a majority.
-Andrew Jackson

A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.

Wow, the lies continue.  Rep Carlos Mariani responded to my email again.  I think this is the most work I've ever gotten out of any elected official.  However he suffers under some grand illusions that Conservatives are the one creating higher taxes on those that produce. There's too much of something in his kool-aid. So here is his response (with my annotations).

Will

Some quick responses to some of your points:

Undocumented immigrants - Lets be clear they are ILLEGAL ALIENS and with fake documents they do receive lots of tax payer money. Plus they are afforded free  healthcare at my expense while I have none. - are barred from most "welfare" programs - so, no savings there

Large cities have large costs and yet we in fact have cut LGA to them quite a bit over the last few years - which means property taxes are rising to cover police and fire. (But not enough has been cut and if we hold the elected City Councils to  task they won't raise taxes either and cut non-essential spending. Also, the cities only claim they  are going to cut services like police and fire to scare everyone into voting for more taxes. IT'S CALLED EXTORTION!)

When we had surpluses we sent rebate checks and we also cut taxes (1999, 2001) - Yes, I reemember the 'Jessie Checks'. He was as much as a waste as those checks were. Instead we should have spent the money on highways and bridges since it's obvious we needed to do that. However, we had surpluses under Gov Pawlenty the last budget cycle and you managed to waste it all while calling for a tax increase!

We have a deficit due to a recession which was brought on by the greed of wealthy financiers. - No we have a recession due to free market manipulation by the Federal Government, but maybe you don't realize that Democrats rewrote the lending rules to allow people that could not afford a home to get one anyways and promised the Federal Goverment would bail them out.

Keynesian economic theory - IS WRONG - actually argues that under certain conditions and times government more spending is a wise thing to do to stimulate the economy (i.e. Great Depression government programs) - of which their success is a myth propogated by Socialists like yourself.

As to my honesty - let's at least agree to do this: you don't question my integrity and I won't question yours. When you quit spreading misinformation I'll quit questioning your integrity.

By the way, plenty of small businesses are quite dependent on government spending to make their entrerprises work, just ask any small town vendor what it means to close a local college (made possible by taxes) or nursing home (made possible by taxes) or K12 school (also made possible by taxes). So I don't agree that there is no financial relationship between taxes, services and the private sector. - And before these Government institutions small businesses didn't exist?  These places have been forced into the market place and have caused more problems than they solve.

As to the schools observation - your point has some merit. I believe we can find ways to deliver K12 instruction more efficiently as enrollment drops across the state and I am committed to finding ways to do that. - Except your continuing to increase the K-12 budgets, score 1 for me!

Finally, I'm sorry you feel like a slave in our democracy. If taxes are unfair, we should strive to make them more fair. After all, we need to pay for important services like schools, safety, hospitals. - (No, schools and hospitols are private sector responsiblities that have been or are being co-opted by an ever expanding 'Big Brother' Government.) There will be taxes to do that, the questions are: what kind of taxes, who pays and how much. Small businesses should be encouraged and not discouraged by our tax system. Unfortunately, many years of so-called conservative rule has brought us a tax system that favors larger entities and hurts smaller operations. - Your right about "so-called Conservatives" because the GOP has been co-opted by Moderates (aka Liberals) for about the last 10 years. So it really has been Liberal policies that has caused all these problems and higher taxes on the productive people and small businesses. Score 2 for me!

For the record, I believe those blessed with more should carry the bigger responsiblity to support their society. - For the record that is called SOCIALISM! Score 3 for me - Game Set Match!

Appreciate the opportunity to respond,

Rep Carlos Mariani
District 65 B

This is getting to be fun ;-)

If I get a reponse I'll add that to this post at that time.