In a message dated 11/10/2002 3:11:01 PM Eastern Standard Time, Jim Mork writes:
>
> And I reject the idea it is a function of
> one-party government. To offer that as a remedy
> implies the OTHER party will use the same laws
> better. That's a religious faith because there
> is no sign of that ever happening.
>
Jim. I'm beginning to think you wouldn't recognize
a real live Republican if one hit you in the face.
Your perception of my party is so warped by your
preconceptions of what Republicans are that reality
can't break through all the false impressions you've
built up from listening to the garbage dished out
by the DFL and their friends in the local media.
Unfortunately, you're expressing a point of
view that is held by several thousand of your fellow
Minneapolis residents, who firmly believe we're all
about throwing Grandma out in the snowdrifts with
the poor folks, without so much as a can opener for
their dog food. And as long as you continue to think
like that without actually talking to us, nothing
is ever going to change in this city.
> Perhaps a new
> party, founded just for that purpose, might
> change it, but trying to say changing from DFL to
> Republican will insure greater neighborhood
> control seems preposterous to me.
>
Because it's too hard to admit that you might
could possibly be wrong in your assumptions about
a political party you obviously don't know anything
about at the local or state level.
> What would
> get greater control would be business, and that
> would then mean higher residential taxes.
>
You seem to think "business" is some monolithic
collection of Andrew Carnegie and JOhn Rockefeller
types, meeting secretly in their bunker beneath the
IDS Tower to figure out how best to screw the hapless
taxpayers of Minneapolis out of their last few pennies.
There are big corporations and little ones, to say
nothing of sole proprietors, partnerships, co-ops, etc.
I think it should be obvious to anyone who reads this
list that the interests of all these businesses cannot
possibly coincide all the time everywhere in the city.
Even if your sole source of information was this
list, you would be aware that it is not the small
businessmen and women of Minneapolis who have been
getting handouts from the DFL. Obviously, big
businesses will not be supporting the Republican or
Green parties, and this has in fact not been the case.
The best friends of the Green party and Republicans in
this city have been the small businessmen and landlords,
who have everything to gain from a change in regime.
As for your assertion that Republicans favor higher
residential property taxes, this makes sense only if you
accept as a given that if commercial property taxes come
down then residential rates have to go up. This isn't even
true in SimCity, much less real life. In point of fact,
since rental properties are considered commerical under the
sick & twisted property tax system in effect here, any time
that commerical property taces are lowered, the tax on rental
properties drops as well. So you actually get a twofer: small
businesses benefit from a lowered tax rate and renters also
have to pay less.
One of the things we do seem to agree on is that the
sales tax is an unfair and regressive tax. I would rather see
the sales tax abolished, and replaced by a slight increase in
the income tax - which the counties and cities of the first
class could impose a surcharge on to replace the local government
aids dispensed from the state. This would encourage cities to stop
developing commercial properites and start developing people if
they wanted to increase their tax base.
Kevin Trainor
East Phillips
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