The state should only be grabbing the money they need to run state-wide enterprises.
That's a valid position to take. Minneapolis would be a whole lot wealthier
if the state took only the money they needed to run state-wide enterprises.
But it's not what the state does now. The state is taking more from Minneapolis than it gives back, is spending some of on state-wide enterprises,
and is giving some of the rest to other localities in the state through programs like LGA.
Let's for the moment pretend the state takes only what it needs to run state-wide enterprises. They would then take a lot less from Minneapolis, leaving a lot more to spend locally. That would be great for Minneapolis.
The downside is townships and counties all over Minnesota, and the poorer cities up north and out west would get less to nothing from the state. LGA was invented to share the wealth of some regions across the entire state to the benefit of the state as a whole. One can legitimately be against such an idea, and you seem to be. Just be aware of why LGA was createed and the huge amount of help it gives to hundreds of small communities across the state.
When they distribute the money all over God's creation (and they do enough of that even excluding LGA), then it is much harder to track where the money is actually being spent.
True enough. It's much harder to hold people accountable when the money passes through so many hands and bureaucratic offices. It's definitely a down-side to LGA, though just how much is debatable and whether that cost is worth the benefits is also debatable.
If Mpls wants to spend money on its programs, they should tax its own citizens. When I pay tax for the Library Board, I expect the money to be spent on Mpls libraries, and similarly when I pay tax to the state.
Wouldn't that be great? Again, Minneapolis would come out way ahead. But the state, in addition to taking more money from Minneapolis than it needs to run state-wide enterprises, also forbids Minneapolis from using equitable, fair taxes to run its programs. Minneapolis is lucky to have exceptions to have a couple of specific sales taxes. Only Minneapolis, Duluth and maybe a couple other cities have this exception to state law that otherwise forbids any local sales taxes. Only the state gets that privilege. The state likewise forbids any city, without exception, from using income taxes.
Yet sales taxes are among the fairest taxes available. One only pays in proportion to what one spends, and one typically spends in good correlation to what they can afford. Sales taxes are also pretty much voluntary taxes, unless they are on food and shelter, which they are not in this state. Further, if one does not like the tax rate in Minneapolis, one can go to another city.
Income taxes are relatively fair, too. One pays taxes relative to how much one makes, which is a good measure of how much tax one can afford to pay.
But cities and counties in Minnesota cannot use sales or income taxes. They can only levy property taxes, one of the least fair taxes.
I have neighbors who have lived in their homes for 40, 50 years and more. Back when they bought their homes, they were working full-time, and their homes cost $5,000 to $20,000 to buy. Now they are retired, and their homes are "WORTH" $250,000 for property tax purposes. They are stuck paying high property taxes with reduced income. These people have not realized any financial gain, yet are being taxed out of their homes. I recall back in the 1980s there were a number of people in the Lake of the Isles neighborhoods who literally had to sell their homes because they could not afford the taxes.
What the Pawlenty camp has done to the libraries, the city and more, is steal tax revenue. We pay that revenue in the form of income tax, sales tax and more, but instead of distributing it back to the cities who pay it, in a somewhat more equitable arrangement state-wide, Pawlenty and company have used it to fix THEIR problems in the state level budget. Remember that Pawlenty was House Majority leader for the past decade. What did he do about the state's financial situation during that time? He made it worse.
Why should they distribute the money back equitably? It makes a lot more sense for it to stay here in the first place if that's what it's for.
What kind of argument is that? If you believe it makes more sense for the money to stay here in the first place, great! I might even support that idea. But how does that excuse the current practice?
But collecting all the money in one pot and then sending it back again turns the cash into free money for the city. I don't want that dirty money, and I hope the other municipalities won't get any either.
I am in favor of accountability. The fact is, however, there are a thousand or more municipalities out there getting "dirty" money. This isn't hyperbole.
I sure hope Pawlenty [is?] trying to solve the state's problems with his budget, and not other jurisdictions. HE was elected to run the state.
He's paying off his friends and supporters. Eliminate LGA completely, and stop taking tax revenue from Minneapolis to pay for other localities share of state-wide enterprise tax revenue, and Minneapolis would be just fine. But that would gore the oxen of all those neocons who support Pawlenty, so that'll never happen.
Then just to rub salt into the wounds, the state won't let local taxing entites use broad, fair taxes like income or sales taxes. The only tax they can use is the often unfair and regressive property tax.
This is fine with me. But of course you only put this at the end as a club to enhance your argument.
So you read minds now, do you? You claim to know my internal reasoning for the order in which I chose to write my paragraphs.
Do you really want more income taxes and sales taxes in Mpls, or are you really only interested in free state money.
Absolutely. I would far prefer lower property taxes and higher sales and income taxes in Minneapolis. I've been saying that for years. Only you imagine that state money was "free."
And why does Mpls need all this extra tax money when other jurisdictions seem to do fine with just property taxes? Sure, we have more poverty and have some centralized assets that suburbanites use, but we also have a much larger business base on which to levy tax. I think we spend more mainly because we are more dependent on the nanny state, not that we need to spend more than others.
Such hubris. Minneapolis has a far, far larger share of a variety of social costs such as immigrants, povery and so forth. It's part of the nature of being a central, older, urban area. Yeah, we have some "centralized assets that suburbanites use" -- hahah. The number of suburbanites using our city parks, for example, roughly outnumber the city users by about 3 to 1. They don't pay a cent on their property taxes to pay for our parks, though.
Those poor suburbs with so little taxable property -- like Edina with Southdale and Bloomington with the Mall of America.
Let's also ignore the fact that fringe suburbs are under pressure to constantly grow their populations and commercial properties to pay for what they are already spending. And ignore that the Metropolitan Council, funded by Minneapolis and St. Paul is building sewers for those suburbs. And ignore the state and counties, funded in part by Minneapolis (refer to the net outflow of tax revenue from Minneapolis above) have been building roads for them. Maple Grove was just a few dozen houses clustered around Eagle Lake, Fish Lake and Weaver Lake but had big plans to grow. So MnDot dropped not one, not two, but three freeway interchanges into the city for their convenience, each of which cost well over $10 million a pop. Did Maple Grove residents pay for all or most of the cost? Or even 1% of the cost? Not on you life.
"Other jurisdictions do fine fine with just property taxes?" Don't make me laugh.
You think we depend on the nanny state. I think you're woefully uninformed. Fortunately, we have some good libraries where you can go to learn more, although you'll have to carefully schedule your time due to shortened hours of operation.
It's about time that we decide how much we want to spend and tax ourselves that amount. Nice job, Pawlenty!
Mark Anderson Bancroft
That's really a jaw-dropper -- complimenting Pawlenty on something he is not doing in the least. I'd be all in favor of Minneapolis deciding how much to tax ourselves and how much to spend. But Pawlenty and his cohorts in the legislature have taken as much of the authority to decide anything as they can away from Minneapolis.
Have Minneapolis, the park board, the libary system and the schools room to improve? Do they need better accountability? You bet. I've been a big critic of all four entities. Are they demonstrably worse than the state government itself or other suburban cities at that kind of fiscal responsibility? No.
Not for one minute does room for improvement in Minneapolis government give the state the moral, ethical or political right to limit our ability to solve our problems, or to screw Minneapolis. It's short-sighted and ignorant at best. Ruin the city and it will make Minnesota a poorer place for it. I don't want Minneapolis to become Gary, Indiana from 1975. Do you?
Chris Johnson Fulton
TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.)
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