Bulletin letter to the editor: GOP betrayed base with deal

Talk about it

GOP betrayed base with deal

I am writing to criticize Republicans who signed off on the recent deal to end Minnesota’s government shutdown, an agreement that must be viewed as a complete capitulation by Republicans.

The deal did avoid raising taxes (which Gov. Mark Dayton wanted), while reportedly achieving some important cost-saving restructuring of state agencies and saving significant money.

While it is true that taxes were not raised, $1.4 billion in new revenues were raised (by shifting money from education and by bonding against future tobacco funds). When counting the $1.4 billion in new spending against the savings achieved in the deal, the shutdown did very little in saving taxpayers’ money.

In fact, the $700,000 shift from education is on top of earlier shifts, all of which will have to be paid eventually (along with the interest schools have to pay to borrow the money now), which adds to the ongoing deficit.

For the little gain they achieved on the budget side of the ledger, Republicans totally betrayed their conservative supporters by dropping several important pieces of legislation. For instance, the voter ID bill that would have required all voters show a legitimate photo ID to vote. When people illegally vote, it has the effect of disenfranchising the votes of legal citizens. Yet this important reform was scrapped by Republicans.

Also scrapped were several important pro-life measures including a ban on abortion after the baby can feel pain, a ban on taxpayer funding of abortion, a ban on stem-cell research and human cloning, as well as state funding of the same.

I am disappointed that Republicans achieved their minimal budgetary gains at the expense of the continued slaughter of innocent unborn babies. I call for new legislative Republican leadership in response to this fiasco.

Steve Lagoon

Cottage Grove

Tags: updates, opinion, letters