Taking Issue With A Comment Poster On Minnesota’s Dedicated Funding

There’s a matter that’s been gnawing at me now for a few months and it’s time to respond.   Especially since this political season is starting to heat up.   The matter is local here in Minnesota, so my post today may not be of interest to everyone.   Still, it’s about voting your feelings and not being strong-armed by peer pressure into doing what “they think is right.”

Back in March I posted a blog entitled “Why Dedicated Funding Likely Won’t Get My Vote.”   In Minnesota this fall we will have the opportunity to modify our state constitution with a ballot measure that reads:

“Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to dedicate funding to protect our drinking water sources; to protect, enhance, and restore our wetlands, prairies, forests, and fish, game, and wildlife habitat; to preserve our arts and cultural heritage; to support our parks and trails; and to protect, enhance, and restore our lakes, rivers, steams, and groundwater by increasing the sales and use tax rate beginning July 1, 2009, by three-eighths of one percent on taxable sales until the year 2034?”

Sounds like a great opportunity and constitutional proposal, correct?   Well, maybe for some…but certainly not for me.   This November I have decided I AM VOTING NO on the Amendment.   That’s right, I’m likely breaking with many of my sportsmen brethren and opting for NO NEW TAXES.   I am adamant that I do not want to be forced into spending my hard-earned money on taxes structured in the manner as this one.   It has a long history.   The people pushing it are invested in it with way too much emotion.   And long ago I recognized that making decisions largely on pure emotion has a way of clouding a person’s otherwise good judgment (or common sense).

In my last post on this topic I was taken to task by someone who left a comment.   John, responded to my post in this way:

“…I’m glad you have your principles. I hope they serve you well when you try to explain to your children and grandchildren why you were willing to let the last real chance for improving MN’s outdoors go down the tubes because you insisted on ‘standing on your principles.’

And where have those principles gotten you to date? Funding for the outdoors is at its lowest point in 30 years. More than 40% of the state’s waters that have been tested so far are impaired under EPA standards (hardly a high bar to aim for). Duck populations are in decline everywhere. We continue to lose wetland acreage every year. And the list goes on.”

Wow.   No emotions going on here now…is there.   Thanks for single-handedly putting all the blame for what has gone wrong in Minnesota’s natural world squarely on me.   It was so insightful of the reader to take me to task for all the environmental woes Minnesota is now facing.   Maybe rather than voting NO on the November ballot, I simply won’t vote at all on the Amendment. [which, of course, gets counted as a NO vote anyway]

“I wasn’t a huge fan of including arts in the d.f. [Dedicated Funding] proposal either. But you know what? It’s simply not true that the addition or arts was driven by a bunch of Cities elitists and their DFL friends. The arts greatly benefit outstate MN as well, bringing in tourism dollars and helping to maintain the cultural vitality of small towns. To argue otherwise is, in fact, a snub to those who work hard to make their towns vital and interesting places to live, and a case of reverse snobbism. Most outdoors folks only pass through those places during the hunting and/or fishing seasons and don’t notice how important those activities are to the people who live there — which says a lot about how little they think of the people who have to spend the other 6 months out of the year in those towns.”

Gimme a break.   I live in a rural area but my closest “hometown” consists of about 250 people.   It’s about as small town as you can get.   That proposed arts tax money won’t do didly to my local community no matter how you want to spin it.   Quit trying to make a case for the constitutional measure here in Minnesota because of the arts element.   I go to the Guthrie Theater, I go to my local community performances and I support those establishments through buying tickets.   I shouldn’t have to provide them with mandated monies through my sales taxes.

You know what, if this measure succeeds it will be because of the arts community and not the rank and file sporting community that has more sense.   Look at the list of coalition members who support this Amendment.   I suspect the arts community is salivating over the prospects of this measure passing thanks in large part to the measure being passed off as the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.

“As for getting d.f. out of existing taxes rather than new taxes, you clearly haven’t been paying attention: that’s precisely why the whole notion of d.f. came up in the first place. When faced with the competing demands of health care, education, transportation, etc., etc., the environment always comes up short on the list — always. And that is not going to change, at least not in our lifetimes. And you can be sure that no politician, DFL or Republican, will be willing to bring the issue of d.f. up again. This is it: it took us 10 years to get here, and we’re not going to get the chance again.”

This statement sounds to me like someone who was invested so deeply in the decade-long tax concept that they are still willing to see it pass now no matter what shape or form.   I supported dedicated funding when it contained NO ARTS and came from THE EXISTING sales tax structure.   Those proposals lost traction from the D.F. concept several years ago because of the need to satisfy diverse political interests.   That’s when the concept lost my support, as well.

“I urge you to think about the above and reconsider your position when you cast your ballot this fall. But if you still decide to vote no, just be sure you’ve thought through your answer to your grandchild who, someday in the future, asks why he or she can’t go swimming in the lake. Do you really want the answer to be: “Because grandpa has his principles”?”

I hope the voters in Minnesota this fall send a resounding message shooting down this proposed Amendment.   As the days grow closer I feel that much stronger about my decision as a sportsman to see this measure fail.   I don’t need this emotional bull-crap that is spewed forth mostly from a handful of guys at the top embracing this constitutional question as if it is the long, lost answer to Minnesota’s resource problems.

I’ve followed the evolution of this constitutional amendment long enough to know that in the present form it has more liabilities than it has assets.   I hate taxes…particularly when they are new taxes.   Enough is enough, no matter how you might want to sell it to me.

Over the past months I’ve witnessed how folks who express a similar feeling to me on this topic get trashed and belittled for not sharing the same opinion as you.   Like me, they get accused of turning their backs on the precious outdoors that they love through some emotion-filled tirade.   Well frankly, I find such tactics rather despicable and unnecessary.   If the ballot measure can’t pass on its own merit don’t regress into what I call “below the belt” comments calling one’s own principles into question.

I financially support the Minnesota outdoors voluntarily in many, many ways.   I have control over where my money goes by choosing which groups I belong to and to whom I make contributions.   This year, as we are all tightening our belts just a bit more, it’s not the proper time to be asking for MORE TAXES.   It’s also not proper to be using negative emotion as your main tactic to combat those of us you see as Amendment dissenters.

2008 Jim Braaten. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction without Prior Permission.