On Nov. 4 we are being asked to vote on a constitutional amendment, which if it wins will increase the state’s sales tax rate by three/eighths of 1 percent. In the next 25 years this will amount to $11 billion and be supposedly dedicated to arts and entertainment and enhancing outdoor recreation. Please go to nosalestaxincrease.org and see firsthand an example of how “arts” spends their (your) money. You will see a picture of sculpture (sizable), aptly referred to as “The Big Poo” placed in Franconia Sculpture Park, which was made possible with a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature and a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts in the total amount of $53,000. If you don’t have the Internet, simply picture a 10-15-foot-high dinosaur dropping and you will have an accurate picture of what some people of the “arts” perceive as “art”! Would you autograph such as a “tax donor”?

Ask yourself why our elected legislators who are supposed to make these decisions did not make a decision. We should vote it down and give them the opportunity to do what they were elected to do. The proposal, if passed, will remain in effect until 2034. Do we really, in these uncertain times, wish to obligate ourselves to an additional $11 billion tax burden over the next 25 years? And have no voice in how many dollars and where these dollars are spent? On Nov. 4 join me in voting “no” to this proposed constitutional amendment.

Remember, we were promised that the lottery money would solve our environmental problems, too, and now we have another pork barrel promise!

Stanley L. Jensen

Albert Lea