My Point of View by John Forman

 

Democrats seem to have a goal of being No. 1. The problem is their goal is to be No. 1 in taxation in all tax categories. A recent article points out the lower gas tax rate in Minnesota compared to neighboring states and tries to tie road condition to only gas taxes. The problem is gas taxes are not the only taxes that were suppose to go to road building and repairs in Minnesota.

The governor originally tried to steal all the sales taxes that were dedicated to road work and shift them all to the general fund. He then wanted to replace the funds with his new 20-cent gas tax. The additional $240 that this new tax would add may not seem like much for a school superintendent, but for a person making $15 an hour before taxes, it adds another two or three days of working to paying their annual taxes. It hits lower income people harder and is a regressive tax.

Now lets look at those states listed with lower gas taxes than Minnesota and compare overall state tax paid on national ranking.

• Minnesota ranks fourth  in the nation with average of 11.9% of income.

• Wisconsin ranks seventh  in the nation with average of 11.6% of income.

• Iowa ranks 26th in the nation with average of 10.4% of income.

• North Dakota Ranks 37th  in the nation with average of  9.8% of income.

• South Dakota Ranks 45th  in the nation with average of  9.2% of income.

Only a Democrat would call a person who wants to push a regressive tax onto already overtaxes citizens a statesman. I call the Republican Legislatures that held the line the real statesmen.

Do we need more money for roads and bridges? Of course we do, but can we not squeeze some money out of other inflated budgets. Do we need to be higher than number four in the nation for state tax burden?

There has been a lot of talk about immigration and what happens to the people who have crossed illegally into the United states. We see pictures of tent cities and warehouse-style housing and wonder about living conditions. We need to put some perspective onto this problem. Lately, the number of immigrants crossing into the United states has reached well over 100,000 per month, but let’s just use the 100,000 number, that is over five times the population of Albert Lea. Can you imagine building housing for a city five times the population of our city in a month? How about every month for a year? Are you starting to see what kind of a problem that is for the government? When does this problem become an emergency? When do the Democrats in Congress recognize that unlimited immigration not only hurts the United States but also the overcrowded undocumented immigrants on the border? These people have become political fodder for Democrats who want to show them suffering, so they can blame the Trump administration for their situation instead of taking on the responsibility to fix the broken immigration laws that have helped create the problem.

John Forman is a member of the Freeborn County Republican Party.