Election

One thing voters should be trying to fix in the upcoming election is our do-nothing Congress and State Legislature.

Congress just adjourned. In case you didn’t notice, it was because you weren’t supposed to. They met at midnight and passed emergency funding until next March and did it on a Friday because that day gets the least publicity. It was the earliest adjournment since 1960 and allowed everyone to go raise money for attack ads.

The first Congress labeled as a do-nothing congress passed 900 bills. This one had passed 173 as of last week. They can’t pass funding bills because of legislators who have signed Grover Norquist’s “no new taxes” pledge. This renders government ineffective because the two parties can’t agree on reform and without reform we are stuck with an increasingly outdated taxation scheme.

At the statehouse level, government funding has also been held hostage. Julianne Ortman wrote a bill proposing a Minnesota tax on Internet sales. It is a pretty good idea, because Minnesota companies have to compete with the Amazons of the world. Julianne had to vote against her own bill though, because it is a new tax.

I am hoping people on both sides of the aisle have noticed this and want it to change.

Ortman’s district is supposedly “utterly safe.” Her opponent this year used to be a Republican and is a deficit hawk. He is not a lawyer, but there are already way too many lawyers in the state house.

He has been a mayor and has advanced degrees in technology and years of experience as an engineer and has written wonderful columns explaining government finance and operation for this paper. He cares about education. He can handle the job and won’t be hamstrung by that infernal pledge.

Please vote for Jim Weygand.

Doug Schanzenbach

Chaska