Minnesota drops to 16th in nation in tax burden!!!...

Besides poking holes in the arguments made by Sue Jeffers, who pretty much accuses the Pawlenty administration of spending like drunken sailors, this sounds like good news in its own right--

Minnesota has tumbled to 16th place among the states in total state and local taxes as a portion of income, its lowest ranking since at least 1958, according to a preliminary summary of the latest U.S. Census data released by the Minnesota Taxpayers Association.

Minnesota for three decades has almost always been in the top 10 in most bottom-line measures of tax burden. The drop from eighth place in 2000 to 16th in 2004 is bound to make waves in a crucial election year.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the leader of a conservative interest group hailed the new ranking as a major achievement by a fiscally conservative Republican administration.

[SNIP]...And....

"This is just great news, a very big deal," said David Strom, president of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota, an aggressive anti-tax advocacy group that got Pawlenty to sign a no-tax-increase pledge when he ran in 2002. The League has no connection to the Taxpayers Association, a nonpartisan research organization founded in 1926. (hey STRIB--what the hell does that line have to do with the price of tea in China--or this story, for that matter??--ed)

"When we Republicans took control of the House in 1998, Speaker Steve Sviggum and I used as a benchmark goal getting out of the top 10," Pawlenty said. "These numbers bounce around every year but this is great progress and it sends a good signal to those who might want to invest in our state."

Okay!! So Minnesotans get to keep more of a percentage of their hard earned money than any year in the last 50 years!!! Throw a party, right?

Not if you're a moonbat:

...Leaders of liberal interest groups say the tax decline already has been accompanied by shabbier public services, more economic inequality and lower rankings on some key quality-of-life indicators.[SNIP]

But others say the state has paid an unacceptable price for sharply cutting income taxes in 1999 and 2000 and then using mostly budget cuts to balance billions of dollars in revenue shortages during the last five years.

"We're gone too far in the other direction," said Nan Madden, director of the Minnesota Budget Project, a branch of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, a liberal group that advocates more spending on social programs. "We have too many kids and working people without health insurance, too many who can't afford the education and training it takes to get a better job, and big problems with transportation."

Another byproduct of the lower tax burden is a less fair tax system, said Wayne Cox, executive director of Minnesota Citizens for Tax Justice, a group funded by labor unions.

"The top 1 percent received more dollars of income tax cuts than the 60 percent who have middle and low incomes," Cox said.

No friggen duuuuhhhh, Cox!!! Could it be because the top one percent pays more dollars??? The top 1 percent of wage earners pays 34.27% of the total tax burden, you dolt!

Yep... Minnesotans keeping a greater percentage of what they earn is actually bad news to the crowd who thinks that every penny you make is their penny, and that Minnesotans should feel ashamed for not being in the top five.

Shame on those folks unwilling to pay more for a "better" Minnesota!

There. Now I feel better. NOT.



(Filed under overtaxed, limousine liberals, pass the pork)