Is Tim Mahoney a Poster Child for Cluelessness?

My representative, Steve Gottwalt, sent this gem along...

from Rep. Tim Mahoney (DFL- St. Paul) . . .

“Taxes are just a cost of doing business,” Mahoney said. “If you’re going to be ill, you’d rather be ill in Minnesota. We have a more high-service government than in Texas.”

Mr Gottwalt added (emphases mine),

"Mahoney and the DFL like high taxes -- they firmly believe higher levels of government spending result in a higher standard of living. He obviously has not checked the examples around the country. Take Maine and New Hampshire, for instance. One has reduced government; the other has grown it. Guess which one is doing better economically? We need lawmakers willing to embrace the reality that state government is living beyond its means, making promises it cannot keep with money it does not have -- and that does not lead to a better Minnesota. We need lawmakers with the wisdom and foresight to focus on sustainable outcomes, not just more spending. Minnesota's business and regulatory climate places it near dead
last in the nation. That's costing Minnesota jobs, prosperity and revenues.

In light of Illinois' democrat-controlled legislature's near unconscionable decision to raise taxes by 66 percent in a futile attempt to solve its budget woes, it should be quite apparent that the last thing one should do when one finds oneself in a hole is to keep on digging. After all, when the golden-egg laying producers vote with their feet as a reaction to these tax hikes, who will be left to foot the bill? Yet, in an exercise in magical thinking of epic proportions, Illinois democrat governor Pat Quinn praised the 'courageous' decision to raise taxes:

Patrick J. Quinn, the governor of Illinois and a Democrat, praised the decision of state lawmakers — in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday — to raise the individual income tax rate by about 66 percent as a necessity to avert the state’s “fiscal emergency,” which includes a budget deficit of more than $13 billion, about $8 billion in unpaid bills to social service agencies, pharmacies and others, and a sinking bond rating.

“Our state was careening towards bankruptcy and fiscal insolvency,” Mr. Quinn told reporters, after indicating that he intended to sign the tax increase.

Gee.. and I wonder just how the State of Illinois found itself in fiscal insolvency and bankruptcy to begin with? Could it have been... Oh, I don't know, OUT OF CONTROL SPENDING???

Yet the same candy-man a/k/a Santa Claus mentality that had the effect of literally bringing Illinois to its knees, continues to be touted by clueless DFL legislators like Mahoney as if it's some sort of badge of honor.

DFLers like Mahoney can be compared to a guy sitting in a restaurant who observes folks at the next table begin to keel over from food poisoning. Now, anyone with a modicum of common sense would make it a point to see what they were eating, so as to avoid ordering the same thing, lest he suffer the same fate. Yet the magical thinking that is the hallmark of 'progressive' thought will not allow for such a blatant application of common sense. You see, fiscal train wrecks occur in other states--not ours!

A very wise man once said, "Learn from others' mistakes. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself."

It would appear that Mahoney and Co. have a very long, long way to go in learning that lesson.