So That...What?

A number of years ago, while in a strategic planning meeting, my then-supervisor stated thusly:

"We do this, so that___. If you can't fill in the blank, then you shouldn't be doing what you're doing."

Enter Mark Dayton.

Despite the fact that the MN GOP-controlled legislature has given Governor Dayton everything he wants in terms of both K-12 spending and health care spending, and despite the GOP's dropping of their demands for tax relief in their budget, Governor Dayton remains singularly, myopically hyperfocused on one battle cry: "Tax the rich!"

Now, back to my boss' axiom:

"Mark Dayton wants to impose job-killing tax hikes on the 'rich' so that______"

Mr. Dayton has yet to fill in the blank.

Now, given the fact that Governor Dayton has received nearly everything he wants in terms of spending, whatever is left, no matter how sensical, must be the reason for his continued insistence on his tax increase, that will necessarily kill Minnesota jobs. We are left with these three possibilities with which to fill in the blank:

1. Mark Dayton wants to tax the "rich," to tax the rich.
2. Mark Dayton wants to utilize the tax increase as an excuse to shut down government so as to teach Minnesotans a "lesson" that in his mind will somehow ensure democrat majorities for years to come.
3. Both of the above.

Given that Mark Dayton is who he is, a trust-fund limousine socialist, and given that democratic majorities in the state houses will assuredly increase the chances of his agenda moving forward, I would necessarily say that possibility number 3 fits the bill.

However, Dayton has never been known with being the brightest bulb on the chandelier. Dayton is counting on the notion that Minnesotans will pin any chaos and/or inconvenience of a government shutdown on the GOP-led legislature, and that Minnesotans are not aware nor intelligent enough to be able to put two and two together (projection is yet another fatal flaw in the liberal psyche). Given, however, that the most recent KSTP-TV/USA-Today poll reveals that only 8 percent of Minnesotans favor an increase in spending, beyond some unionized state workers, Dayton will necessarily have to look far and wide to find a critical mass of Minnesotans that will be sympathetic to his cause.

In the end, in terms of practicality, Mark Dayton may indeed sadly find that he wanted to increase taxes so that democrats will remain in minority status in perpetuity.