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THE DFL’S BLOATED DEBT BILL
By Luke Hellier | February 22, 2010
In the middle of the night the DFL put together their $1 billion debt bill behind closed doors while releasing the conference committee report at 1:30 AM.
For a party that is about “transparency” and public input this is outrageous.
The bonding bill is chalk full of pork and left out key funding for public safety and veterans.
They left out:
- Funding for the Minnesota Sex Offender Program at Moose Lake, where the state confines dangerous sex offenders who are sent there by the courts after their prison sentence because they are deemed unfit to be released
- Funding to do renovation work at the Minneapolis Veterans Home, even though they say they want to support our veterans
- Funding to upgrade the security system at the maximum-security prison at Oak Park Heights, where the state’s worst criminals are kept
- Funding for a new joint Emergency Operations and Homeland Security Center in Arden Hills
But they included:
- $19.4 million for state trail acquisition and development
- $7.1 million for regional trails and trail connections
- sports facilities in various places around the state
- $11 million for Como Zoo (just because they deleted the word “gorilla” from the bill doesn’t mean the money is not for gorilla cages)
- $1 million for the Theodore Wirth Park Winter Recreation Area, where some of the money would be used for “snow guns” and to upgrade and build facilities for snow tubing and snowboarding.
- $2 million for the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, including some requirements that the projects be “eco-friendly”
- $200,000 for the Duluth Zoo
- $250,000 for the St. Louis County-Arrowhead Regional Sports Facility
Call your state representative and tell them to vote no on this overly pork filled debt bill.
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Topics: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
February 22nd, 2010 at 2:42 PM
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February 22nd, 2010 at 3:04 PM
“this is outrageous”
Luke, you forgot the exclamation point(s). I mean, surely the GOP is once again OUTRAGED by the behavior of the DFL.
February 22nd, 2010 at 3:34 PM
Sertich had the audacity to re-name this a “jobs bill”. Government is the largest creator of Temp jobs in the world. Ask all those Target Field guys what they’re doing now – driving to South Dakota looking for jobs.
Bonding bills aren’t jobs bills, they’re goody bills. They’re union payback bills. Good for construction workers – for a while – but not good for regular folks who don’t hammer or pour concrete for a living. Those people end up paying the bill.
March 9th, 2010 at 7:46 AM
Average_Joe, I work for a company that did work on Target Field. The work may be done but it certainly paid some salaries and kept us all working through these trying financial times. In our business it’s expected that jobs like Target Field are temporary.
I’m not quite sure what to make of your last statement there about construction workers. I assure you, our construction guys are in fact “regular folks.”