Where even the voters are stupid

Usually we observe and critique the muddled thinking and silly machinations of the leaders of Minnesota in this space. Lately, however, one can pick up any mainstream newspaper in Minnesota, and spot the ignorant and moronic voters as easily as the politicians -- simply by readng the letters to the editor or guest editorials.

A few recent examples of right-wing, short-sighted, wrong-headed thinking by people apparently wearing blinders:

Todd A. Voge of Faribault demonstrates his complete lack of understanding of arithmetic and economics in a May 22 letter to the editor by claiming that the state of Minnesota is increasing spending by $300 million, not making cuts. He totally ignores the following facts:

1. Minnesota took over K-12 education funding at the state level last year, moving the spending from the school district to the state. So of course the state will spend more and collect more tax revenue to pay for this, while local tax payers will spend less in property taxes and school districts will receive less. The change in law did not change the amount collected or spent, only where it was collected and which branch of government spent it.
   
2. Governor "King of Eagan" Pawlenty and his pals in the state legislature moved a bunch of spending that was for last cycles budget to this year's cycle to help hide the budget problem last year before the election, rather than making real fixes. It was money that would have been spent anyway, but pushing it forward like that made the previous budget's expenidtures look smaller and the current budget's expenditures look bigger. The reality is it's just a bunch of cooking the books and backroom bookkeeping. They are not real spending increases this year.
   
3. Inflation. Voge has apparently lived his life in a cave and never heard of inflation. His so-called increase has no inflation adjustment in it.
   
4. Population growth. Here's a real Homer Simpson moment: Voge somehow imagines that with more people in Minnesota paying taxes and requiring government services, this can all happen without increasing the state's budget. Voge obviously flunked Arithmetic 101.
   

Of course, maybe we can cut Todd a little slack. His ridiculous statement is essentially the same bullshit that the Republican Party, the Taxpayers League, and the Governor have been trying to feed us. It appears many Minnesotans are foolish enough to believe what politicians tell them without checking any kind of second source of information.


Then there's Mary Thompson of Circle Pines, who demonstrates complete cluelessness and utter simple-minded inanity in her letter in the same issue of the paper. She doesn't want her tax dollars paying for social programs she doesn't personally support. Hello? Does that mean the large number of people opposed to the war in Iraq can stop paying the huge portion of their income taxes that go to support our military?

Mary doesn't want to pay to support Planned Parenthood or the Minnesota AIDS Project. She only wants to pay for criminal justice and road maintenance. We don't suppose it ever occured to her that unwanted children are more likely to become criminals. We don't suppose Mary has ever heard of the overwhelming evidence that it is far cheaper to prevent unwanted children and to support children at risk than to hunt down and imprison criminals. Clearly she must also believe that AIDS only happens to "those" evil people whom she despises. We can only hope that she has to get a blood transfusion in the near future, and gets to experience AIDS first-hand.


Then there are the slightly more sophisticated right-wing nutbars like Jeff Klein of St. Paul who is convinced the citizens of the state all must be intelligent, well-informed voters (see above) who truly wanted to vote in a bunch of Constitution-shredding, right-wing neo-fascists who pander to the wealthy, the religious right and their own self interests. His letter to the editor claims the legislature is simply doing the job the majority of people elected it to do. He conveniently ignores a variety of things to the contrary. The majority of voters did not vote for Pawlenty. Most voters are not well informed -- they are, in general, poorly informed about candidates. Political campaigns are full of "spin" or "lies" and use sophisticated marketing and expensive advertising to sell their candidates. If those techniques did not work, they would not be used. Clearly enough Minnesotans were ignorant enough, or snowed enough by the rhetoric and false promises, that they voted for the people they did. That doesn't mean the legislators represent their interests, however.


David Christenson of Woodbury apparently doesn't keep up with things at all. He complains that he is tired of Minnesota being in the top five most taxed states. Funny, all the recent studies and press we've seen, no matter which side of the political argument they're on, all place Minnesota down in the teens. Relative rankings compared to other states are also pretty much bogus anyway, as we've written before. Some states don't have to clear snow and ice off their highways in the winter, for example. It's comparing apples to oranges.

Need we also point out that one tends to get what one pays for? If you want low taxes, move to South Dakota. Of course, you'll probably have to live in a town with dirt roads and no city sewer services. There won't be much in the way of world-famous cultural amenities or professional sports, etc. We're not in favor of new taxes per se, either, but David's ignorance is painful.

Imagine how many more examples of middle-brow thinking we could find if we were to read every newspaper published in Minnesota. There's no lack of stupid people here, it seems.