Held hostage by Taxpayer League
01/20/2006
Reprint of a Letter in the Marshall, MN, Independent
To The Editor:
Rural Minnesota cannot afford the no-new-taxes policies of the Minnesota Taxpayers League and its captive members, such as 21A Rep. Marty Seifert, in the Legislature.
No new taxes really means no new income taxes for those with the highest incomes.
Those of us who live and work in rural Minnesota are paying plenty of new taxes and fees — thanks to the tax and budget policies of Gov. Pawlenty and the Republican leadership in the House, which includes the majority whip, Marty Seifert. Rep. Seifert works hard at times to distance himself from the leadership to avoid political accountability and to appear less partisan. Don’t let him fool you. As the House Majority Whip, he’s not only deeply entrenched in the party leadership, it is his job to “whip” the Republican members of the Legislature in line — that is to hold the partisan party line.
After three years of frozen funding, Minnesota schools finally got an increase in funding from the Legislature in 2005. Where did most of that money come from? Local property taxpayers like you and I. Unlike income taxes, property taxes are collected with absolutely no regard for the property owner’s ability to pay. The senior citizen pays more, regardless of income. The farmer pays more, regardless of the harvest yield or market price he gets that year. The business owner pays more, whether there was a good profit that year or not.
In addition to significant increases in local property taxes, the state has increased the cost of virtually every service it provides. Need to renew your teaching license or driver’s license? Pay a higher fee. Need to live in a nursing home? Pay a new $1,000 “fee” to the state government. Buy a pack of cigarettes? Pay a higher tax — or is that a “fee?”
If you are a working-class family and want to send your child to post-secondary education, you will probably choose a state college or university. Of course, tuition has skyrocketed by about 70 percent over the past few years. Such increases in tuition and related fees must certainly feel like a tax increase for the families and students who are struggling to keep up with them.
What do all of these tax and fee increases have in common? They target working-class families the hardest, while protecting the income tax breaks of Minnesota’s highest income earners!
According to Minnesota’s 2000 Tax Incidence Study, those households in the lowest income bracket (those who make less than $8,945 per year) pay 17.4 percent of their income in total state and local taxes. Middle-income households pay about 12 percent of their income in total state and local taxes. But, those who make over $364,343 (the top 1 percent) only pay 8.4 percent of their income in state and local taxes. This gap is likely to look even worse now with the increases we have seen on property taxes over the last two years. And if we added in the new fees (just another name for tax these days), the gap gets bigger yet!
State Rep. Marty Seifert, a signer of the so-called “no-new-tax pledge,” has become a captive of the Taxpayer League, who is fighting to protect the wealthy from paying their fair share of taxes while supporting tax and budget policies that raise taxes and the cost of government services for middle-class and working families.
We need a state representative who will fight for the working people of this part of Minnesota, not the wealthy Twin Cities folks who finance the Taxpayers League.
Judy Mickelson
Garvin