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Skogen is responsible [UPDATED]
Published 10:09am Monday, September 24, 2012 Updated 12:12pm Monday, September 24, 2012Recent letters in this paper encourage us to examine the record of Dan Skogen and then elect him to the state Senate.
We did that two years ago. We examined the public record of Skogen’s votes in his first term mis-representing our district and then fired him. We couldn’t afford Skogen’s high taxing, big spending ways, and we gave him his walking papers.
His supporters claim he is all for supporting education? They are partly right. In his prior term he voted for huge increases in per pupil funding for schools in the five county Twin Cities area, and insultingly tiny increases for schools in his own disrict. In every instance where the choice was to send more of our money to the metro area versus helping our own district, Skogen voted for the metro area.
Following orders from his liberal big spending leaders in the DFL, he voted for increased taxes and out of control spending which left a deficit of between $5 and $6 billion dollars for the adults in the Republican party to deal with.
Senator Bill Ingebrigsten and the Republicans in the Senate and House worked to clean up Skogen’s mess, and , through voting for governmentals reforms and streamlining agencies, got rid of Skogen’s deficits, while creating a surplus of nearly a billion dollars — without raising taxes.
If you want a responsible Senator to represent US, vote to re-elect Senator Bill Ingebrigtsen.
Camilla Ryan
Fergus Falls
Repeating the same things over and over doesn’t make them true, Camo; and that’s the same thing you said in your comments on the other letter, so I’ll just reuse my responses (since you never provided any evidence for your claims).
“Those delayed payments to schools helped DFL Gov. Mark Dayton and Republican legislative leaders erase a $5 billion deficit and end a government shutdown last summer. They also tapped other one-time money as part of the fix. That’s why another modest surplus has not yet put state finances back on solid ground for the long term.
Schowalter said the new forecast projects a $1.1 billion deficit by fiscal year 2014. That’s a little better than the $1.3 billion projected in the last forecast, but he said it still presents big challenges.
“We were able to balance this year’s budget, if you’ll recall, with sizeable one-time resources from the tobacco bonds, from the school shift. Those aren’t there in 2014-15.”
Thus, it’s clearly the case that radical repubs didn’t “fix” anything (unless towing a car down the road can be called “fixing” because the vehicle is moving), and the rest of your rant is mere gossip and hearsay.