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Skogen left a financial mess [UPDATED]
Published 9:59am Wednesday, October 31, 2012 Updated 12:11pm Wednesday, October 31, 2012I have just finished reading the latest joke from Dan Skogen. He mailed me an ad which showed him flushing our Senator Bill Ingegbritsen down a toilet.
That takes a lot of nerve, since Senator Ingegbritsen, after more than 30 years as a sheriff’s deputy and county Sheriff, got elected to our State Senate to help clean up an out of control mess in St. Paul. And it was a mess brewed up by Skogen himself, along with his big spending and heavy taxing liberal democrat comrades in the DFL.
After Dan Skogen was sent packing in the last election, Bill Ingegbritsen and his fellow small-government, balanced budget conservatives managed to clean up Skogen’s $6 billion debt and turn it into a billion-dollar surpus — without raising taxes .
So now Dan Skogen thinks that we are foolish enough to send him back to the Senate so he can have another go at chasing away jobs and taking away our hard earned wages with higher taxes? He can take that scheme and flush it down his toilet instead.
Jerome Mullins
Fergus Falls
“Minnesota is projected to face a $4.4 billion deficit in the 2014-15 biennium.”
And it seems unlikely that the money Ingegbritsen and his fellow small-minded conservatives took from the tobacco settlement will be there next time, or that borrowing money to pay the bills is fixing anything.
No rational person would call the budget issues “fixed” – unless of course what you mean by that is “rigged”.
What Jerome fails to mention is that Dan Skogen voted for an across the board 7% cut in ALL departments when he was in office.
Also, if Bill Ingebrigtsen fixed the deficit and turned it into “a billion-dollar surpus — without raising taxes”, why is the projected state budget at a $4.5 BILLION deficit in January and why did the average property tax rate in Greater Minnesota go up by 8%? It should also be noted that the Sheriff’s salary while Bill was there went up by 250%! So much for “small government”!
Take any 20 year period during the last 45 years and the average salaries of workers have risen more than 350 percent. That 250 percent doesn’t even keep up with inflationary wage increases in the period you refer to.
From 1965 to 1998, my father’s wages increased from $9,200 annually to $78,000, an increase of 850 percent. A hershey bar rose from 10 cents to 90 cents (800 percent).
Milk went from 32 cents a quart to $1.21, average cost of a home in Ottertail county from about $23,000 to $128,000.
A military recruit’s pay went from $122/month to $1,440/month (almost 1,200 percent)
Your compalint about the sheriff’s salary rising is doubly bogus when you factor in that the sheriff doesn’t give himself raises, doesn’t vote on his raises. Those salary increases come from the county board of supervisors, with advice from surveys of earnings for similar employees in other counties statewide.
Typical democrat envy of people who are achievers and earn more for their achievements, while the democrats languish in dead end jobs and demand more handouts from government.
You better go back and check your math, directions and dates. You tell us to check any 20 year period in the last 45 years, then you use a 33 year period (98-65=33). Are we to assume that those are the dates you’re using for the costs you’ve offered as example? It’s typical for the Legion of Doom (GOP and the ditto-heads) to say anything and/or use double standards.
“while the democrats languish in dead end jobs and demand more handouts from government.” Remember that sentence when you vote, remember it’s twin, Romney’s 47% comment, remember the arrogant, pompous, pretentious, vain and condescending attitude corporate minions have for working people.
Don’t you just love Jerome’s headline “Skogen left a financial mess”
Do you remember when Jerome wrote the same letter about George Bush? Yeah, neither do I.