February 9, 2009: Legislative Report #13
680 Bills and More to Come
As of today, the Minnesota Legislature has introduced 680 bills. The latest bill HF680, is anticipating hundreds of millions or perhaps billions of federal dollars sent to Minnesota. Anticipating a handout from the Federal government seems foolish. The federal government continues to squander all revenue and continues spending future generation’s income. With the latest stimulus package, expect over $2,000,000,000,000.00 federal budget debt this year. Any check congress issues to Minnesota becomes a bad check issued on our grandchildren’s working backs.
Another question we need to consider is why 680 bills? Minnesota is facing a financial Tsunami and to date the 680 bills include.
- Millions for development of light rail North, South, and East of the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area.
- Universal state run, non-competitive healthcare (HF135) costing $30,000,000,000.00 to $50,000,000,000.00 annually.
- The Minnesota Miracle *** (HF138), including an education funding formula revision, indexing for inflation and a 37% $2,500,000,000.00 overall increase in K-12 education funding.
- Millions in new bonding for Arts and wildlife programs for costs that are covered under the new Constitutional amendment.
- A further striping of personal liberties using primary seatbelt law, additional child restraint laws, and **** (HF616) forcing medical support of abortion.
I see very little Legislative understanding of our current economic stress or budget shortfall when reviewing the proposed bills to date. Increased spending, expanding programs, and starting new initiatives show disregard for Minnesota current economic condition.