Faribault Daily News to Draz et al: Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's toys (nor any of their levies)

Another Greater Minnesota editorial voice joins in the chorus of "Shame on You!" scolding Representative Steve Drazkowski, Pat Garofalo and a diminishing pool of Republicans for meddling with local school boards' responsibility for local tax levies. Bluestem calls it The new Minnesota Miracle: in which Garofalo & Draz remarks spur consensus on local levies.

In Let local government choose, FDN managing editor Jaci Smith writes:

You can’t have it both ways.

This was a lesson I learned early in life.

I coveted a friend’s toy and wanted her to let me play with it, yet I never wanted to share my favorite toy.

“You can’t have it both ways,” my mom used to tell me. “Either you play only with your own toys or you play with others’ shared toys and you share yours as well.”

A good lesson but apparently one that some state legislators haven’t learned. Several, including state Rep. Steve Drazkowski, who represents Kenyon, and Rep. Pat Garofalo, who represents part of Northfield, have been on the public speaking circuit, urging voters to reject any levy referendums in their districts.

Garofalo and Drazkowski claim that the state boosted spending to school districts in the budget passed this summer and that the 133 districts statewide seeking levy increases (or the continuation of an existing one) are “double dipping.”. . .

But what’s almost as disturbing as the fact that the GOP leadership has now picked up this "double-dipping" argument and is circulating it widely, is the contradiction it represents. These are the same legislators after all, who want local governments to house state prisoners longer and bear more of the cost of attorney representation in parental rights cases, and who all last session clamored for the state to allow local governments to handle their own taxing and spending.

But as my mom used to say, you can’t have it both ways, legislators. Either you want local government to govern locally, or you don’t. If 133 local school districts want more money, how about you let local voters decide whether it’s needed? ...

Go read the whole column. Smith--who often champions Mike Parry--writes for a newspaper in a chain that leans right.

Perhaps this is why the Republican Party of Minnesota and its army of serial retweeters has moved on to the next moral panic, the one spurred by Parry's show hearings over a union organizing drive.

Something has to draw attention away from the Draz and Garofalo Education Messaging Fail Show, now held over for another week of repeated negative editorial comment all across Greater Minnesota, no matter how red the district might be.

Photo: Steve Drazkowski, R-Message Fail, via Politics in Minnesota.

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