Minnesota anti-bullying bill. Ultimate goal? Indoctrination.

Here's a short piece on the anti-bullying legislation which passed the House last year but failed to pass the Senate at the end of the Minnesota legislative session this past May.

Written by Walter Hudson, the piece points out what he believes will be the ultimate effect of the legislation  - not addressing bullying but indoctrinating young students.

Five-year-old Suzie heads off to kindergarten in rural Minnesota. She settles into her class routine full of activity, discovery, and friendship.

Then the day takes a turn. As part of newly mandated diversity training, Suzie’s teacher brings out Heather Has Two Mommies for some light mid-morning reading. A typically precocious kindergartener, Suzie pipes up during the story to correct the teacher’s telling. “God gave us a mommy and a daddy,” she exclaims.

Though no student takes exception to Suzie’s remark, the teacher cringes and becomes keenly aware of her state-mandated role to report any incident which could be construed as bullying. So Suzie gets pulled out of class and taken to the principal’s office where she’s met by a counselor.

There begins a process of formative intervention and remedial discipline. More than correction for objectively inappropriate behavior, this intervention focuses on changing who Suzie is, on correcting her values to ensure that she accepts each of her classmates and values their diverse backgrounds.

Confused, disturbed, and teary-eyed, Suzie comes away from the experience convinced she has done something wrong. Worse, she feels the very sense of rejection which her accusers claim to deplore. She learns her lesson, that the values taught at home are not welcome in school. A bit of her innocence dies. She grows more guarded, less expressive, and unfairly subdued.

Such a tale may be among the tamest of experiences awaiting children in Minnesota, if a task force of social engineers commissioned by Governor Mark Dayton succeed in lobbying for legislation which has already been approved by the State House. House File 826, misleadingly titled the Safe and Supportive Schools Act, serves as a trial balloon modeling what its supporters would like to implement nationally – a radical transformation of schools from institutions of academic achievement into political reeducation camps which correct Orwellian Wrong Think.

Sold colloquially as an “anti-bullying bill,” the proposed legislation actually institutionalizes bullying, targeting political minorities with suppressive badgering. The bill would repeal existing anti-bullying statutes which have proven effective. It would create an invasive, overbearing, and unfunded new state bureaucracy to impose politically correct values upon students, teachers, parents, staff, and anyone serving in or around the educational system. It would affect both public and private schools. In a state which already has one of the worst achievement gaps between white and black students in the nation, the bill would burden struggling districts with new mandates diverting precious resources away from academics. Teachers and staff will become thought police and value mediators, shifting their disciplinary focus from correcting inappropriate behavior to remediating students’ belief systems. As with any state bureaucracy, reams of new data will be generated and follow students throughout their academic career, if not the rest of their lives.

Economics 101: How to increase jobs and economic growth. Not by raising taxes.

There's a big debate in the states over how to increase economic activity and jobs.  Several state governors want to either eliminate or seriously cut their income tax rates to attract businesses and talented workers.  Others, like Minnesota, are heading in the opposite direction.  Governor Dayton wants to put in "a new, fourth tax rate of 9.85 percent on income above $150,000 for single filers and $250,000 for joint filers. Currently, the top state income tax rate is 7.85 percent."

Polling of Minnesotans suggest they oppose the sales tax increase because it will directly affect them while they support higher taxes on the wealthy.  Because, I presume, it means somebody else will be paying higher taxes.

According to the poll released Wednesday evening, 65 percent of Minnesotans support Dayton’s plan to hike income taxes by 2 points on the wealthiest 2 percent of Minnesotans. Only 30 percent polled opposed the move. The plan, which was part of the governor’s January budget proposal, would raise more than $1 billion for the state’s coffers while lawmakers are looking to wipe out a $1.1 billion budget deficit.

The same can’t be said for the governor’s plan to lower the state’s sales tax rate from 6.875 percent to 5.5 percent while adding it to many business-to-business services and clothing purchases of $100 or more. Only 30 percent of those polled support the move to expand the sales tax to clothing and things like haircuts and auto repairs, while 55 percent of those polled were opposed. When it comes to adding the sales tax to business services such as legal and accounting work, 59 percent of those polled were opposed, 34 percent supported the move, and 8 percent said they weren’t sure.

I suspect Minnesotans might feel differently about taxing the wealthy if they knew it meant fewer jobs and slower economic growth.

I've always felt raising taxes on anybody means the middle and lower classes will get hit.  There isn't enough wealth even among the wealthy to pay for the heightened appetite for more government so invariably taxes will rise on lower income groups.  That's the case with Dayton's sales tax increase proposal.  But also, businesses will simply pass along tax increases to consumers in the form of higher prices.  And finally, the wealthy can move to lower tax jurisdictions and there are enough tax shelters available that smart CPAs and lawyers will find them so they still can avoid the full effect of tax increase proposals.

One can't legislate away the laws of economics.

Governor Dayton's priorities - higher taxes, more government and gay "marriage" aren't what the patient needs.

Governor Dayton's State of the State laid out a clear vision for Minnesota - more government, more taxes and gay "marriage".

Gov. Mark Dayton made an impassioned defense of his budget proposal and vision for Minnesota in his State of the State address Wednesday, blasting critics who don't offer solutions.

"Trying to cut our way to a better Minnesota is a failed experiment," Dayton said. "If you're interested in nothing more than throwing rocks and casting blame, send the rest of us a letter or a postcard."

Dayton spent much of his nearly hourlong address defending a budget proposal that would usher in the biggest tax overhaul in a generation but is also proving to be a harsh test for the new DFL leaders in both chambers.

Dayton's new budget proposal would wipe out a $1.1 billion deficit, provide direct property tax rebates for homeowners and boost money for education. To pay for that, Dayton wants to raise income taxes on the wealthy and dramatically expand the sales tax to include higher-end clothing and many services, including business-to-business transactions.

The new sales tax proposals, particularly the taxes on business-to-business transactions, are triggering strong opposition. If legislators reject that portion of the proposal, it would blow a sizable hole in Dayton's budget and prevent him from paying for many of his most prized initiatives.

"No one likes paying more taxes, even when necessary to make them fair," Dayton said. "But when taxes are unfair, and remain unfair, not only do the people who are forced to pay more rightfully resent it, but they also lose faith in their elected officials who won't change it."

Speaking to a rare joint session of the Legislature, Dayton reaffirmed his support for legalizing same-sex marriage but stopped short of calling on legislators to pass a bill this year.

"I believe that every Minnesotan should have the freedom to marry legally the person she or he loves, whether of the same or other sex," Dayton said. "I want Minnesota to be a state which affirms that freedom for one means freedom for everyone, and where no one is told it is illegal to marry the person you love."

The problem with his prescription for what ails us, e.g. a weak economy and social, family breakdown, is it isn't what the patient needs.  In fact, it will exacerbate our problems.  Higher taxes are ultimately paid for by families either directly through higher sales taxes or indirectly through higher prices passed on by businesses.  Higher income taxes discourages the wealthy, many of whom are business owners, to expand their businesses and hence create jobs.  And it will motivate some wealthy individuals to leave the state.

More government is called for to take over the responsibilities of parents to raise and educate their children, e.g. all day kindergarten and so forth.

And redefining marriage won't stem the tide of family breakdown but will only accelerate it.

This isn't what the patient ordered.

Push for more gambling after stadium bill passed. No surprise. What will it mean? More and more gambling.

It looks like the money source for the new stadium, electronic pulltabs isn't very successful.  Only a handful of bars, 85 out of 6,000, have introduced the electronic pulltabs.

The sluggish pace of electronic pulltab sales has the state looking at fresh venues to entice gamblers -- including the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

The devices are supposed to pay the state's share of the new Minnesota Vikings stadium. But so far, only 85 of the state's more than 6,000 bars have installed the devices. That has led to revenues that are 51 percent below projection, forcing the state to downgrade its revenue estimates by millions of dollars for the coming year.

Gov. Mark Dayton met with state gambling and revenue officials Wednesday for a briefing on e-pulltab sales. Charities have been slow to embrace the new technology, but Dayton predicted the problem will solve itself as the devices catch on and new vendors are licensed by the state...

"We kind of walked into it gingerly, because it's gambling and we're Minnesotans. Would we become another Las Vegas?" Vaughn said with a laugh. "But it's people sitting with iPods, playing games. ... It seems like it's going to work."

 From the governor's comments, it doesn't look like he'd be concerned if we did start looking more like a gambling center.

After his briefing, Dayton said he is not worried about the long-term prospects for Minnesota's pioneering effort on electronic pulltabs. The state is the first to use e-pulltabs to benefit charities and capital investment projects like the stadium.

"I don't think there is any reason to be concerned," Dayton said. "Any time a conceptual projection impacts with the real world, things change."

When the news of the lackluster forecast broke last week, Dayton briefly speculated that the devices could someday be installed in grocery stores.

I remember when the bill was being pushed, the charitable gambling folks didn't think it would work out, because the state was taking so much of the revenue.  Wasn't enough for the bars to make it profitable for them.  With that knowledge out there, why was the legislation still jammed through?  To get the Vikings stadium bill through the legislature.  They'd worry about redoing the stadium bill later.

I thought then and do now, that the stadium would lead to a push for a further expansion of gambling to make up the deficit.  Looks like that's just what is happening.