Tim Pawlenty, Jason Lewis address Tax Cut Rally

Thousands gathered Saturday afternoon at the Tax Cut Rally at the Minnesota State Capitol, many for the second time in as many months, to hear speakers, including Gov. Tim Pawlenty and nationally syndicated talk radio host Jason Lewis, speak out against tax increases and excessive spending. They also visited exhibitors that included sponsors from the Taxpayers League of Minnesota, Minnesota Majority, and 100.3 KTLK-FM.


Pawlenty pledged to veto any tax increase reaching his desk. Lewis commemorated the tenth annual Tax Cut Rally and vowed to fight for freedom and lower taxes. The Legislature, in session during the rally, was admonished more than once to "live within our [the state's] means."

The event had an added dimension compared to the April 15 Tea Party: a conservative issues fair, with over thirty organizations as large as Borders Books, the Libertarian Party, and the National Rifle Association, and many small organizations.


The crowd was peaceful and even festive. One of the booths was set up with laptop computers for attendees to electronically sign a petition to Pawlenty, urging him to veto any tax increase sent to him from the Legislature. Another of the booths was set up as a "Freedom Shrine" with copies of historic documents and portraits of American founders. Minnesota Majority gave away free printed booklets containing the text of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Food booths from barbecue to cheese curds to ice cream served long lines of customers.

Tax and bonding bills reach conference committees

If you drive a car, I'll tax the street
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat
If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet
Taxman!
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman
—"Taxman" by George Harrison

As reported by Dan McGrath of Minnesota Majority, the Minnesota House and Senate omnibus tax bills are overflowing with tax increases (i.e., veto bait) for all Minnesotans, not just "the rich:"

[WARNING: The following explicit tax increases may offend some fiscal moderates and conservatives. Reader discretion is advised.]

The Senate plan (SF2074) calls for across the board income tax increases and a new top tax bracket of 9.25% to collect $2 billion in new revenues. The House plan (HF2323) is a patchwork of tax hikes on income, tobacco, alcohol, recreational vehicles, and even includes a tax on homeowners who have higher energy (natural gas) use during winter months...

The House bill also eliminates some pretty substantial tax deductions, like the mortgage interest deduction and education tax credits. A slew of other changes remove subtractions from federal taxable income and throw in some additions, like motor vehicle and property taxes paid, and some charitable contributions. All of this has the effect of inflating the amount of personal income that the state will compute taxes on. The House tax bill also establishes a new top tax rate of 9% on income over $169,000 (or $300,000 for married couples filing a joint return).

And don't forget Rep. Jim Davnie's (DFL-Minneapolis) proposal to tax purchases from online stores like iTunes and Amazon.com. Governor Pawlenty promises to veto all of these tax increases should they reach his desk.

Rep. Sarah Anderson (R-Plymouth) has her eye on the "emergency" bonding bill, also in conference committee. The Legislature typically passes an omnibus bonding bill in odd-numbered years only for structures in dire need of repair. Apparently, our DFL-controlled legislature is not about to let a good crisis go to waste, because Anderson reports that the bonding bill could exceed the customary limit of 3% of non-dedicated general fund revenues.

Why does this matter? If borrowing exceeds the three percent cap, the interest rate we pay on bonds will increase. "Consequently," said Anderson in an e-mail to constituents, "we will pay more for the bonds at a time when [the state is] $6.4 billion in hole. In addition, school districts will pay more for bonds for their building projects since their bond rating is tied to the state bond rating." Can you say, "property tax increase?"

It's time to send a message to the Legislature that a recession with high unemployment is the time to cut spending, not raise taxes. Stop by the Tax Cut Rally at the State Capitol grounds this Saturday, 11 am - 4 pm, and make sure the Legislature gets the message loud and clear. When he makes his appearance at the annual rally around 1:00 pm, you'll also have a chance to encourage Gov. Pawlenty to ink-up his veto pen and say, "Go ahead, make my day!"

Missing at Tea Parties: right wing extremists

Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson got it exactly right in his assessment of the Saint Paul Tax Day Tea Party ("Perception of Tea Parties was incorrect," Star Tribune, April 26).

...I saw thousands of average, hard-working Minnesota taxpayers (many with family in tow) respectfully voicing deep concerns about the future of our country...This was about spending at the federal level that has gone completely berserk, about an exploding deficit that threatens the quality of life of our kids (and probably that of our kids' kids), and about a bailout mentality in Washington that turns the capitalist foundation of this country on its head.

There were few if any "right wing extremists" at peaceful protests across the country on April 15, and I hope that the Department of Homeland Security was not wasting its resources spying on the law-abiding working folks there.

Many on the left are constantly stereotyping or attacking the messengers, while refusing to engage in civil and reasoned debate on tax — and spending — policy. A canard that I noticed circulating in the leftmedia and Twittersphere was that the Tea Party was a protest against all taxes. It goes something like this: "I wonder if they enjoyed driving to the Tea Party on taxpayer-subsidized roads," or "I pay my taxes so we can have police, fire departments, and veterans benefits."

Nobody at the Tea Party is against taxes for legitimate functions of government, so let's put an end to that straw man argument. The Tax Day Tea Parties were a protest against excessive taxation and wasteful spending, making them more akin to Shay's Rebellion than the Boston Tea Party (sorry, Rick Santelli).

Even with the DFL's across-the-board tax rate hikes heading for a veto, it's more important than ever for fiscal moderates and conservatives to make an afternoon of it this Saturday at the Tax Cut Rally, State Capitol grounds, 11 am - 4 pm. There will be plenty of people to meet and things to do and learn for the whole family. The keynote speaker is Tax Cut Coalition icon Jason Lewis, and Gov. Tim Pawlenty will make his first appearance at the annual event.

Peer production

"We're thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party in July. All you capitalists that want to show up to Lake Michigan, I'm going to start organizing it." —Rick Santelli in his February 19, 2009 "rant of the year" on CNBC

It has never been easier to find a conservative place to party in the Twin Cities than in 2009. The reason is a buzzword called "peer production." Wikipedia defines it as "a new way of producing goods and services that relies on self-organizing communities of individuals who come together to produce a shared outcome."

Thanks in part to social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Ning, and ever-lower costs of producing and sharing audio and video programming, people of all political stripes are discovering that they don't have to wait around for political parties or even special-interest groups to organize and act.

A prime example is the national "tea party" tax protests, inspired by Rick Santelli's remarkable rant on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. Protesters are sending tea bags to their elected officials and holding rallies to protest bailouts and runaway spending. The protests are local and only loosely related. The Twin Cities area tea party will be held on April 15 at the State Capitol.

Peer production can be a little rough and amateurish, and can ruffle the feathers of more established groups. Organizers of the annual Tax Cut Coalition rally, established by talk radio host Jason Lewis, were a bit miffed at being bumped this year from their customary April 15 event on the Capitol steps by the upstart tea party group. The Lewis event will now be held, in an expanded format, on Saturday, May 2 at the Capitol. The former friendly rivals are now cross-promoting each other's events.

Even before Gov. Sarah Palin established her political action committee this year, web sites, Facebook groups, and other small groups sprung up across the country to support her and their shared values. There is at least one effort to coordinate these groups, but they will probably remain independent communities engaged in peer production.

Another example is the Citizens Campaigning Against Renegade Legislators (CCARL), a completely nonpartisan group that originally organized to protest the then-proposed taxpayer subsidy of the Minnesota Twins professional baseball stadium in Minneapolis. Their current target is Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf, who is lobbying for, guess what, a taxpayer subsidy for a professional football stadium.

The group blog True North, run by volunteers and unfunded by any outside group, aggregates posts from dozens of right-leaning blogs every day. It is visited daily by activists, elected officials, and media.

Young conservatives (not a contradiction in terms) will have a chance to meet and greet tonight at O'Gara's in Saint Paul, thanks to a new Facebook group with over 200 members called Red, White and Brew.

Although many individuals in these groups will participate in partisan activities as election season gears up again, conservatives in 2009 are finding new ways to connect and work together as peers to advance principle over party.

Weather to challenge Jason Lewis Tax Cut Coalition

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." —Thomas Paine

According to Jason Lewis, 100.3 KTLK-FM radio host and driving force of the annual tax cut rallies at the State Capitol, tomorrow conservatives will face a significant test of their resolve and dedication to their core beliefs:

The weather.

It won't be 70 degrees and sunny tomorrow, but it isn't looking like we'll be getting an old-fashioned state high school tournament blizzard either.

Besides the speeches, tomorrow's rally is shaping up into the place to be for independent, movement conservatives. I will be joining my colleagues from True North in distributing business cards with our URL. Conservative organizations will have a presence to network and share information. And a lot of conservative bloggers, politicos, BPOU leaders, and other riff-raff you've only read about will be milling around for some face time with people like you.

Conservatives are generally too busy earning a living, raising kids, taking care of their homes, and volunteering in the community to go to rallies, so allow me to explain: a huge crowd tomorrow in spite of the weather will say a lot about the conservative movement in this state. A small crowd tomorrow will also say a lot, just not the message we might want to send.

Jason Lewis Tax Cut Coalition Rally
Minnesota State Capitol
Saturday, April 12, 2008
12:00 noon
Park-and-ride at Midway Stadium
Further info: http://www.ktlkfm.com/pages/jlewispersonality.html

"Who controls the past controls the future..."

"...who controls the present controls the past." —George Orwell

WCCO-TV Channel 4 and CBS News have apparently tried to control the past, using Dan Rather-style, ends-justifies-the-means "journalism," this time to advance their global warming agenda.

Yesterday on its web site, WCCO posted a story with a CBS dateline ("Protesters call attention to global warming"), that misrepresented the size and location of last Saturday's Sierra Club global warming rally, held on the mall of the Minnesota State Capitol. The text of the story was a roundup of the global warming demonstrations held around the country, but the accompanying video clearly showed images of the much larger Tax Cut Coalition rally, held on the steps of the State Capitol (that's the Quadriga visible in the screen capture image, for those of you who might remember it from your fifth grade Capitol tour; click for a larger size).

The story was pulled from the WCCO web site within an hour or so of the start of yesterday's Jason Lewis Show on 100.3 KTLK-FM, where the, ahem, inaccuracy was reported.

The local media has done its best to portray the attendance at the Tax Cut Coalition rally and the Sierra Club rally as comparable, when in fact the former outdrew the latter by, conservatively, 400% - 500%. Who needs a reality check now?

Visit the KTLK-FM web site, and local blogs like PheistyBlog, for the real story of the 2007 Tax Cut Coalition rally.

The next best thing to being there

Due to family obligations I was not able to attend the Tax Cut Coalition rally on Saturday, but by all accounts, it was a glorious day for the conservative revolution. Check out the extensive coverage of this event on the blogs, especially Freedom Dogs and Residual Forces. Many of these posts have audio and video attached.

The mainstream media ignored the event, hoping we will go away. We are not giving up, and we are not going away!

A DFLer who can say no

If we must have a DFLer chair the Minnesota House Taxes Committee, instead of former chair and new Taxpayers League of Minnesota President Phil "Dr. No" Krinkie, we could do a lot worse than Rep. Ann Lenczewski (DFL-Bloomington).

Lenczewski (pronounced len-CHESS-key, as her campaign lawn signs say helpfully) was on Krinkie's and our side of the fence on the Twins stadium tax (which is to say, she opposed it). Now with The Mall of America begging the state for $234 million to subsidize its expansion, and the promise of a net positive economic impact (sound familiar?), Lenczewski is sounding almost Krinkiesque:

"There will be a bunch of people who will say that it's not the proper role of government," she said. "We're supposed to be figuring out how to fund K-12 education, and how to get more people health care, not promoting a shopping mall."

Speaking of taxes, 100.3 KTLK-FM personality Jason Lewis's Tax Cut Coalition has reportedly reached over 11,000 members. Its first official meeting will be on the steps of the State Capitol, on Saturday, April 14 at 12:00 noon. In an e-mail, Lewis is urging all coalition members to invite five friends to join him, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (MN-6), and (I would imagine) Krinkie, David Strom, and several thousand other fiscal conservatives at the rally.

Consider yourself invited. Perhaps Rep. Lenczewski will be there!

Jason Lewis rouses the rabble again

"As government expands, liberty contracts." —Ronald Reagan

When Gov. Tim Pawlenty inherited a $4+ billion state budget deficit at the beginning of his term, many said that we must raise taxes. Now that the state is faced with a $2 billion state budget surplus, the DFL-controlled Legislature is saying, we must raise taxes!

Not so fast, says talk radio host and conservative icon Jason Lewis, 100.3 KTLK-FM in the Twin Cities. His statewide Tax Cut Coalition is over 3000 members strong and growing after only a few days, and a tax cut rally on the steps of the State Capitol is planned for Saturday, April 14 at 11:00 am. Lewis hinted that remote broadcasts in outstate Minnesota are possible to drum up support for the effort, which he also led during his previous tenure on Twin Cities talk radio in the 1990s during the Jesse Ventura administration.