House Rep for 25b in Minnesota, socialist?

The following is part of an email exchange I had with the State rep form the House District I live in here in Minnesota. I deleted some of his more condescending remarks which were personal attacks on me. This is the thinking we are up against. That only Government can fix things and We the People are not smart enough. He is a teacher and unionist. I call him a socialist. You make up you own mind!

“You claim the state provides nothing and is parasitic, you are absolutely wrong.  Have you driven on a road lateley? The road maybe in disrepair (thanks to those who don’t want to fix it) but it wouldn’t be there if not for the government.  Do you send your children to a public school? If you don’t lots of people do.  These youngsters contribute to the economy when they grow up because of the education they got.  To say nothing of police, courts, laws that protect you, garbage pick up, water treatment, food inspection,  universities, nursing homes, health care to the poor and the elderly on and on.  You should take a civics class to learn what government does.  Now unfortunately there are times when government can be persuaded to put money interests of individuals and the private sector ahead of common citizens and we all pay for the benefits they receive.  Our governor for instance has great interest in protecting the highest income earners from increased taxation so he forces local governments to increase your property taxes.  But perhaps you like that.  Anything to keep those wealthy millionaires happy who create those low wage jobs for us.  It is a myth that the hyper wealthy create jobs, they actually only create more wealth for themselves by buying out the competition and throwing people out of work or preying on the vulnerable to take their hard earned savings. If the system you work for is not predatory it is probably because you work for the government.  That is not to say small business is not important and provides important jobs and contributes to a local economy and good tax base and government does lots of things to help them succeed and do well.  Small business is very different from the corporate economy that has emerged with our global economy and is the real parasite that takes our wealth as a people.

Government spends money so that the economy can be stimulated and money can be made.   You have to spend money at the macro level to make it work.  This is different at the household level.  The private sector creates money by pulling it out of thin air.  Here is a little video you might watch that could help you understand where money comes from.  See if you still think all budgets are the same and x dollars in equals x dollars out.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279

In the meantime save your venom for when you actually have something useful to say.  Who are the entitled people you are referring to, 80% of the health and human services bill goes to the elderly and the disabled.  Our mental health system is shameful.  The number of homeless people is larger this than it has ever been it has been that way year after year for many years.  We have health care programs that keep people in poverty.  We need to change that.

When you don’t have the money you need what do you do?  Do you get another job?  If a business gets a tax break does it hire more workers if there is no work for them to do?  The government can authorize spending it can decide to build a bridge or a school and put people to work.  A business can’t do that.  The government can hire a construction company to refurbish an office building.  In a recession, when banks have no money for loans, there is no work to be done, only the government can make work for people.  But you don’t like that, you would rather government spent no money and let their workers go, so services would be cut back and there would be fewer needs and less purchasing of goods and businesses would have to cut back and close and lay off more workers and of course they can’t turn to the government for help because that would be entitlement and we can’t have that.  So how do they survive?  How do they survive?  Maybe they move in with relatives and reduce their expenses.  More homes for sale or foreclosed.  But hey that’s a good thing because property values are going down.  More people will be able to afford them.  But they have less money.  Maybe all those people who have no jobs and no home and no money will just go away and we won’t have to worry about them.  Less people means fewer need for goods and services.  Less gets purchased and sold less money to go around.  Schools close – hey but fewer taxes right.  Now here is an interesting side light our population is changing we will soon have many more old people that we do young to middle aged.  Most societies count on the young and middle age workers to support the smaller elderly population.  But we will soon have the opposite.  People will be working longer (if they can find a job) or they may just be wondering the street.  The old people have assets they might be able to sell off but the young may be to strapped to buy any of them.  Only the wealthy will be able to aqcuire more wealth. What would you do about this problem ?  Cut taxes?

As to the per diem increase you Republicans love to keep talking about.  Legislators have not had an increase in pay in 18 years.  Per diem went up $11.  It was never voted on by the House as a whole.  Republican legislators are happy to take it.  Senator Neuville told me he was glad that the Democrats took control of the house because at least they could get a pay increase passed.  The complaining about it is so two faced and unfair I can’t stomach it.  But I know you will pick at anything that seems like it could get some traction.  My salary from the legislature is about $32,000.  I work at least a 60 hour week when we are in session and I can’t teach when we are not in session in the summertime.  It is difficult to be involved in committee work if you have a teaching job in the fall so this last fall I did not teach.  So that’s it for me.  My constituent work demands that I drive all over the district.  So I drive a lot.  I live too close to the capitol to get a housing allowance so I drive back and forth to work.  But it’s worth it because I get to be in a job where I can actually make things better for people.  We can make decisions to invest in them and provide for them the opportunities they need to do better in life.

But you don’t believe in that.  You would like to see that all taken away.  Because you see government as a parasite.  I hope you study this whole issue a bit more; from my perspective you have a lot to learn about how our system works and what government can do for our society.  But our government is the people and we can elect people who make government the servant of those who mean to live off the rest of us as though they are parasites.  Because to them communities and schools  and small business don’t matter all that matters is that they can get as much wealth as they possibly can.  That is exactly the kind of president we have had for the last eight years and why we are in such a mess. The rich got really rich under the Bush Presidency.

I have hope that things can change for the better, but it will take hard work from all of us to clean up this mess and government will be a big part of that clean up.  Unless that is you and your champions have their way.  Because we could just be in store for more of the same in this state and you know we just can’t afford it any more of it.  Look at what it has done to us.”

~ by maddmedic on April 30, 2009.