Jensen/Birk For Governor - Bah.

I don't personally know a lot of doctors.  I know a few.  Most of them are incredibly intelligent people.  At least when it comes to health care.  Scott Jensen is someone whom I do not know, but I've come to learn that he might be a bit light on the brain department.  And his running mate, former Viking Matt Birk, might want to do something else, other than playing football without a helmet.

Jensen is one of those people who wants to live in a world where reality doesn't mean a whole lot.  Sure, I'd love lower taxes.  But I also like living in a state where we have lower taxes thanks to the employers and companies who have made their headquarters here.  Which is kind of a big deal.  Jensen seems to be one of those fools who believes that lower taxes are always good.  In his case, he's got his sights set on the state income tax.  Because, you know, it takes money from the mouths of his children.  Oh, wait.  He's got plenty of money, why does he hate the income tax?  My guess is because he's just not all that smart.

Because the income tax which we pay out of every paycheck is pretty small, bigger than some states, but it does afford us a certain level of comfort and even improved living conditions.  Our taxes pay for things.  A few years ago when the state decided to make school funding a little more equitable, the state took over funding all of the school districts, rather than leaving each district to pay for itself.  

When I was a kid, I went to school in and near St. Cloud.  Sartell was the district I first attended, and it did well, thanks to two major industries and a lot of farms.  The Sartell school district relied heavily on revenue from what was then known as the St. Regis paper plant, and the DeZurik valve company.  Those two businesses were big employers in the area, allowing the school system to be the third.  Yup, that's right.  They rolled a fair amount of money into the local schools.  I did not see much of it because I attended the private parochial school across the street from the elementary school, about three or four blocks from the brand new high school.  

But as I got older, I got some exposure to the results in other school districts.  One rather memorable afternoon we got to attend some sort of event in a high school about half-way to the Twin Cities.  In where I grew up, the prevailing "wisdom" among the kids was that certain school districts had a lot more money.  St. Cloud did have more employers to spread the load, counting large banks, some manufacturing, lots of retailers, large numbers car dealerships, and other services - printers, builders, and a college in the city limits which almost outweighed the high-security prison which sat on the edge of town.  Many of the St. Cloud schools did have some improved facilities over the private Catholic high school I attended.  

But when we went to Becker, the major contributor to their school district was known then as "Northern States Power" or NSP - the power company.  Who had just finished and was running a new nuclear power plant, which brought with it the high-paying engineering jobs keeping that plant going, plus a lot of other benefits.  Including the nursery and tomato farm which was working it's way up to becoming one of the most productive tomato providers, still today.  When I worked in retail, we ended up getting a lot of tomatoes from local growers - which was great in the winter time.  It also helped keep prices low.

What was absolutely amazing was for some reason we had the opportunity to visit and tour their school theater.  If my memory serves me well (sometimes it doesn't), their theater was known then as state of the art, mostly because they had managed to somehow acquire a sound and light package which had been removed from the local giant, the Guthrie Theater, in Minneapolis, when they upgraded their systems.  

So what this high school had was a Broadway caliber light and sound system for a high school theater.  I had just finished my first, and only, high school theater experience, as a light crew member for our production of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" in our slowly collapsing theater.

The building was built in the early 1900s, and was still considered "new" when my father had attended the same school, graduating some 39 years before.  We saw a crack through the interior and exterior walls in a backstage area that saw the back portion of the building beginning to separate from the front, looking to slide down the slope to the river, eventually, were it allowed to descend some 120 or so feet to the street below, then another block to the river.

Our electrical connections to our lighting were what I then considered frightening.  Today, I am certain that kids aren't allowed to mess with the electrical connections we had.  Our lighting booth consisted of two consoles, one for lighting, and one for audio.  The built-in audio system permitted three channels of "backstage" communication, and connections in the orchestra pit area, backstage left and right at the floor level, with a third in an above-stage hatch which could only be reached by crawling through a hatch in the booth, across the ceiling of the auditorium, all the way to the stage, where a person could lean out, and as my classmate did, he nightly caught a ball as one of the characters mused on inevitability, comparing it to gravity as he tossed a ball which returned to his hands, when suddenly it didn't.  Additional connections on the theater main floor were at the very front of the stage which was used during rehearsals, and not much more any other time, and two connections at the back of the house on the main floor.  We had four connections in the booth, one connection in the "ready room" behind the booth, three across the front of the balcony where the booth was located for additional spotlights, and a fourth connection at the back of the balcony.

The light board consisted of three banks of six sliding rheostat switches, that drove the lights from about 5% to 100% power.  These were connected via a patch panel immediately behind the sliders, where we would use these plug connectors to link the sliders on one side of the panel with various outlets, where the lights plugged in, over the stage.  So we were regularly dealing with live electrical connections, regularly having to change these connections mid-show to handle the lighting needs.

In Becker, the patch panel was non-existent.  Their booth used wireless communications, as did the entire house, and many of their stage lights were motorized, so they could adjust the focus, color, brightness, and even sweep the light across the stage using both joysticks and early computer control.  We were extremely jealous.

A while ago, while my children were just beginning their school years, the State decided to adjust things so that the money schools had was determined equally, across the board, by the number of enrolled students.  So all school districts were primarily funded by the state, not by the individual districts.  Which is some of where the money goes.  As does some of the property taxes.

But getting back to the core here, Jensen wants to eliminate the state income tax, and reduce the funding provided to schools.  Clearly, he's not aware that education is often the biggest advantage we have over other states, as many employers who come here or begin here site the highly educated workforce as a primary draw.  Lack of school funding, up and down the line, will depress business desire to come and remain here, and our overall quality of life will drop further.

Especially so as Jensen is proposing to change the primary source of revenue for the state from income tax to sales tax.  Meaning that he will tax all food and clothing, no exceptions.  While this is concerning to me, it must be horrifying to farmers who might end up having to pay taxes on the feed they need for their animals, which would fall under Jensen's tax proposal inevitably, when the farmers fall victim to the inevitable shortfall of funding, because the state requires that each year's budget be absolutely balanced.  Given that recent years have had surpluses in the revenue, permitting reinvestment into things like failing bridges, Jensen obviously doesn't believe in maintaining what it is we have.  

And when his tax proposal were to go into effect, rich people like him would benefit spectacularly.  He doesn't buy a whole lot of food for himself, so I get that.  Families - larger families - will find a much larger percentage of their income going to sales tax, since it would end up having to go up as well.  So when the average family food budget gets clobbered by a gigantic tax increase, requiring a 15% tax rate on food, you can see where it's going to go.

Let's not forget the inevitable taxation on school lunches.  Portions and quality would have to drop because Jensen would reduce overall school funding, driving up class sizes, driving even more teachers out of the field, and insuring more children will end up in poverty as their failed education would leave them no other option than to turn to crime.  Which Jensen will undoubtedly flounder to supress as his revenues would be so reduced, he'd be unable to support adequate funding for the state patrol who do assist in many local crime investigations.  It would destroy funding for the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension - or the BCA - that does a lot of testing and scientific investigation that many local departments cannot afford.  

So I guess the bottom line here is that while Jensen and Birk are attempting to scare voters because their ads are claiming that the crime wave is the current Governor's fault, the bottom line is that a vote for them is undoubtedly a vote for a lower standard of living, higher crime, and a much bleaker future than we have now.  Because he also intends to ban abortions statewide, which has the consequence of banning any medical procedure or medication, and there are many, which could cause an unintended miscarriage.  So a vote for a doctor is a vote for a less safe, less healthy, and less well off state.

Guess I'm just the paranoid screaming in the wilderness, but mark my words.  If Jensen is elected, we're just plain screwed. I used to think that elections were between a good choice and a... slightly less acceptable choice.  These days, it's become apparent that the wing nuts are running the system, come to the Reprobate - er, Republican side of the aisle.  Would that mature adults could replace the wailing whining idiots who currently sway the candidates into wacky world.  Sounds like we may all end up joining them.  God help us, and the United States of America, if that happens.