Free Republic

Opponents of an insurance surcharge to fund police and fire pensions told state lawmakers Tuesday, March 5, that the proposal is particularly unfair to low-income Minnesotans and follows huge increases in homeowners insurance. The bill, authored by Rep. Joe Atkins, DFL-Inver Grove Heights, calls for a $5 surcharge on each homeowners and auto insurance policy as a way to provide additional revenue to pension funds for police officers and full-time and volunteer firefighters. Lawmakers on the Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement heard arguments for and against the bill during a hearing at the Capitol but delayed a vote until...

Editor's note: Reacting to a proposed tax affecting Minnesota "snowbirds," U.S. Rep. Trey Radel, a Fort Myers, Fla., Republican, sent this letter to Gov. Mark Dayton. It was published recently in the Naples Daily News.Dear Gov. Mark Dayton, I'm writing today to thank you. As a Floridian, I am overjoyed to hear about your plan to raise taxes on Minnesotans, most especially the so-called "snowbirds." Your proposal gives us a chance to shine here in the Sunshine State. We love to share southwest Florida with snowbirds from all over the country. We are proud to host or be home to...

<p>Officials working on the new Minnesota Vikings stadium said it might be difficult to meet certain employee-diversity goals.</p> <p>The stadium legislation signed by Gov. Mark Dayton this spring included goals from the state Legislature to have minority workers make up nearly a third of the labor force and for women to be 6 percent of the workforce.</p>

Being a good, Democrat-run state, Minnesota has decided to build an ObamaCare exchange, turning all healthcare rights and choices of its citizens over to the tender mercies of federal death panels and untrained, IT technicians in Washington, DC. But if anything, that’s the GOOD news for unsuspecting Minnesotans! For all information currently considered “personal” will, at the stroke of a keyboard, become known to countless bureaucracies throughout the State and federal governments. As the Citizen’s Council for Health Freedom explains it: “Buried in the text of the Minnesota Obamacare Exchange bill (MNHIX) [is] a tiny but controversial section allowing free-flow...

Gov. Mark Dayton wants to tax the sale of food, clothing, and just about everything else you buy in the worst possible way. His budget proposes a $2.1 billion, or 20.7 percent, sales tax increase. Since everyone pays sales tax, everyone will pay Dayton's sales tax increase. But it's worse than that. Dayton's tax plan violates the basic principles of tax reform. It intensifies the pain of taxation by imposing hidden taxes on intermediate business purchases. This causes "tax pyramiding," which is a big mistake. According to non-partisan legislative researchers, "Standard tax policy principles argue that intermediate business purchases should...

Spend most of the year in St. Pete, pay the government in St. Paul. You may have heard it can get cold in Minnesota in January, or for that matter in April. Last week the temperature dropped to seven below zero in the Twin Cities, which is one reason many Midwesterners head to Florida or Arizona for the winter. But now Governor Mark Dayton wants to tax the snowbirds even if they are no longer legally state residents. "There is a snowbird tax—absolutely," the Democratic Governor told reporters the other day. . . . Details are sketchy, but the idea...

WHIO-TV and The Dayton Daily News have been treating this man as a legitimate voice of reason that should be considered in the debate over whether or not rape and other crime victims should be able to buy firearms in order to protect themselves from attack. What's even worse, this isn't the first time. A search of the WHIO-TV website shows Jerome McCorry appearing in other articles advocating gun control over the past few years, and one article about an incident in which an Adam Project-sponsored rally turned violent. The Dayton Daily News has also given McCorry legitimacy, covering a...

Who -- in the sensitive, civilized Minnesota of 2013 -- could possibly be in favor of bullying? If you were short or fat in sixth grade, you may have cringed from bullies yourself. If your kids have endured bullying, you've suffered through it with them. No child should have to put up with bullying. So how could a decent person oppose a campaign at our State Capitol to prevent it? But what if the antibullying campaign now unfolding there has little to do with protecting the traditional targets of bullies: kids who are pudgy, shy or "vertically challenged"? What if...

An E.J. Brown PreK-8 School gym teacher is on paid administrative leave pending an investigation into two separate assaults of a sexual nature on two 7-year-old girls by three 7-year-old boys during gym classes. The five children involved are all second-graders. The three boys were suspended for five days before winter break in connection with the incidents that occurred on Dec. 5 and Dec. 6, Dayton Public Schools spokeswoman Jill Moberley said. The first incident happened at 12:05 p.m. Dec. 5, according to a school district incident report involving one of the 7-year-old girls. That girl reported that while in...

PUBLIC COMMENTS REQUESTED: The Minnesota Department of Commerce has issued a call for public comments on "a draft of proposed Guiding Principles for the Minnesota Health Insurance Exchange" (HIX). (see official draft below) DEADLINE: Monday, September 24, 2012 Let's deluge the Department of Commerce and Commissioner Mike Rothman with comments opposing the guiding principles of the Exchange --- which is being built under Governor Dayton's executive order. No law allows the Exchange, but the Governor doesn't care. He's happy to install the "centerpiece" of Obamacare in Minnesota at a taxpayer cost of $40 million - $80 million per year to...

Count on Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton to swim against the tide. As Republicans call for tax cuts and few Democrats advocate more government spending, Dayton says we need to pay higher taxes to meet public needs. "This unwillingness to pay taxes ... is going to be the death of this country if it's not corrected," the Democratic governor said Wednesday, Sept. 12, in a speech at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs. A leading Republican tax policymaker quickly pounced on Dayton's statement, saying tax increases would drive jobs out of Minnesota. "It's not that we're taxing too...

The recording of the 911 call from an apparently badly botched abortion last week at an abortion clinic is Dayton has been made public and the details are shocking for a woman who was victimized. A woman was rushed to the hospital in Dayton, Ohio following a botched late-term abortion that took place at the Women’s Med Center abortion clinic in Dayton. Martin Haskell, who is credit with making the partial-birth abortion procedure a household name, runs the abortion facility that injured the woman. According to local pro-life advocate who filmed emergency medical personnel rushing to the scene, paramedics loaded...

On Monday, the administration of MN Governor Mark Dayton announced a $41 million contract to "design and develop" a state health insurance exchange (HIX) - President Obama's federal takeover center, his superstructure for the nationalization of health care. National Registration System, not a "Marketplace": This is not a one-stop-shop, it's a center to register (and pay) for government-approved health insurance. Using the exchange, every person, or their employer, must register each individual's insurance status with the federal government for approval or exaction of the Obamacare tax-penalty.  The registration and IRS enforcement occurs as you purchase government-approved health insurance online through the exchange,...

<p>ST. PAUL — Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton says he's sorry he compared NFL players in trouble with the law to returning war veterans.</p> <p>The first-term Democrat apologized Thursday in a statement, saying he made a poor analogy when he used the comparison in an interview Tuesday with Minnesota Public Radio.</p>

"Idle time is the devil's play," said Dayton, describing the NFL's six-month offseason. "It means that young males who are heavily armored and heavily psyched as necessary to carry out their job are probably more susceptible to being in bars at 2 o'clock (in the morning) and having problems. It doesn't excuse it. It just says this probably comes with it."

Earlier this month General Mills came out in opposition to Minnesota's marriage amendment ballot measure. Now supporters of the proposed amendment have launched a boycott of General Mills, imploring consumers to dump their Cheerios, Yoplait, and the myriad other products the Golden Valley manufacturer makes and markets. The National Organization for Marriage said Tuesday, June 26, that it is initiating a protest of General Mills and has launched a website with an online petition in response to General Mills taking a public position on the amendment, which seeks to preserve Minnesota law that defines marriage as the union of a...

Gov. Mark Dayton will walk in the annual Twin Cities Pride parade in Minneapolis. The Sunday morning parade is the main event of the city's 40th annual gay pride celebration. Dayton marched last year as governor, and has regularly participated in pride events going back to 1981.

Minneapolis, MN – The new stadium plan for the Minnesota Vikings has received approval from the state's House of Representatives. After passing by a margin of 73-58, the proposal will next move to the state Senate. "It's the first hurdle, a couple more to go, but we're really excited," said Vikings vice president Lester Bagley.

Gov. Mark Dayton, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and DFL legislators have repeatedly said that passing a constitutional amendment requiring people to show photo ID to vote would end "same-day" voter registration. This is completely untrue. The fact is, same-day (or Election Day) voter registration would be preserved under the constitutional amendment recently passed by the Legislature and to be considered by voters this fall. Same-day voter registration is an important aspect of Minnesota's election system. In any given election, about 15 percent to 20 percent of voters will register on Election Day. The vast majority of same-day registrants show...