MN Leg 2006: GOP in 42A blanked out LGA money
In 2004, several first-time candidates won seats in the Minnesota Legislature by running positive grassroots-driven campaigns. One of the closest victories of the ‘04 freshman class was Maria Ruud - she beat a Republican incumbent in a GOP district by a mere 239 votes.
The GOP knows they can’t run a smear campaign against Ruud’s character - too many residents in 42A know her personally as a result of her excellent field work in 2004 (courtesy of Camp Wellstone). Instead, they have decided to blank out key facts regarding the 2003 cut to Local Government Aid (LGA) to smear Ruud’s record.
More under the fold.
The MNGOP SD42 website posts three letters from the Minnetonka Sun Sailor and the Eden Prairie News. The GOP remarks are in red with the original text. From the original letter by Maria Ruud to the Eden Prairie News: (italics added)
Minnesotans deserve a break. Under a property tax relief proposal recently unveiled, that break could be on the way soon. The plan has three key steps and uses a portion of the $337 million surplus from the 2005 fiscal year.
First, the state would provide over $118 million in Local Government Aid and Market Value Credit aid to buy-back previous cuts that led to large property tax increases and layoffs of police and firefighters.
[NOTE: What Maria Ruud doesn’t say: Not one dime of Local Government Aid (LGA) funding goes to Eden Prairie and Minnetonka. The majority of that money goes to big cities like Minneapolis and Duluth. So, what she is proposing to do is not only increase your property taxes, but increase your STATE taxes as well.]
Keep the text in italics in mind. About a month later, Bill Cullen, Ruud’s Republican opponent in November, responds with his own letter. Cullen agrees with Ruud on the principle of property tax relief, but criticizes her concrete plan. His best alternative is a vague call to halt government growth:
It is great to see Rep. Ruud recognize the need for tax relief. What a huge improvement from last session where the DFL was willing to shut down government rather than compromise on their desire to increase government by 14 percent. But we need real solutions that hold the line on government growth, not shifting taxes between income, sales and property taxes.
Cynthia Olson responds to Cullen with more facts on LGA. This time the MN GOP SD42A comments are in blue: (italics added)
To balance the budget with “no new taxes,” the state instituted steep cuts in Local Government Aid, an important mechanism for keeping property taxes low, especially in tax-base-poor communities.
[NOTE: This is very misleading. Minnetonka and Eden Prairie DO NOT receive one dime of Local Government Aid (LGA) and haven’t for a long long time. Cutting the LGA does not affect our property tax in Senate District 42.]
The state also delayed payments to local school districts, essentially creating an interest-free loan to the general fund (which will now be paid back with the projected 2006 surplus). To continue providing decent levels of service, local governments and school districts had to go to property owners to make up the difference. This was the original tax shift.
I respectfully disagree with the assertion that shifting the tax burden back to sales and income taxes is a bad idea.
“A long long time”? The MNGOP makes it sound like Eden Prairie and Minnetonka have been totally frozen out of LGA funds since the ’90’s. In fact, Eden Prairie and Minnetonka received LGA funding all the way up until 2003 - when LGA to all cities was cut. Eden Prairie and Minnetonka were set to receive $321,367. (citation here).
The bottom line: The proposals Ruud outlined would save Eden Prairie and Minnetonka $1.1 million - the GOP has no response becasue they don’t have a specific plan for property tax relief. If the GOP is confident in the superiority of its “ideas” they should tell citizens the whole truth, and leave it up to voters at the ballot box to decide. I am confident Ruud’s common sense proposals will earn her a second term in the MN House.
August 13th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Darn tootin’ they will. I’ve spoken to a lot of the major activists in the SD42 DFL, and they’re universally impressed not just with Maria’s conduct in office, but also her improvement in her public speaking and campaigning. The only way this one will be close is if Cullen’s ridiculous smears somehow A) don’t confuse voters, and B) actually stick. Recent indication are that Ruud is made of teflon on most of the major issues facing the district. If I were the SD42 GOP, I’d be more worried about Rob Boyd in the other House district.
August 13th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
[…] HD 42A: Cullen Resorting to Smearing Rep. Ruud By MNCR Noah over at Blanked Out is doing some yeoman’s work covering some pretty blatant smear tactics being employed by Bill Cullen in his Quixotic run against one of the DFL’s 2004 Freshmen All-Stars, Maria Ruud. Color me skeptical on these smears actually work - not only are they misleading uses of quotes and statistics, Cullen has to string them together in an extremely convoluted way to get his incorrect point across. Not the sort of thing that’s going to have much of a shelf life against a talented campaigner with ravenous activists behind her. This entry is filed under State House. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Leave a Reply […]
August 13th, 2006 at 10:08 pm
Bill Cullen used to frequent the Minneapolis issues list, whining endlessly about how mean the city was to him after he made huge profits there.
August 14th, 2006 at 10:38 am
A smear tactic? How can the TRUTH be a smear tactic?
First of all, 2003 was before Maria Ruud was in office. She cannot take credit for any LGA funding before 2005.
The facts are that Eden Prairie and Minnetonka got zero LGA in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. So — the statement that we got no LGA in a long, long time is 100% accurate.
The fact that there was a small amount ($172,000 in EP and $142,000 in Minnetonka) originally earmarked (but never actually received) for 2003 is a pretty weak argument for raising everyone’s taxes. Eden Prairie, for example, has a city budget of $28 million. $172,000 represents about 0.6 percent of the total budget (in other words: NOTHING!). If Maria Ruud wants to tell the voters of Eden Prairie that she is going to raise their taxes so they can receive back about $8 per household per year in LGA, let her run with it!
Meanwhile, the cities of Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth were set to receive $224,000,000 in LGA. So the statement that the big cities get the lions share of LGA funding is also 100% accurate.
The point is that Eden Prairie and Minnetonka were set to receive crumbs from the State in 2003 (and actually received zero)…and got nothing whatsoever in 2004, 2005, and 2006. And anyone who thinks we should jack up State taxes to launder the money back to cities is a fool. Eden Prairie would see NOTHING in LGA, even if the program was expanded. But you WOULD see an increase in income taxes, which would go to every other city FIRST.
August 14th, 2006 at 11:50 am
Webmaster:
You repeat several facts that are also contained in my post. That was the point: you left those facts out on your own website.
Had the above remarks been on your original posting on this issue, I would have had zero material for my argument that you are purposely leaving facts out to support your case against Ruud.
Unfortunately, your comments here include another misrepresentation.
Obviously. It’s obvious to Maria as well: she never takes credit for the pre-2003 LGA money in her letter.
If you are going to stand by your argument that rising property taxes in Minnetonka and Eden Prairie are caused by “runaway spending by schools, cities and counties” then you should direct your criticism to the school boards, city councils and county commissioners.
September 21st, 2006 at 7:58 pm
Did I miss something? When did Ruud ever say that LGA was THE solution to our property tax problem? Isn’t it time we revisit the LGA formula? Try thinking out of the box once. Perhaps surburban districts should be getting more than they have? At least Ruud asks the right questions and is trying to find ways to help our District. Would it hurt our District if we could get some LGA funding? Why do you assume everything automatically equates to a tax increase? We have to fight for our piece of the State budget and I’m glad that Ruud is trying to do what she can for our district.