The new Minneapolis budget is out, and everyone hates it. That's natural; there has never been a mayor who has said, "This budget cuts taxes, raises spending, hires cops, cuts fees, expands inspection, makes Tootsie Rolls shower from the sky on alternate Thursdays, and both reduces the size of government and enlarges it by cloning 405 employees who will share the same health and pension plans." Even then someone would complain about the colors on the PowerPoint presentation.
A bright idea: Minneapolis fee will light up the streets
It's hard to step back and see the whole picture, unless they unveil the budget at an IMAX theater. Everyone's looking for their one Pet Cause. Personally, I think we should construct a 900-foot-tall Pillsbury Doughboy statue with a searchlight in his hat, and even if I then found the big picture I'd complain that they didn't fund a finger that poked the Doughboy in the stomach and made him giggle at the top of the hour.
I didn't get it this year, so the budget is another disappointment. But one item popped out: a "streetlight fee" for "operating and maintaining" streetlights. Apparently this was done for free by helpful elves before; now we have to pay. Residents probably will pay about $20 per year.
Will lights still go off for no good reason? Occasionally the light down the block shuts itself off early, as if it thinks no one's watching. Ahh, there's nothing going on. I'm going to knock off early. A fee to keep the lights on is preferable to coin-operated lights that make people run out to feed the meter every hour -- especially if they start ticketing for "avoidable gloom" -- but it's one of those things we thought we were already paying for.
In this spirit, may we propose some additional revenue sources: a $17 "Perpendicularity fee" to ensure stop signs stand straight up; a $4 "gravity continuance fee" to ensure people don't float up in the air while walking on sidewalks, and $3.21 "Post-renal processing charge" for handling the liquids we drink. As long as they don't charge a "photon consumption levy" for looking at the streetlights, we'll suck it up.
The $9.89 Sucking It Up fee will be waived, but you'll have to declare it on your taxes as income.
jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 More daily at www.startribune.com/buzz