Letters to the editor for Tuesday, March 11

I'm having a hard time seeing the sense in the governor's proposal to cut the sales tax as an "economic stimulus" (Star Tribune, March 8).

I was at Target recently. A fairly typical shopping run. The bill totaled $44.08. The tax was $2.87. By my calculation, the governor's proposal would have saved me 6 cents.

If I spent the same amount at Target every day (which I do not) for a year, my tax savings would total $21.90. Personally, that doesn't sound too stimulating.

Let's call the proposed tax cut what it is -- more political gamesmanship.

JIM HANTON, ARDEN HILLS

Imagine a place where your own people would punish you for doing the right thing. Imagine a state that denounces you for having your own opinions. Imagine a party that fails to support you after years and years of loyalty. Oh yeah, that's the Republican Party, which just punished members of its own caucus for doing the right thing and supporting the override of Gov. Tim Pawlenty's veto of the transportation bill.

Thank goodness these six members have the courage to have their own thoughts. It's just too bad the Republican Party is so partisan. It punishes its elected officials who vote their conscience rather than blindly vote the party line.

SARAH KYLLONEN, ST. PAUL

Erhardt's reasoning In the March 9 article "3 Republicans who overrode veto lose party endorsement," Rep. Ron Erhardt commented that "I can't let 123 people decide my fate. They don't represent the district."

I wonder if he would have similarly dismissed the opinions of the conventiongoers had they chosen to endorse him.

NORANN DILLON, PLYMOUTH

No legislative lock step It's a sad commentary that the Republican Party decided against endorsing Rep. Ron Erhardt because of his vote to override the governor's veto of the transportation bill.

Erhardt sent questionnaires to his constituents to get their feedback on issues to help him guide his voting. Just because one of his votes didn't follow the party platform doesn't mean he is a poor legislator. I'm a moderate Republican and I don't remember Jim Ramstad losing his endorsement when he voted across party lines; I respected that he had the courage to do that. I'm tired of partisan bickering, of the polarization of the extremes, and of both parties failing to seek middle ground and consensus.

DAVE PRICE, EDINA

I may be naïve, but I was under the impression that even if a billion-dollar transit investment doesn't accomplish anything new, at the very least it won't make things worse. The current plans to reroute all the traffic on a major artery through the University of Minnesota make even less sense when we consider what the Central Corridor is supposed to accomplish.

Essentially, we lay tracks down on top of an existing bus route, spread the stops out a little bit and provide no parking. The university has countered with an even more absurd proposal to throw the daily buses off of Washington Avenue as well, giving little indication of where it plans to put the heavily utilized campus shuttles that traverse the bridge every five minutes.

I see little value in spending nearly $1 billion to make a vital road less useful to everyone.

The State High School Hockey Tournament has been so watered down that it barely holds any meaning anymore.

The argument for having two divisions in the tourney and no real state champion has something to do with small schools not having a good chance to go to state when compared with big schools. Well, whatever happened to the story of the underdog? Now instead of inspiring story lines where small schools upset the big powerhouses, we have two separate tournaments in which there is no room for David vs. Goliath and only room for boring.

Even with two meaningless tournaments, a vast majority of high school teams will never see the light of day in the show(s), or at the very most will do so rarely. When was the last time Hopkins or Wayzata went to the tournament? These are big schools that never seem to have the right combination of talent and work ethic. Should we create a third bracket for the big schools that never get past sectionals and a fourth for schools that finish last place only?

Regardless of how many divisions or classes the tournament is divided into, there will be teams that are left out every year. Instead of giving nobody the right to claim glory as The State Champions, why not put everybody in the same league and make the tournament interesting again? You can still have 16 teams, and the teams that dominate every year in 1A, and even the teams that don't, will have the same chance as everyone else in the state to take home that glory.

Leif Peterson, Minnetonka

Clinton was the First Lady. Does this mean Laura Bush also has more experience than Obama? Barbara Bush? Nancy Reagan?