Readers write for Saturday, May 15

Since the Democrats don't seem to be able to get this point across, and are instead being clubbed in the media and on opinion pages, I am making this effort on their behalf: Just once, I'd like our antitax friends to specify exactly where they want the state to cut its budget, and exactly which expenditures they consider wasteful, luxurious or socialist.

Does the antitax crowd want the state to stop funding public elementary and high school education? Do these folks want their children to have to give up an affordable education at the University of Minnesota, or in the community, technical and state university system? Do they want the state to stop providing services to veterans? How about senior citizens? Do they want the state to close some of the prisons and release the inmates? Do they want to lay off police officers, state patrol officers or firefighters?

Perhaps our antitax friends don't want an ambulance and sometimes a fire company pulling up outside their home to provide emergency medical care in the middle of the night. Or maybe they want the courts to close them down?

Are our friends from the southwest suburbs willing to give up the expansion of Hwy. 212 to four lanes? Are they going to promise not to use the reconstructed junction of the Crosstown Hwy. 62 and Interstate 35W when it is finished? Are our friends from the northwest suburbs willing to give up the completion of Hwy. 610?

Just where does the antitax crowd get the idea that Minnesota is living beyond its means and making frivolous expenditures for things that are not essential? More than three-quarters of the state's expenditures are for just a few items: education, veterans' care and public safety.

Anyone who really thinks that this budget crisis is the result of taking care of needy people or is the result of paying for General Assistance Medical Care is seriously misinformed.

The fact is that state taxes are lower than they were in 1998 and have not been increased to keep up with the increasing costs of everything in society, including the cost of government services. Doesn't milk cost more today than it did in 1998? The budget compromise of the summer of 2001, concerning state and local taxes, has not been kept. And, as state expenditures are cut, local school and property taxes have gone through the roof, because someone has to pay for the schools, streets, police and fire companies that we all depend on and use.

PETER W. GORMAN, MINNEAPOLIS

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Let's see: The governor vetoed a state income tax increase for the higher-income brackets, so now the Star Tribune favors expanding the sales tax to include clothing and other exempt items with a credit back to low-income people. But since that idea probably will get vetoed, too, let's raise the cigarette tax another buck a pack, or the alcohol tax, since Minnesota has one of the lowest taxes on wine. The governor might go along with those if they're disguised as some type of fee instead of a tax increase.

How about instead we emulate the private sector and individual family budgets? When there isn't enough money in the till to pay for everything we want to buy, we cut back on what we buy to match what we can afford.

How will raising taxes help provide more jobs and speed the end of the recession? Won't it have the opposite effect?

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Minnesota's budget deficit is in great part due to tax cuts that were not justified when Gov. Tim Pawlenty was a leader in the Minnesota House. The rainy day fund was depleted, and there is just plain insufficient revenue for any economic conditions except the peak of a boom cycle. Those who asked how much tax-cutting is enough were ignored.

Now a budget that closes the gap with 85 percent budget reductions and 15 percent tax increases on families with incomes over $200,000 is called nonsensical by the very same guy who caused the deficits.

What's nonsense is that when he went to the University of Minnesota, he received strong state financial support. Now he wants to cut that support for the next generation. Those of us who paid taxes to support his education were glad to do so.

Find a compromise that is not made up of 100 percent budget cuts, which would only shift the burden to property and sales taxes.

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Why does the fix for Minnesota's budget woes always include tax increases from the DFL?

From 1960 to 2009, the state's average biennial budget has increased by 19 percent. Under the Pawlenty administration, the average has been 9.1 percent.

When will Minnesotans come to the realization that our rate of spending, coupled with ongoing increases, is unsustainable?

Yet, article after article has someone lobbying not to cut this or that state-sponsored program. Then I read what the Metropolitan Library Service Agency recently paid author Neil Gaiman ("One author: $45,000 for an afternoon," May 7). Gaiman's payment was described as "extra state funding for the arts and cultural heritage projects."

BOB JACKSON, ROSEMOUNT

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Budget suggestions I have not heard:

1)Eliminate legislators' per-diem pay.

2) Cut the size of the Legislature in half.