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State Representative Tom Hackbarth
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-2439
For more information contact: Austin Bleess 651-296-5529
NEWS COLUMN
DO NOT MAX THE CREDIT CARD
By Tom Hackbarth
State Representative
That’s the first thing you will hear when you ask a financial advisor for advice. If it’s good advice for our families then it’s good advice for our state. That is why I voted against the bonding bill recently, because it not only maxed out the state’s credit card it went over the recommended limit.
Now there were some important pieces in the bonding bill. I fully support using state bonds to make sure families have clean drinking water, to ensure public safety, and to promote education. Those things are necessities. However, the bonding bill is chalk full of things that our state simply does not need.
The bill spends too much money on ice arenas and mass transit. It puts too much money into projects that do not benefit the entire state. State bonding dollars should not be used to benefit a small group of people, but to benefit the entire state. Pork projects have long been a discussion on the federal level. They are filtering they way down to the state level.
Minnesota does not need to go the way of the beast that is Washington. We need to rise above the fray and the pork. We should not be buying votes or giving preferential treatment to certain areas of the state. Let’s treat every Minnesotan on the same level.
We can fix our roads and bridges. We can make sure criminals stay behind bars. We can keep our families safe. We can make sure our communities remain family friendly. After all, these are the responsibilities of the government.
That’s why I, along with my House Republican Colleagues, pushed to have the bill focus on priorities. By focusing on priorities we can have a bill that funds what the state truly needs. The needs of our state should come before the wants. Just as in our family budgets we have to spend the money on the necessities before the wants. The Legislature needs to get back to the priorities of our state.
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