Say Anything Blog

I had to chuckle at the Fargo Forum’s response to North Dakota’s Americans For Prosperity chapters announced intention to put an income tax cut on the next ballot, as well as the reaction at Bismarck Dems to that reaction.

First, check out Bismarck Dems.  The level of snide liberal arrogance is...astounding.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone get quite so upset at the idea of leaving more money in the pockets of citizens.  The immediate leap in logic from “income tax cut” to “income tax cut for millionaire oil fortune heirs” is undoubtedly some sort of world record.

Second, the Forum:

An income tax cut initiated measure proposed for the 2008 North Dakota ballot suggests its sponsors have little or no faith in the reliably conservative, no-new-taxes Legislature. Given the Legislature’s record regarding state taxes since 1989, the tax measure seems unnecessary.

An out-of-state organization with an in-state sounding name – Prosperity for North Dakotans – is behind the initiated measure. The state director of the group is Duane Sand, who seems to be spending more time in the state than in the past. North Dakotans will remember Sand as a twice unsuccessful Republican candidate for federal office – once for the U.S. Senate and once for the U.S. House. He lost both times in what can be charitably characterized as landslides for Sen. Kent Conrad and Rep. Earl Pomeroy. . . .

A sensible, thoughtful approach to tax policy by North Dakota lawmakers is better than a one-size-fits-all ideological straitjacket from an out-of-state special-interest group.

An almost-as-snide response from the reliably liberal Fargo Forum. 

It’s funny that the Forum sees a problem with groups like AFP having out of state ties, yet is entirely silent on the state’s congressional Delegation - Pomeroy, Dorgan and Conrad - getting the majority of their contributions from out-of-state interests.  Conrad and Dorgan each get more than 90% of their campaign contributions from out-of-state interests, and neither of them even own a real home in the state any more.

I’m all for being concerned about out-of-state interests trying to influence North Dakota policy, but it seems more than a little biased to hold a group like AFP responsible on that issue but not our elected congressional delegation.  Besides, Duane Sand is a North Dakotan (even if he has spent some time out of the state as the Forum points out), all of the workers at the chapter are North Dakotans and the group has the backing of popular former governor Ed Schafer.

I also had to laugh out loud when the Forum called our state’s legislature “reliably conservative.” Going into the last legislative session our state had a half a billion dollar budget surplus.  Coming out we had no surplus at all.  There’s nothing conservative about that kind of spending growth.  Of course, the Forum also called Governor Hoeven’s last budget “appropriately conservative” despite the fact that it increased spending $580,528,644 ($320 million over and above what was requested by the various state agencies), a 24% hike. 

So maybe the Forum doesn’t even know what “conservative” means.