[Mpls] Renaming Olson Highway to Reagan Highway - how is this a taxes issue?

[Eva Young]

The Taxpayer's League sat back and didn't do anything about the most 
imminent tax increase for Minneapolis - and that is a sales tax increase to 
pay for stadiums.  I was at the hearing when Linda Higgins' committee was 
considering state funding/financing of the Twins and Vikings 
Stadium.  David Strom and Linda Runbeck of the Taxpayer's League were 
conspictuous by their absence.

Gotta hand it to the Taxpayer's League.  They are good at getting their 
goofy ideas covered in the media.

The latest, that Minnesota should move beyond the legacy of Olson, a 
Depression-era figure who embraced socialism, and honor "the president who 
utterly defeated communism."  The league also wants to tear down statues of 
Olson along the highway and at the State Capitol and erect monuments to 
Reagan, the Republican president from 1981 to 1989.  According to Conrad 
Defabre's article in the Strib:

David Strom, president of the Taxpayers League, acknowledged "a bit of 
tongue-in-cheek" in the petition drive but also said key ideological values 
are at stake.
"It is finally time to put official celebration of socialism and communism 
firmly in the past," he said. "Floyd B. Olson represents the failed path of 
socialism. It is ridiculous that we still celebrate his vision while not 
properly honoring Reagan's visionary leadership that liberated so many."

http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/4950511.html

Now the Taxpayer's League proposes changing the name of the Floyd B Olson 
Memorial Highway to Reagan Highway and tearing town Olson statues at the 
state capitol and replacing them with non-Minnesotan Ronald Reagan.  Now I 
can think of many ways to honor the memory of Ronald Reagan.  Eliminating 
Minnesota History from Highway names isn't one of them.

Nick Coleman has an excellent column on this topic today in the Star Tribune:

http://www.startribune.com/stories/357/4964378.html

 From the column:

"He turned the state toward a more progressive track," says Russell 
Fridley, the former director of the Minnesota Historical Society who has 
been working for years on writing a biography of Olson. "And what people 
forget is that it was liberal Republicans who carried his reforms onward, 
right through Harold LeVander [governor in the late 1960s]."

At a time when school systems and counties were going bankrupt, Olson 
cajoled leaders of all parties to pass the state income tax. He declared a 
moratorium on farm foreclosures, passed laws giving rights to unions and 
protection for natural resources, and talked a conservative state Senate 
into providing relief to those in need. With the force of his personality 
and relentless political efforts, he gave people a reason during a time of 
near despair to hope for better days.

"To try to get rid of his memory shows gross ignorance of the progressive 
tradition that Olson laid the basis for and from which we benefit," says 
Fridley. "It's a sad commentary on how we take for granted the important 
achievements of the Farmer-Labor period."

But it isn't just ignorance. It is hostility that drives the vandals. They 
want to tear down the Minnesota they dislike. They are radical revisionists 
short on respect for the culture of the state and long on lists of what to 
wreck next. They are eager to dismantle government while pushing for bigger 
highways. Then again, they value highways more than history. So it annoys 
them that Hwy. 55 -- the Floyd B. Olson Memorial Highway -- is named for a 
man whose achievements dwarf anything they will ever accomplish.

EY:  The whole column is well worth reading.

What bothers me about the Taxpayer's League is that often they seem to get 
off of Tax issues.  For example sponsoring a petition supporting former 
commissioner Yecke was not related to their mission.  So is 
this.  Meanwhile they are missing in action on opposing a sales tax 
increase for stadiums.  According to Dan Dobson of No Stadium Taxes, Phil 
Krinke told him that the Taxpayer's League had made a deal with Pawlenty to 
lay low on the stadium tax issue in return for Governor's support of the 
Taxpayer amendment to the constitution (modelled on the Colorado approach).

What taxpayers do the Taxpayer's League represent?  Are they a grassroots 
organization or just a media shop?

And come on - isn't Red-baiting rather old as a political tactic?


Eva Young
Near North
Minneapolis, MN
eva at usucceed.com
http://lloydletta.blogspot.com