Friday, May 11, 2007

72% of Minnesotans support raising taxes on someone else to give themselves money 

Faye Olsen, 69, of Duluth is one of the 625 likely voters contacted earlier this week for the poll. Olsen, who's retired, is a Democrat. She says she supports raising income taxes on Minnesota's top earners to pay for both education and property tax relief. Olsen says she's on a fixed income of $900 a month and would welcome any efforts to reduce her property taxes.

"My taxes are about $700 a year," she said. "There just isn't the money coming out of people's pockets. They just don't have the money and the taxes just keep going up and up and up. It just gets to a point that you think that's it and it might be cheaper to rent."

Of course, this woman under those terms would not pay property taxes if her number is true, since she would qualify for the property tax refund. But don't let that stand in the way of a good story from taxpayer-supported radio. This is patently absurd, and when the money doesn't materialize because the rich changed their timing of collecting income or just moved away, what will they do? Raise taxes again?

My favorite question from the poll:

If the state had a surplus, which one of the following taxes would you most support cutting?
If??? It does!!
I know, what should we expect from an MPR poll?

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