NIMBY (via Brian Hoffman):

Raise taxes, citizens tell Senate panel (Dane Smith, March 19, 2003, Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Citizen after citizen told the Senate Taxes Committee on Tuesday evening at Northeast Middle School in Minneapolis that taxes ought to be raised on high-income families or corporations in order to balance Minnesota's $4.23 billion projected budget shortfall.

J Robert Burger, an organizer for a clerical workers union at the University of Minnesota and one of about 40 citizens who testified Tuesday, cited statistics from the Minnesota Revenue Department showing that those at the very top of the income scale pay a lower percentage of their income in state and local taxes than do middle-and low-income families. [...]

Burger's direct challenge to the Senate, which is controlled by the DFL, will be answered by the end of the month. Senate Majority Leader John Hottinger of St. Peter has set that deadline for presenting an alternative DFL budget proposal. But he says he still doesn't know whether the proposal will include a tax hike, despite increasing demands from some interest groups and citizens, such as Burger. [...]

It's no secret that DFLers at the State Capitol, already reduced to their fewest numbers and weakest position in 30 years, have been in a terrible bind over how to respond to [Governor] Pawlenty's adamant opposition to higher tax rates.

Republicans control the House by a yawning margin. Pawlenty, with his no-tax-increase campaign, beat DFLer Roger Moe and the Independence Party's Tim Penny, both of whom said that increases were "on the table."

Some DFLers note that the combined vote of three major-party candidates who had taxes on the table was larger than Pawlenty's, about 55 percent to 45 percent, but opinion polls continue to show little support for tax increases.

As Russell Long used to say, the only accepted position on taxes is: "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax the feller behind that tree." Of course, as Brian points out, the last sentence in the quoted portion pretty much contradicts the headline and first paragraph of the story. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 19, 2003 6:10 PM