Some of them are mentioned in an article at the Olmsted GOP’s site.

Seeing politicians stumble around answers and hide behind special interest groups is not a new thing.  It’s the old political “two-step”, saying one thing back home and voting another in Washington. While we as constituents should have known first and face to face, the political reality is that Walz’s position comes at odds with the district.  When that happens, you do the Walz Waltz: let someone else be the messenger and hope the voters forget.

It should come as no surprise that Congressman Walz is once again voting against southern Minnesota.  His political cues are clear and his desire to increase government will not be tamed.  This desire was most recently highlighted when Walz proclaimed his openness to a “soda-pop tax” (Rochester Post-Bulletin, Oct. 8, 2009).  Congressman Walz can’t find a tax he doesn’t like.

This was most revealing in his support of the Cap and Trade bill, aptly named the “energy tax”.  Independent projections keep rising, most recently pricing cap and trade as a $2,000 annual tax hike for the average family.  [Walz has claimed the cost is $175 per family per year but that CBO number is for managing the program, not the economic costs of living with it.] But our farm families in the First District are not considered “average”.  Even though they produce green fields and green energy, farmers will be taxed more for the energy used to plant and grow the world’s food supply.

Farmers are not the only ones seeing greater working challenges with each of Tim Walz’s votes.  Walz’s support of the so called “card check” affords that union leverage efforts on employees when asked to vote on unionization.  In the card check scheme, union bosses have more rights in looking over the shoulders of employees, so how many votes will be cast out of intimidation?

The freedom to let your vote truly be your own at the work place is disappearing, and we see Washington taking more and more control.  Tim Walz’s pop tax is the first example of the negative effects from the public option.  It has not even become law and politicians are already talking about taxing our food in the interest of health care.

My question is: what won’t be done in the interest of health care?  While Walz’s office would never give us a straight answer, his voting record speaks for itself.

Support for the public option really means government run health care.  This is a position opposed by almost everyone in the First District.  The Mayo Clinic, highlighted by President Obama as an example of quality and cost efficiency, is opposed to government run health care.  Our Minnesota Hospitals oppose it.  Most doctors say no to socialized medicine.  Our farmers and small business people also agree, Walz should stop waltzing and quit doing the old political two-step.

Even though the election is still a year away, I am confident that southern Minnesota will remember Tim Walz’s voting against their interests.  Families will remember Walz when they are paying a $2,000 energy tax so they can drive to work and heat their homes.  Our neighbors will remember Walz when they go to work and a Chicago-style union boss is standing over them to make sure they vote “the right way” on a union issue.  And, when America goes broke on the public option, and the government is entitled to intervene in every aspect of our personal lives, we all will remember Tim Walz.

It may be wise for Congressman Walz to be open to a ginkgo biloba tax instead of a pop tax.

Steve Perkins
Luverne, MN
507.920.3532

Mr.Perkins is the former Mayor of Pipestone and the Chair of the First Congressional District Republican Party of Minnesota.

Calgary ophthalmologists say waiting times for cataract surgeries in the city have skyrocketed since the cash-strapped Alberta superboard slashed the number of the  procedures it purchased this year. One major clinic  said the number of cataract patients on its waiting list doubled to 2,290 from

1,124 six months ago. A second facility said delays were growing so long it had to cancel all mild and moderate cataract cases and is now concentrating only on nearly blind patients. The growing wait times follow Alberta Health Services’ decision to buy about 2,000 fewer local cataract surgeries in 2008-09 compared to the previous year in an effort to cut costs.

In Calgary, the public health system does not perform cataract operations, instead contracting out the procedure to surgeons at private clinics. In recent years, the former Calgary Health Region paid for additional cataract surgeries at the private clinics–beyond the surgeons’ regular quota –in a bid to cut waiting lists. But  the practice required the health authority, which has since been replaced by the superboard, to spend over its budget. This year, in the face of a $500 million deficit and a smaller than usual increase in its operating budget, Alberta Health Services said it would stick to its budget for cataract surgeries. The superboard estimates it bought about 8,500 of the procedures in 2008-09 — a significant drop from 10,340 the year before. The decision to buy fewer cataract surgeries is not the only cost-cutting measure at the superboard.  In addition, there are new tight restrictions on hiring health workers as well as foot surgeries.

– adapted (by MoSEPS) from Calgary Herald, May 20, 2009, “Wait times soar for cataract  surgery in Calgary.”

Leigh Pomeroy’s April 4 letter blaming the Republican Party for the current financial mess largely misses the mark. I certainly have no illusions of innocence for the Republican leadership, but they are nowhere near wholly responsible, as Pomeroy surmises. The partisan blame game distracts us from the underlying issues.

The economic meltdown has been brewing for decades, not years, and while its direct causes are numerous, they not difficult to see once you begin to look in the right places.

The root cause is the failure of Americans to read and understand why the Founders established our republic the way they did, and our similar failure to vote for leaders who uphold the principles enshrined in our Constitution.

This venerable document is treated by most of our elected officials as little more than a historical curiosity, but if we want to persist as a free nation we must heed its words. It is a rule book for our government, but they haven’t been following the rules. Now we are paying the price in lost liberty and a crumbling economy; the road to our current financial hell was paved with good intentions.

Pomeroy is correct to be wary of our government’s actions to get us out of this mess. They are guaranteed to fail and will likely relegate the United States to an economic backwater for a decade or more.

I suggest that we look for answers to the people who saw this coming, rather than to those who proclaimed our economy to be strong right up until the moment it fell apart. Fortunately for us non-economists, the answers are not complicated. Read Tom Woods’s new bestseller “Meltdown”, watch Peter Schiff videos on YouTube, or peruse Mises.org.

Whatever happened to the America where government would not interfere with our lives and livelihoods unless we encroached on others’ liberty and property? Where we had the prudence to save for our own homes, health care, and education? Where we went to our families, churches, and charities for help in time of need, rather than asking government to extract it anonymously and forcibly from our neighbors?

What happened to the America where taxes were recognized as taxes, despite the many clever labels attached to them? Where we understood that the rich are the owners of the stores, factories, and offices where we work, and that voting an ever-larger “fair share” out of their pockets is a good way to get them to move away and take our jobs with them?

What happened to the America where businesses and banks that made too many mistakes cleared themselves away to make room for better ones to grow? Where hard work and entrepreneurial vigor were more profitable than political connections and lobbying groups? Where the Treasury actually contained treasure and the Federal Reserve didn’t conjure trillions of dollars without even the courtesy to tell us who got the money?

What happened to the America where state legislatures didn’t bow to the Federal government’s every demand under the threat of losing funds? Where the states asserted their Constitutional right to be different from each other, and upheld their Constitutional duty to keep the Federal government from growing too powerful?

Government must be restrained if Liberty is to be retained.

This Letter to the Editor was published in the July 4, 2009 issue of the Lake Region Times.