Welcome Matt Dean

The Stillwater Tribune is pleased to welcome State Rep. Matt Dean to the conversation.

Dean, a Republican from Dellwood, took issue with our recent post "Minnesotans Ready For Progress, Waiting on Pawlenty."

His two cents (red is for Republican):

The Speaker as well as the Majority Leader said in the Ways and Means committee on 3-14-2007 that not one penny of the tax increase will go to k-12 or health insurance for kids. The revenue note for the tax increase shows that the tax increase will impact small business owners and farmers (more than half of folks hit) the hardest.

It is interesting that the Senate and House are both held by strong DFL majorities. All appropriations will go through the DFL chairs in both chambers, yet you act as if the republicans are still in control. It is interesting that the DFL house and senate are proposing a 6% increase in k-12 after the GOP proposed and delivered much more and were attacked for not delivering dollars to k-12.

Note to Stillwater Tribune: The DFL is in control.

It appears the representative has started his own blog, Minnesota Political Report. It has no posts at this writing, but we hope to see him get it up and running as his schedule permits.

Note: The Stillwater Tribune welcomes opposing viewpoints. Nobody who read it will ever forget Bill Prendergast's groundbreaking 2006 interview with former Taxpayers League of Minnesota leader David Strom.