Sen. Paul Wetllstone
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"1 always voted at my party 's call...:. for And I never thought of thinking myself at all. " W. S. Gilbert in H.M.S. pinafore -
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Politicians Plav The Class Card 4 Protecting The Wealthy At
counties can &sorb the 1W s
came of the top 20% of our
ofmillionsofBoIlarstheywil1 people has increased at an
Facing A Real Fut ure For Public Transportation I
~ h .,&or .,st. P ~ U thinks I it's a "dumb idea" that a firm asking for financial help from the city should be reqvaired to pay a wage at least equal to that detqrminedto be the poverty level for a family of four.
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.by BiU Smith .Now that the mainhe busses . can analysts suggesting that $,are running again and With the bps strike&en in progress Metm~obilitynmningap- shdthatthetimehadcome 'tial system, it's h e to face to"privatizenpublictramport. mdity. We have to mdke a It'spossible they didn'tknow long range plan far public that we did have a p r i m l y -.transpolration in ~ i e w t a . owned bus systein about 30 ; Weknw tbere aresomebasic years ago. The fidure of that : weds in evwy wmmun ity company to servethe an?a led ' imposed by geography, emto the formstiono f k p m e n t Fnomic realities and personal publicly owned system. It '@ysical limitationswhich can would also be interesting ,to ? see their examples of good , cd?y be served by publicly . W e d systems. We've cho- systems in other citie6 which ,ten to ignore meeting these are making money for stockneedsin my sensiMewayyear holders. Are there any?
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atbet year.
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Lr qx?entdiscussha on pub&kWs~ham, itwasquite
someone more than aQPmal. inconvenience. Debates tend to revolve around the fact that bus systems don't pay .fbi themselves. Do fkeyaysarid highway maintenance pay f a themselves?
Our governor went to washipgton to protest'the latest quirk in the Republican cuts in Medicare. He's a big supporter of these reduced payments in the form of block grants, but foundthat in building up allocations to their favorite states, they proposed cutting ~innesota'said by $524 million. His senatorial ally, Rod Grams, voted for this amendment,but later said he didn't understand it. (Just following the party line, no doubt. Why bother to read it?)
I remember when Curtis Johnson, the chairman of the Metropalitan Ceuntil, was still representing citizens and was an advocate of improved bus serviceinthe Twin Cities. I-k convinced me that good bus service was important in terms of energy con*& For some reason, we prefer to and economic d e v e m e n t , 'on fiom cri- that light rail was not cost Late in October the Mayors treat, affective because of the im- of both cities and the County s i s m z w i f i c p b Commissioners from H e m s 2'mmpmL-cam.eunp.5
doesn't seem like much. ~t isn't, either, until you m d out the bottom 20% of wage earners lost almost 1% per year for that same 20 years. Those in the middle didn't go up or down, but stayed at the same wage in general, while costs went up. Then there is this sobering fact about those Four people deserve to be at the very top. Our top 1% congratulated f ~ trying r to had average incomes in 1977 bring these issues to the peo- of $323,942. By 1989, they ple., From our Washington averaged $576,553. Those delegation, Senator Paul were big years forjunk bonds Wellstone and Representative and ruining the S&LYsbut the Bruce Vento, who have been very rich cameout way ahead. holding town meetings, explaining what Minnesota can The worst part of looklng at expect if the cuts go through. these bad events is seeing the Locatly, Senator Don lack of reaction by those who Samulsonand Representatiye are on the losingend. It seems Lee Greenfield for holding we really are turning into a committee hearings trying to two class society, rich versus figure how Minnesota can do poor. People who thought of with less. themselves as "middle class" should recognize that needIf all of this wasn't enough, I ing two jobs to make ends read a quote from the presi- mCet is not middle class. Savdent ofthe New York Federal C k s War a n t . on p. 4
ing taxes in 1996, but watch I 9 7 when the cuts become even more severe. There is no doubt taxes will goup. 1guess theirposition is theyqill bere-electedbythen, so who cares about it now, and it won't be their fault tax-' es are going up. O U ~in
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