Letter to the editor: Legislature has too much money at its disposal

I don’t know about the rest of you, but whenever there is a super majority in the North Dakota Legislature the atmosphere and basic philosophies go right down the toilet. Examples would be the House approval to buy a skiing lodge and speeding charges based on another state’s fines. In the Senate we seem to have an ongoing or continuing resolution just in case we have to buy out the higher ed chancellor. But it’s just with the funny money from the taxpayer.

Couple that with money stacked in the hallways we have a race to see who can spend it all. The higher ed supporters go off in the corner and pout “because they never get enough money,” human services supporters have established another constituency that desperately needs millions more in tax dollars, local political subdivisions want all the property tax relief they can get because it opens the flood gates at the other end with enough ill-gotten money to build roads to heaven, and if you tripled the salary for the teachers and North Dakota Education Association members they would still find some school district in Arabia that paid their teachers more.

The key to this is to shut the money off because it is the root of most political evil in North Dakota. Old legislators will tell you it is easier to do their job when the money is tight and the odds are close to even — REPUBS to DEMOS. When taxpayer money is in excess you have normally responsible legislators imply “You vote for my cock-a-meme idea and I’ll vote for yours.” Taxes and government are like oats and horses; if you feed the horse too many oats he just gets fat and lazy and lays around. If you feed him too little the horse weakens and has a hard time doing the expected job. The key is to feed the horse just enough. It’s better for the horse and better for whoever has to raise the oats.

Tags: north dakota legislature, opinion, letters