The Star Tribune published my letter re Jim Ramstad

[Eric J in MN]

This should appear in the April 18 newspaper:

Representing Paris

Republican Rep. Jim Ramstad voted to eliminate the tax for people who inherit fortunes: the estate tax.

This repeal will make Paris Hilton richer but our national debt deeper.

Can we stop calling Ramstad a moderate?

[dflprincess]

1. Good job Eric!

At the rate you get letters published, they should just give you a column!

[loveable liberal]

2. Eric rocks. Thanks Eric. I wrote a letter regarding Michele Bachmann

awhile ago and the white bear press wouldnt print it. As a matter of fact the White bear press didnt print my last letter either.

Here it is anyway, the Estate tax part is relevant:

June 27, 2004


Senator Bachmann,

I read your revolving door article in the White Bear Press and I want to express some of my own views about “your work” at the state capital. You‘re trying to blur the line between the separation of Church and State and that is irritating. Lets be honest about this. I took the time to read through the bills you’ve authored and many are saturated with religious undertones. Now admittedly, some of the legalese was completely indecipherable, but I did manage to understand a couple things.
Your authored bill (SF0976) regarding abortion. Seems to me to you’re purposely trying to make a bad situation worse, your reasons for doing this seem to be influenced by right wing Christian zealotry and those who prefer an anti-choice ideology. Doctors are forced to provide graphic images of abortions, doctors are forced to provide information on fetal pain, doctors are forced to provide specific information about methods used in aborting a pregnancy. It doesn’t stop there. It goes on to turn the doctor patient relationship into adversarial roles. If the doctor doesn’t provide the information s/he can be sued. If the patient decides to sue, the courts must provide a specific and written ruling as to why the plaintiffs name should not be made public information. It seems cruel to me. Instead of working on the front end of the problem, regardless of how the pregnancy occurred or the reason why a woman wants to end a pregnancy, you’ve decided that shame; guilt and an endless stack of paperwork are a better means to curb abortions. You are a republican (the less government intruding on peoples lives side of the fence) and your bill adds to the government bureaucracy. Seems hypocritical.
Lets also set the record straight about Cheri Yecke. She, like you, believes that religion, specifically the Christian religion, should be allowed and taught in public schools. Cheri has worked in the state of Virginia to bring Christianity into public schools (http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/1995/sept95/ersept7.html). She’s also made some crazy comments about Christopher Columbus, but I needn’t address those issues here, they are well documented elsewhere. Anybody that says that prayer isn’t allowed in public schools hasn’t recently taken a ‘pop’ algebra quiz. It wouldn’t be so bad if in civics class students are taught the principles contained in the Bible AND the Koran AND whatever it is the Hindu’s and Buddhists read, but I sense that your religious beliefs would not allow the study of anything but the one true God. Public schools are about the 3 R’s, not 4 R’s. It’s my understanding that our public school system has financial problems. It doesn’t help that our President has under-funded his education mandate. I couldn’t find anything in your authored bills addressing the issue of class size.
I’m starting to see a pattern here because I’ve also noticed you’re pushing a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (SF2715). I couldn’t help but notice on your personal Website that you’re warning your constituents “if we don’t act now, we could have legalized gay marriage in our state!” (http://www.michelebachmann.com/) I ask myself, could your bigotry come from your Christian beliefs? WWJD? If Jesus were alive today, and maybe he is who can tell, would He try and limit the liberty and freedom of a whole subset of our population? Could your want of invasive, state sponsored discrimination come from the very party that shouts ‘Less government intervention in peoples lives’? Interject ‘Hispanics’ or ‘African-Americans’ or ‘Catholics’ for ‘Gay’ in that sentence and you’d be laughed off the senate floor. You should know that the word “Gay’s” is just another word for ‘people’. Essentially, you are against ‘people’ getting married. These people just happen to be of the same sex. You never know, the inclusion of gay marriages might just bring down the percentage of marriages that fail. Half of hetero-marriages end in divorce so ’straights’ don’t necessarily have the market cornered on marital righteousness. You have no business judging how other people live their lives, and I find it embarrassing that your bigotry hasn’t been confronted.
Lets now turn to (SR1053, SR1054 and SR0150 and SR1058) and explore the basis for this work. I’m starting to think that you’ve forgotten why the Pilgrims left their homeland in the first place. The answer of course is they left their homelands in an attempt to avoid state sponsored religious persecution. As a state Senator, you’ve taken time to record and complement the longevity of two churches in your district. And, as if a whole day of each and every week isn’t enough, we need another day set aside, May 6th of each year, to recognize Prayer in Minnesota. The separation of government and Christianity becomes clouded. You should know it’s absolutely essential that the separation of Church and State remain intact. When Church and State integrate the integrity of both are compromised.
I’d like to chat a little bit about your work trying to repeal the Estate Tax (see SF 0740). From what I understand, repealing the Estate Tax benefits the heirs of very wealthy people. The Estate Tax is a needed source of revenue for the State of Minnesota, according to the analysis contained in the document called ‘The Minnesota Estate Tax after the 2001 Federal Tax Act‘. (http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/estatetx.pdf). Now correct me if I’m wrong, the estate tax does not deprive the heir’s enormous amounts of unearned money, but you’re endeavoring to make the piles of unearned income even bigger? I fail to see where the lives of Joe and June Public are improved with this legislation. For instance, take a look at table B (page 7 of the document). Mind you, this information is from 2001, but Estate taxes have gone down yearly and will continue to do so until 2010 when there will be a total phase out of Estate taxes. The total amount of estates in 2001 that were eligible to be taxed numbered 820. Of those the bottom rung was an estate valued between $650,000 and $750,000 dollars, 31 percent of the total taxable estates but only 6.1 percent of the total revenue. At a mean value of $700,000 dollars the total tax on each of these estates was $11,010.00. $700,000 and heirs get to keep $689,000 dollars? I fail to see what is unfair about that? It goes on to describe the estates worth over 3.5 million were responsible for 33.8 percent of the tax burden. Of the 820 estates eligible for taxation, 30 estates paid $15,587,097.00. An average of $519,569.00. So that means that each estate valued at more than 3.5 million, on average, the heir still got to keep 2.8 million. That’s a lot of beer. For comparisons sake I would imagine that following years there would be a similar amount of wealthy people who die. My question to you is, there are 800 to 1000 families represented yearly in your legislation regarding the Estate Tax, what are you doing for the rest of us?
Now I’d like to talk a little about being an environmentalist, which you claim on your personal website (above), and your desire to pave the state. (http://www.michelebachmann.com/press_releases /020405transportation.htm). Its time to choose one or the other. You can’t be an environmentalist while working to improve and expand roads and highways at the expense of public transportation. I used to love riding the bus to work to downtown Minneapolis. There and back I could listen to music, read the paper or even look at the faces of people stopped dead in traffic while the bus floated by on the shoulder of highway 36. If I had to choose between owning a vehicle and dependable public transportation, public transportation wins every time. Just imagine, you’d get home faster, you wouldn’t spend so much on atmosphere-polluting fossil fuels. Winter driving? Who needs it? And for those of you who work off shift like I do, we wouldn’t have to worry about some intoxicated wrong way driver at 0300 pan-caking our sedan! As added bonus, you’d be a true environmentalist.
Finally, I’d like to address SF2904 which is a bill designed to limit the lawsuits brought against aircraft museum owners. Is there someone from your district is planning on opening the most dangerous airplane museum in the state?
Sorry, I did think of one additional last thing. In your ‘Revolving Door’ article you make sure to spend a little time pointing fingers at the DFL. As far as I’m concerned, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats learned a thing from Governor Ventura’s term in office. People are sick and tired of your whining. It’s unprofessional. Stop finger pointing and start dealing with the issues. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
May whichever God you believe in bless the United States of America, land of the Free and home of the Brave.

[Eric J in MN]

3. Did you send that to a newspaper or to Michele Bachman? nt

nt

[loveable liberal]

7. I sent it to the paper. It was my very first one.

She is such a f/u and there were numerous instances where her insanity went over the top. I tried to cover a lot of them, picking just one topic would have been too hard.

[Eric J in MN]

9. As others said, it's a good essay for here, but too long

for a letter to the Star Tribune.

Four sentences is a good amount for a letter that newspaper.

[katinmn]

5. It's a great letter, LL, but too long for a LTTE

maybe they would run it as a longer opinion peice but you would need to identify it as such.

Most LTTEs are only a paragraph or two.

[MnFishhead]

6. Letters to editor should be 250 words max.

Press Publications will publish anti-Bachmann letters--they've run every one of mine. But keep it short, factual and to the point. A little humor never hurts either, and Michele Bachmann certainly is good at providing us new material.

[loveable liberal]

8. I would like more info on the airplane museum legislation.

Whats that about. Michele and Mady make quite a team. They are like a couple of 8th grade girls the way they behave. Mady is big into insurance industry legislation, which I've always found funny because she's an insurance agent.

[katinmn]

4. Good letter. Short and sweet.

[Eric J in MN]

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