Pawlenty Calls for Overhaul of Tax Code

This is great.

In the aftermath of the passage of the biggest tax increase in Minnesota history (over his veto), Governor Pawlenty is calling for fundamental change in the way we collect taxes in the state of Minnesota.

All too often, our tax and spending priorities are completely backwards.

• We tax productivity to spend on idleness.
• We avoid user fees for non-essential government services, and increase taxes to spend on services the taxpayers will never use.
• We say we can't afford to do the things Government is supposed to do, and turn around and spend millions on a host of programs Government should never touch.
  
• We concoct and convolute spending formulas that are constantly amended and virtually never evaluated.

What a breath of fresh air that Governor Pawlenty is going to address this.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty is creating a tax reform commission that will aim to update the state's tax code.

In a statement, Pawlenty called the current system of taxation outdated and said reworking it would improve Minnesota's competitive position with other states and countries.

In his executive order on Friday, Pawlenty mandated the commission and called for changes to the tax code that will promote long-term economic prosperity. (Click on Excerpt to see article in its entirety)

Minnesota is one of the highest taxed states in the country, and Minnesotans generally have become quite adverse to the overly burdensome and questionably effective tax and spend policies of our government.

I contend that if the GOP brand hadn't been tainted in DC by excessive spending and scandal over the past few years, the GOP in Minnesota would be dominating elections in large part because of the punitive taxation and escalating and esoteric (and not in a good way) spending by state government here.

Governor Pawlenty has taken on this problem step by step in a very prudent way. He solved the largest per capita budget deficit in the nation a few years back without raising taxes. He has wielded his veto pen like Lancelot.

And now he is going to take a major overhaul of the whole code right to the people (the people who reelected him in the worst Republican year in a generation).

Thanks Governor for your vision and foresight!