I’m not sure who suckered Minnesota cities into relying on state government to fund the “big city” amenities that we couldn’t afford on our own. But you have to wonder why Moorhead would want the waste and inefficiency of big city programs anyway. Regardless, we became a slave to the state and used that money for high priority services like police & fire departments and used property taxes to expand soccer complexes and frisbee golf courses and MSUM wet labs that are bringing people to Moorhead in droves… oh, wait. They didn’t come and we’re paying the debt service on that ridiculous bet and trying to figure out how to pay police & fire staffs now that our masters have cut our allowance.

Imagine for a moment that your child is in danger of being struck by a car. I expect you would do the same as I – everything in your power to prevent that from happening. Yet WDAY’s leading story Thursday night described just such a situation in West Fargo, where a father was so concerned that his child was waiting IN the street for the bus each morning because snow covered the sidewalk on the corner. The father was so concerned about his child’s safety that he made phone calls all week until the school district moved the bus stop. It apparently never crossed his mind, nor that of the WDAY reporter or cameraman, to pick up a shovel and remove the snow himself. He just continued to let his child stand in the street until he got someone else to protect the kids.

In yesterday’s Forum, Senators Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg expained the perfectly logical plan that Washington has in store for the nation: we’re going to speed up the rate of deficits until we start reducing the debt. I had to read it twice to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. By that logic the city of Moorhead would be best served by increasing its spending until our budget shortfall is erased. Let’s hire road crews to replace all our city streets with even nicer streets with borrowed money. Then, when the crews are done with that, we’ll tear em up again and re-build them. Certainly, once we have enough debt, the city will have plenty of money to pay off the principal and interest of the infastructure cycle that must continue to infinity.

Please comment and share your thoughts!

Luther