Letter to the Editor: Money the root of most political evil

Talk about it

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 goes 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 NDEA 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 Dems.

When taxpayer money is in excess, you have normally responsible legislators imply “you vote for my cockamamie 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.

Leon L Mallberg,

Dickinson

Tags: opinion