Free lunch beats all
To the editor:
I spent 40 years in Minnesota and now almost 7 years in Florida. What a contrast, a very blue state with a state that is turning bright red.
First of all, I recently calculated the cost of government per person in both states. The cost per person in Florida is 1/2 that of Minnesota. I heard that Florida is 40% the cost of New York state so there are worse.
What has all of this money wrought in Minnesota? Reading the St. Paul Pioneer Press this week is frightening. A pending nurses strike is scheduled for this month in the metro area. This at a time when there are nurses stretched to the limit, not even being able to take time off when their children get sick. The two big reasons for the strike are the lack of adequate staffing and money. Overwhelmed nurses cannot respond for hours sometimes to help a patient. Also, the nurses would like an increase of 22% and the hospitals are offering 14.5% over three years. Using the current inflation rate, the value of our dollar in that time will drop by over 27% so the hospitals are only offering about 1/2 the amount to stay even with inflation in a job that is urgent and understaffed.
Minnesota education has dropped significantly due to essentially closing the schools for as much as two years for some children. Taking a child that missed 4th and 5th grade and thrusting them into the 6th grade doesn’t work well but Minnesota’s education system has almost never improved. The scores are lower from year to year even though a mammoth amount of the state’s money is thrown into education.
Very alarming was an article about the conservative’s impatience with the Blue state overriding personal liberty and spending money for special interest. They are very concerned about the state slowly taking away basic freedom, even freedom of religion. For that reason, guns have been purchased to the point that sometimes it is hard to find ammunition to go deer hunting. It is no surprise that the more liberal government gets, the more guns are bought. Under Obama the market skyrocketed. Under Biden it is worse.
Crime in the cities have skyrocketed after three days of protest that destroyed 1,500 businesses. The government first tried to cut back on police and use Black Lives Matter ideas but the increase in crime and light sentencing has caused many policemen to leave and now crime has jumped in every category. Carjacking has mushroomed to 600 cars in one year. The police force is too stretched to find the criminals and the extreme left billionaires have financed the campaigns of liberal attorneys for city positions so that most of the crimes are not prosecuted and if found guilty sentences are very light, not enough to threaten any career thief.
Of course, the Blue politicians keep getting elected because so many people benefit by their largesse that they would not vote another way. Some of the benefits are for health care or food but much of it is for a free lunch, setting aside the foundational idea that made America what it is; a system that makes everyone responsible to work and make a living.
This system is in a suicide cycle meaning it will keep getting worst as it feeds itself. Ironically in the city that excels in all of the aforementioned problems, the voters re-elected those who brought this disaster. To no one’s surprise Ilhan Omar, a famous Squad member, represents Minneapolis in congress and 12 of the 13 city council members as well as the Mayor are Democrats. The 13th member belongs to the Green Party.
I hope that there will be more Floridas in America but the last election suggested that there will instead be more Minnesotas. Free lunches beat all.
John Benedict
Cape Coral