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College Democrats President Tyler Petersen and College Republicans Public Relations Coordinator John Hofmeister join TommieMedia reporter Zach Pagano to talk about how they are rallying support for their candidates.
Nice discussion. Several observations:
1) Whenever I hear someone citing the number of jobs created, saved, or lost over a particular period of time, I conclude he/she is tap dancing. The calculation of such statistics is dubious, and they usually fail to incorporate other inconvenient but informative statistics (e.g. the unemployment rate).
2) Since Dayton plans to issue more debt (via a bonding bill) to finance a significant portion of the budget shortfall, I’m forced to conclude that he too is “kicking the can”- relying on short term solutions not unlike deferred school payments the legislature used in the last session. Raising taxes will not solve our budget problems either since health and education costs will almost certainly continue to outpace tax revenues in the long run. Therefore, significant cuts must be made.
3) No candidate has been terribly forthcoming about what cuts would be made. This should be the center of the gubernatorial debate, not public service records, the level of a candidate’s folksiness, etc. Who cares about job creation if a government incessantly heaps debt onto its citizens anyway?