Letter: LGA is not welfare

Talk about it

On his June 19 radio program, Gov. Tim Pawlenty said that Local Government Aid (LGA) is a “municipal welfare system.” This is both mean-spirited and wrong.

LGA is not welfare by any stretch. LGA provides a way to ensure through income taxes and state sales tax that all Minnesotans share a basic quality of life, regardless of where they live.

Perhaps the governor would like to come down to southern Minnesota and tell our firefighters, sheriff’s deputies, police officers, school teachers, and librarians that he is justified in cutting the funding for their jobs because they are just “municipal welfare” recipients. My guess is that they’d disagree.

Tags: opinion, letters, timpawlenty, tim, pawlenty, localgovernmentaid, lga