The Land Of 10,000 Taxes

Egg on your face. I bet you thought I goofed up and should have written 10,000 lakes. No, I know what I'm doing. There has been a series of television commercials touting Mark Dayton for governor. In Minnesota the Dems are called the Democrat-Farm-Labor Party. Scary, isn't it? Anyway, Dayton was born in '47 in New York into an extremely wealthy family. The lad was expected to become a doctor but chose a career as a teacher in an inner city school. After awhile he tired of this and took a 'gopher' job(is this how the Minnesota Gophers got their nickname) for Senator Walter Mondale(DFL-Mn) in 1976. Sad to say but his philosophy was established permanently. You remember Mondale. Accepting the nomination as the presidential candidate in 1984 while on the convention podium he was heard to utter; "these people don't know it yet but I'm going to tax their asses off". In the event you have a short memory Mondale, running against Reagan, won one state, his own, by a mere 3700 votes. In addition, he hauled in the megatropolis of Washington D.C. Sorry, Walt; no electoral votes for that one.
Back to Dayton and fast forward to 2010. It's the same old story. His commercials focus on this one aspect: "We're going to make the rich pay their fare share of taxes". In Minnesota this could play well. The money is in the southern part of the state. Northern Minnesota is composed of welfare people, Native Americans and those who depend on sport fishing. It's a seasonal thing. One would think, in 2010, with the job market what it is the emphasis from Dayton would be on something else, say, "a car in every garage and two chickens in every pot". It's a Hooverism from 1928 but it's a positive one.
MINNESOTA
Sales Taxes
State Sales Tax: 6.875% (food, clothing, prescription and non-prescription drugs exempt); Liquor and beer taxed at 9%. The sales tax rate does not apply to motor vehicles that are subject to the state excise tax on motor vehicles. A few cities and counties also add a sales tax which can be as high as 9.53%.
Gasoline Tax: 27.2 cents/gallon
Diesel Fuel Tax: 27.2 cents/gallon
Cigarette Tax: $1.56/pack of 20
I've taken the opportunity to place some info about the Minnesota sales tax on this post. Some of you may look at this and say, "well, that's not too bad.
Since we're at the Minnesota lake cabin at present let me close with this. We're in a resort area. There are over 100 lakes in the county. When I go to the grocery story I pay $3.89,before taxes, for a half gallon of milk. Since we're only feeding Lizzie and myself we get by but if you are on vacation and feeding a large family or, God forbid, live here year round, those $3.89's plus add up. With sale tax on top we're talking real moolah.
This is the kind of thing that keeps the D-F-L in power. Tax their asses off until the people wise up and throw the bums out!