Republican state legislators are now proposing to amend the Minnesota Constitution to require a super-majority vote (60%) in the Legislature to approve most tax increases.[1]
This is a stupid idea. Have they not read about the many fiscal problems California has due to its imprudent requirement for super-majority legislative votes to approve a budget? The U.S. Senate is hamstrung due to its outdated and unconstitutional rules that impose a de facto super-majority vote (again 60%) to do almost anything.[2] Minnesota even has difficulties passing a budget under normal rules.
Our Legislature needs to operate on a simple democratic principle–the majority rules.
The proposed constitutional amendment stems from the understandable, but mistaken, view that whatever a person earns is due entirely to his own efforts. On the contrary, every one of us owes whatever success one has to a multitude of other people, to a “cloud of witnesses.”[3] Warren Buffett often remarks on his great fortune to have been born in the U.S. We are all in this together. We are our brothers and sisters’ keeper.[4]
[1] Kazuba, Raising the bar on raising taxes, StarTribune, May 3, 2011, at B7.
[4] A slightly different version of this post was published as a letter to the editor in the StarTribune (May 7, 2011), http://www.startribune.com/opinion/letters/121416799.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue.
