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The case for more education spending

Gov. Tim Walz revealed another part of his spending plans for the coming budget season. He knows one thing is true — if you are going to propose billions of dollars in spending, it’s best to propose spending it on schools, education and our kids’ future. Walz’s spending proposal, which he announced Tuesday, would come to $5.1 billion over three years, and includes expanding access to child care, funding for pre-K for 6,000 children, and $183 million for free meals for kids, according to the Associated Press. These are issues it is hard to argue with. The need for decent, ...

$7.7 billion surplus

To the editor: I see that our Governor Tim Walz thinks we should receive a portion of the $7.7 billion dollar surplus. His proposed $700 million is a drop in the bucket. He should give the majority of it back like governor Jesse Ventura did years ago. Not only should it go back to we, the people, but also to the small business people that lost a lot because of his tyrannical, dictatorship rule during the shut downs he imposed in 2020. I am guessing the majority of this surplus came from his kickback for shutting us down. I suggest the state should only keep the $700 million, and the ...

Telescope a marvel before first picture

The James Webb Space Telescope, launched a month ago, has reached its destination, a million miles away from earth. That is a marvel of engineering and planning, even before it has taken its first look into the farthest reaches of the universe. Just think of what NASA’s engineers have done so far. They have designed and built a space telescope that had to be folded up for launch, then carefully had to unfold its protective sun shield over several days, then unfold and lock into place the gold-covered mirrors that will collect more light than the Hubble space telescope. With that ...

Accessibility in the courtroom

Opening statements are scheduled today in the federal trial of three former Minneapolis police officers who were involved in the killing of George Floyd. The interest in this trial is just as ramped up as it was for Derek Chauvin, the former officer convicted of killing Floyd by kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes while he gasped his life out. Tou Thao, J. Kueng and Thomas Lane were on the scene of the incident. Two helped hold Floyd down, while the third kept the concerned crowd at bay. Like Chauvin’s trial, COVID-19 concerns are keeping crowds from filling the courtroom, ...

Thumbs Up/Down

Contactless caucus? SIDEWAYS THUMB:The Minnesota DFL is trying something new this caucus season. Due to fears of spreading COVID-19, the DFL is holding what it calls contactless caucuses on Feb. 1. In Brown County, instead of DFLers gathering with their neighbors at some neighborhood church hall or school cafeteria to discuss issues, debate resolutions and vote for delegates, they will be logging in to a web site, downloading forms to submit resolutions or sign up as possible delegates, and then dropping them off via email to local party officials, or put them in a drop box set up at ...

The high cost of nostalgia

The good old days bumped up against reality this week at the New Ulm City Council’s work session. In a discussion of the downtown holiday decorations, the council got some estimates of what it would cost to start stringing evergreen garlands across Minnesota Street for the Christmas season. It wasn’t encouraging. City staff had come up with two options, and neither one is economically feasible. The cheaper of the two would cost $600,000 or so to install poles to support the garlands, and this would just be at the intersections, not at all like the row upon row of evergreen that ...