Dumb and dumberer

If these are the kinds of ideas that House Republicans are going to be putting forward, they should get used to being in the minority, because they will be there for a long time.

It's not really surprising. The new Minority Leader, Marty Seifert, has always enjoyed stupid gimmicks much more than rational policy. After all, he was the person behind such brilliant proposals as banning dessert in prisons, fining welfare recipients who smoke, requiring the Pledge of Allegiance to be spoken only in English, and English-only drivers license exams.

His new proposals are requirements that Minneapolis and St. Paul (and only those two cities) spend 100% of their LGA funding on public safety, and a ban on the use of taxpayer money for buyouts of coaches' contracts at the U of M (despite the fact that taxpayer money isn't used at all). Yes, that's the way to capture the imagination of the public.

Not only are these proposals plain stupid, but what happened to Republican values? What happened to local control? I remember how, in the wake of the Contract with America, Republicans abolished the strings attached to federal money and instead gave it to the states in block grants to use as they saw fit (see: welfare). Republicans supposedly believed at the time that the closer you got to the people, the better the decisions would be, and that mandates from higher up were bad. They are bad, except for when they aren't.

I expect to see lots of funny proposals from Rep. Seifert in the next couple of years. Should be fun if you aren't a Republican hoping to win back the majority.