Minnesota Democrats Want $300 million Riot Rehab Scheme – Hell No!

Minnesotans, the country, and the world watched shocked as over 1500 buildings and businesses were damaged or destroyed in Minneapolis from days of rioting that broke out following the death of George Floyd. Now the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) who control the Minnesota House, in emergency special session, demand passage of a $300 million economic aid package to rebuild the charred battleground that remains following the abject failure of DFL leadership. This week those same DFL lawmakers who poured gasoline into a tinder box then stepped back, stood down law enforcement, and watched it all go up in smoke, seek taxpayer funds to tidy up their moral deficits. They proposed The Promise Act – Shameless!

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – The legislation is aimed at commercial corridors in lower-income neighborhoods that were hardest hit as protests over Floyd’s May 25 death while in Minneapolis, police custody turned violent. Many of the affected small businesses along Lake Street and Broadway Avenue in Minneapolis, and University Avenue in St. Paul, are owned by people of color and immigrants. State Rep. Hodan Hassan, a Minneapolis Democrat who represents part of the damaged area, said the community is still “in a lot of pain,” and that buyers are already offering cash to people whose buildings were burned if they’ll just go away. “That’s not the rebuilding we want,” she said during a news conference. “We want to make sure Lake Street stays the way it was and (returns) even better. We are not seeking gentrification. We are not seeking to get displaced.“

The legislation includes a $125 million relief fund that’s meant to get aid to small businesses in the next two to three weeks, with the rest of the money designated for longer-term recovery. It also includes sales and property tax breaks for rebuilding eligible properties and measures that would prevent gentrification by ensuring that affected properties aren’t sold off to the highest bidders for redevelopment. Democratic House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler, who is leading the push, told reporters that Democrats hope to pass the legislation this week. The proposals face an uncertain fate in the Republican-controlled state Senate, where GOP leaders last week said that they intend to adjourn the special session this Friday no matter what happens in the House. Leading Democrats have urged Republicans to support the aid package.

Minnesota government is in the special session related to Coronavirus emergency status, and funding for “rebirth” is not the only cram through initiatives DFL has in play. DFL lawmakers in both the House and Senate, led by the People of Color and Indigenous Caucus (POCI), have released a series of bills, twenty – three bills, beginning to reform policing and criminal justice systems. The Promise Act rebuild also includes sales tax hikes. The death of George Floyd presented an opportunity not to be wasted rather harvested for maximum power grab potential.

Predictably, media and Democrats frame the entire narrative as the State Senate Republicans blocking progress and on the wrong side of history. Democrat Governor Tim Walz, already on the hot seat for his dismal performance securing life and property during the riots, made certain his voice was loudest.

MINNPOST – Democrats did not pull their policing bills out of thin air over the last two weeks. Many of them address longstanding DFL priorities or align with recommendations released in February by a task force convened by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. There is more to glean from the article, “From reforming the police to curtailing the governor’s powers, Minnesota’s House and Senate have vastly different priorities for a special session.”

Then there is the CARES ACT funding from the federal government … what you forgot too about COVID 19 state of emergency? It is exhausting keeping up with each crisis and where it merits in the progressive agenda at any given time. Minnesota received $1.87 billion from The Cares Act, and presently the state faces a projected $2.4 billion budget deficit. DFL lawmakers are pushing to use those federal funds (all states tax dollars) to pay for the mayoral/governor-sanctioned looting and rioting blatantly foreseen results.

The majority leader in the Minnesota Senate, Paul Gazelka, with GOP support, has signaled agreement on five key issues within the massive number of House bills being pushed through, including banning choke-holds. But he cautioned against lawmakers using the special session to try to pass a sweeping police reform agenda, given that might take time and lengthy work to find the right answers, he said. “To actually expect that to be done in the next week is not how the legislative bodies work,” Gazelka said. “We meet in committees, and we fully vet issues to make sure we get it right because it’s not just for now, this is for a generation to come.” Republican lawmakers point out in the above video they are still grasping what is even in the House bill and trying to understand it. Sound Familiar (Obamacare)?

But you see for Progressives the time is always immediate and swift as to fly under the radar the ugly time-bombs buried deep inside legislation that later they always claim are “unintended consequences.” Watch as Minnesota lawmakers, including Mayor Jacob Frey, who gave the order to abandon the police precinct, signaling defeat and emboldening the rioters, with straight faces give speeches. Standing at ground zero, they claim, “We will not see a generation of immigrant wealth go up in smoke, or the liquidation of black and brown businesses. No, we want growth and rebirth.” They fold their arms in defiance, stating no gentrification will happen here!

So despite Minneapolis voters, electing an incompetent Mayor and City Council who went on a Starbucks frappe break while criminals invaded their city and massacred its lifeblood, all Minnesota who elected sane governance will now have to pony up the expenses for their foibles? The citizens of the other 49 states get to chip in as well with the CARES ACT funds? Where is Robin Hood when you really need him?

Forty years of Democrat leadership created the conditions on the ground in Minneapolis before Floyd’s death and after. One man’s demise, no matter how tragic, does not justify violence and criminal behaviors or the utter abdication of an elected official to uphold their duty to their constituents. The very public collapse of Minneapolis leaders, the Governor of the state, AG of the state, Congress, and Senators of the state, in moments of crisis, created the reason any business, building, or life must be rebuilt.

Taxpayers trusted their elected officials that the law would be upheld, enforced, and protections applied to defend their liberty – many of them paid dearly for that false assumption. It is unseemly and even malodorous for law-abiding citizens to be stripped of their dignity a second time around by having to assume the position again.

Refuse to pay anything until you vote them all out!