Readers write (May 1): Editorial board's state budget plan, Katherin Kersten, Donald Trump

I commend the Star Tribune Editorial Board for its budget recommendations to the governor and legislators ("A budget plan for Minnesota," April 24).

The board's proposal represents the values held by many Minnesotans. It is fair and balanced, and not just a quick fix. It spares the less fortunate and elderly among us.

All Minnesotans are responsible for the red ink, so we are all responsible for the fix as well. Now if only those at the Capitol would listen. It's time for all Minnesotans to come together for the "common good."

Remember that concept?

TERRY DINOVO, ST. PAUL

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Please send me the several kits you must have used to balance Minnesota's budget for the next biennium. I don't know how many I need, but several were pulled out of the collective hats of the Editorial Board.

You fail to mention that the cuts proposed are going to affect the poor, homeless and otherwise disadvantaged in an unbalanced way. Is that really the kind of state you are seeking?

Second, I need the voodoo kit that you must have found to posit that reducing property taxes on business generates jobs and higher wages. Please provide the economic basis for this assertion. I found no such evidence in the state's JOBZ initiative.

Third, I need the kit that allows the state to disavow its commitment to school districts without declaring bankruptcy. This money was promised, and school districts did their planning based on that promise.

Fourth, I need a kit that will let me and the state evaluate "outcomes." What are the important outcomes -- more poor on the street, fewer people in nursing homes, more visits to emergency rooms?

Fifth, I need the kit that allows these draconian cuts not to result in higher property taxes. There is a long history that demonstrates that much of what is cut at the state level is made up by increases in property taxes.

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I appreciate your philosophy -- we're all in this together -- when it comes to the state budget. I don't know why you put so much of the burden on the lowest-income people, however.

They have been the scapegoats for the last eight years and beyond. Why not propose a poverty and job outcome requirement to all budget items?

This requirement would direct a state agency to study the effects of the approved budget to prove whether it helped create jobs or put more people into a hand-to-mouth existence.

The Legislature would have to agree on what constituted poverty. Let them think about what is acceptable to them and take responsibility for harming or helping Minnesota citizens.

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I wish your proposal would have included a 5-cents-a-bottle tax on all plastic bottles of soft drinks, water and juice beverages with less than 20 percent fruit. Several states on the East Coast have similar taxes, and apparently there is little consumer backlash.

Revenue gained via this tax could help offset the environmental costs associated with these products and could increase revenue. It might also be a subtle inhibitor to excess sugar consumption.

ROBERT SCHIESEL, MINNEAPOLIS

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One example: You suggest cutting $50 million in business property taxes, asserting that these taxes translate "into lower wages and fewer jobs."

Is there any quantifiable proof -- anywhere -- for that assertion? Historically, many of Minnesota's periods of highest job creation have coincided with periods of higher taxes on business (and wealthy individuals).

Another example: You suggest not paying back $1.4 billion "shifted" from K-12 schools. Sounds clean and simple, but what are the short- and long-term effects on our children, our teachers and our schools?

A little more data and a few more details might add clarity to your budget vision.

DOUG WILHIDE, MINNEAPOLIS

Katherine Kersten's latest column ("Losing sight of our nation's source of truth," April 24) contained her usual mix of the good, the bad and the ugly -- and in the usual proportions.

The good: her premise that (most) of our founding fathers had faith in a deity of some sort. The bad: her unsupported leap from there to Judeo-Christianity.

Many of our founding fathers were non-Christian, and you'd have to broaden the definition considerably to include any Jews. The ugly: her sneering references to the "ruling elite."

The elite -- our brightest and best -- are exactly who we should want to have running the country. Kersten may not be happy about it, but the reason they're "ruling" at the moment is that we elected them.

DAVID CARPENTER, MINNEAPOLIS

You made a 92-year-old pastor very happy on Easter by publishing Katherine Kersten's column on what the Judeo-Christian heritage has contributed to the making of our great country.

The media is all too taken up with sports and entertainment. "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep." Thank you, Star Tribune.

THE REV. ROBERT S. NELSON, ROCHESTER

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Really? President Obama's college grades? When he was 10, did he also step over the free-throw line? What we are actually witnessing is overt racism.

Instead, they persist in attacking the president himself, trying to rile up hatred and fear.