If a Minnesotan may barge in here, have any of you seen this comment on Krugman's 9/6 column?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/09/06/opinion/06krugman.html?sort=newest

Look at Comment #289:


But, there is no shortage of money! Every year since 1915, the state has collected a tax on stock trades. The tax was fully collected for more than sixty years. Then in 1979, the state rebated 30% of the tax back to the stock traders. In 1980 it was 60% and in 1981, 100% of the revenues collected was returned to the stock traders. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT!

How much money is that? In 2004 it was 10,605,122,527 (those are billions - with a "B"). In 2005, 11,549,250,124; 2006, 11,593,533,764; 2007, 13,419,216,071; 2008, 16,313,860,949; and in 2009, because the market was shaky it was only 15,991,810,068. So, the state (which has a 9 billion dollar shortfall) collected nearly SIXTEEN BILLION DOLLARS in taxes on stock trades, and then returned every penny of it to the traders...

If this is true, it's definitely something that you need to pressure your legislators about (or even write letters to your local paper to counter Republican propaganda).