Join us in the opening days of the MN state legislative session:
Protest and Rally
Thursday, March 2, 2006
12:00 noon
MN State Capitol - Front Steps
Free bus rides - schedule at the bottom of this page.
**Contact WRC to add your group to the list of endorsers for the rally!
Its time to send a message to MN politicians: Fund children’s needs, not rich people’s greed! Undo the Cuts! Tax the Rich!
We demand:
--Undo the $125 MFIP SSI penalty & --Undo the $50 MFIP housing cut (these cuts represent the biggest welfare cuts in MN history)
--Undo MA co-pays (many are going with out medical care because of the co-pays)
--Undo childcare cuts (Childcare is hard to find because of all the cuts in 2003.)
--Stop attacks on immigrants (Republicans are using a “divide and conquer” tactic with their racist immigrant bashing.)
--Raise the grants (Welfare grants have not had a cost of living increase since 1986 - that’s 20 years!)
--Give back the state ‘surplus’ to the poor
More info:
The Welfare Rights Committee and the MN Welfare Rights Coalition is inviting you to join us on the front steps of the state capitol on Thursday, March 2 for a rally on the second day of the MN legislative session.
We will be sending a message to the government: Fund children’s needs, not rich people’s greed. We will be calling for the cuts of 2003 to be undone (see flyer, next page), including all health care cuts to non-citizens, which will serve as counter against Governor Pawlenty’s racist immigrant bashing. We are also calling for a long overdue MFIP grant cost of living increase.
The people of the MN have been suffering with these cuts because of legislators’ stubborn refusal over the past several years to make the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. The upper-bracket tax cuts of the late 1990s should have been undone immediately in 2003, but instead the politicians balanced the budget on the backs of poor, elderly, ill, young and working people. Besides that, an increasing number of sham “foreign operating” corporations - which make their money in MN but have a plaque on the wall in another country or state - are getting out of paying the MN taxes they owe, to the tune of over $100 million per year. We will use some of that money to undo these cuts.
We have name for the $300+ million budget “surplus” that Pawlenty was crowing about: Blood money. That money was stolen from poor and working Minnesotans and we demand it be given back to undo the cuts. No matter what happens with the tobacco lawsuit, that money represents the pain of the most vulnerable in this state.
Finally, we will be demanding the replacement of the $13 million federal TANF award that the governor tried to steal in November. The governor bragged about using the $13 million in welfare money for energy assistance - but the need for that program is closer to $130 million! All of the money for energy assistance should come out of the general fund, not from one-time money intended for welfare.
We will have bills this year to undo the cuts, funded by taxing the rich and sham corporations. Please join us at our rally, Thursday, March 2, 12:00 noon on the front steps of the capitol to stand up for justice!
Free bus rides to protest: Minneapolis Bus Rides-11AM- Sabathani Community Center (3rd Ave & 38th St South):
11:15AM- Pilot City / North Point (1315 Penn Ave N.);
11:30AM Brian Coyle Community Center (420 15th Ave S)
St. Paul Bus Rides- 11:15AM -Roosevelt Homes;
11:30AM -McDonough;
11:45am Mt. Airy