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Richard Pecar

Richard Pecar's picture
Forest Lake, Minnesota
Commenter for
4 years 11 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 02/14/13 at 03:15 pm in response to Deep federal spending cuts won't hurt Minnesota as much as other states

Sorry to turn on the light, but Minnesota is not an island although some may think as much (and many others think and act as if this were so).

Ah, the tune comes to mind...

"I am he as you are he
as you are me
and we are all together...
koo koo kachoo...
I am the walrus"
(Probably before your time. The Beatles)

My message is this:

So goeth one state, any state, then goeth another, so will goeth them all...watch and weep.

The...

Posted on 11/28/12 at 11:22 am in response to Education-funding overhaul plan OK'd by task force

"...weighted “units” that would range from .5 to 1.2." I didn't realize the state was doing this...I co-wrote a very similar formula in 1994 for an education bill moving through another state’s legislature.

The weighted-student allocation of state aid provides "equity" and it makes sense. The denominator is the needs of each individual student.

Now it’s off to the next step which is to generate adequate funds. The funds from property taxes should be levied as a function of the...

Posted on 11/29/12 at 11:26 am in response to Education-funding overhaul plan OK'd by task force

"...The task force’s members have been meeting since June and had deliberately not asked Melcher for the runs. Their reasoning: It was better to craft a policy prescription that made sense and then let the resident wizard do his thing."

I forgot to mention the above is approach is critical to developing equitable state aid formulas. Focus on "student need" first; leave the number crunching to the computer program.

Steve Kotvis raised some interesting points...too many for me...

Posted on 11/27/12 at 12:19 pm in response to Education-equalization proposal to go before state task force

There are three topics I know fairly well...and as diverse as these may be, I have sailed in deep water on each. The topics are carp, compost and state aid to education formulas….crazy talk right?

For some reason none of these topics and the related issues seem to die off and neither do I. The three keep coming back and when they surface it’s usually the same people saying the same things said over and over for umpteen years…decades. So I am back too.

Let’s take the state aid...

Posted on 11/14/12 at 01:02 pm in response to Does Obama have a mandate?

Let's see...the fellas that founded this country -- who so many people often affectionately and coincidentally refer to as "The Founders” -- they were supported by about 30% of the colonialists; and, they started a war with England.

Grover Norquist has a couple of hundred to a thousand or so of “daddy and mommy big bucks” supporting his “no new taxes" mandate. He seems to have done okay (for the time being).

All told, I think President Obama is in excellent shape when it...

Posted on 11/08/12 at 02:44 pm in response to Same-sex marriage: 'Minnesota, in particular ... is proof the tide has turned'

When Minnesota voters denied passage of the so-called "marriage amendment" to the Minnesota Constitution, these voters likewise upheld the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Government, federal, state or local cannot tell our churches which people they may marry and which people they cannot marry.

It seems like there two distinct groups of humans that believe God powerless to get His Will Done without their help: The republicans and the radical Muslims. The God I know...

Posted on 11/07/12 at 09:18 am in response to Catholic Bishops engaged in overreaching philanthropic behavior in case of Land Stewardship Project

I reacted immediately to this news and began montly contributions to the Land Stewardship Project.

Posted on 11/01/12 at 10:25 am in response to Norm Coleman says Romney's election won't be the end of Roe v. Wade

But will Gov. Romney’s election become the end of access to contraceptives as we know it?
But will Gov. Romney’s election become the end of Social Security and Medicare as we know it?
But will Gov. Romney’s election become the end of VA benefits as we know it?
But will Gov. Romney’s election become the end to FEMA as we know it?
But will Gov. Romney’s election become the end of the defintion of personhood as we know it? For example, could a group embryos get a good...

Posted on 11/01/12 at 06:23 am in response to Brad Pitt gives $100,000 for gay marriage ballot efforts in Minnesota and other states

It's unbelievable to me that people are actually voting in a matter of days to write laws that restrict religious ceremonies.

After all, the act of ceremoniously joining two people in marriage has a tap root that includes Judeo-Christian Scriptures, the Quran, the Vedas and Upanishads. Our government should have no say in the matter. If a church and its congregation marry two people; the who, how and why is their decision not governments.

Plain and simple, marriage is an act...

Posted on 11/01/12 at 10:16 am in response to Brad Pitt gives $100,000 for gay marriage ballot efforts in Minnesota and other states

But, there is this class of people in America (mostly republicans) who seem to advocate God needs help and He has anointed them to police the world in His behalf. This kind of thinking is also found among extreme factions of Islam.

The God that I love doesn't need help...He has all the bases covered.

Then there is Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists and the “wall of separation” between church and partially states as follows:

“Believing with you that...