Endorsements
13 Supporting Our Troops: Dayton Proposes Beyond the Yellow Ribbon Fund
Dayton Proposes State “Beyond the Yellow Ribbon” Funding
Speaking this afternoon to the Hibbing VFW, DFL Gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton will propose a matching state grant program to communities throughout Minnesota to start or expand their “Beyond the Yellow Ribbon” outreach to returning Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans. The meeting… Read more
8 Dayton to Other Candidates: “What’s Your Plan?”
Dayton to Other Candidates: “What’s Your Plan?“
DFL Gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton today challenged the other DFL, Republican, and Independence Party candidates for Governor to reveal their plans for eliminating the state’s projected $5.8 billion deficit for the next biennium.
“My opponents are all criticizing me for raising too much… Read more
2 Dayton Calls on Mn/DOT to End all Contracting with Allegedly Negligent Firm URS
Dayton Calls on Mn/DOT to End all Contracting with Allegedly Negligent Firm URS
St. Paul, MN: Mark Dayton today called on the Minnesota Department of Transportation to end all contracting with allegedly negligent firm URS. The private contracting giant has been the defendant in several closed and ongoing lawsuits alleging… Read more
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The Orth Foundation Thanks Mark (West Central Tribune)
A public thank you for an anonymous gift
February 17, 2010
Tom Cherbeny, The West Central Tribune
Doctors could offer little hope, but Don and Ann Orth of Olivia were determined. They were going to do all they could to help their son Tim fight his cancer.
Along with traditional treatment, they traveled overseas to pursue alternative therapies not covered by insurance.
Bills mounted, but Don Orth said friend and banker Kent Kircher told him not to worry. Write the check and pay him back later.
With Tim’s death on Feb. 14, 1997, the Orth’s had the loss of an 18-year-old son to mourn and a bigger bill than they knew how to pay.
With that dilemma at hand, Don Orth said he read about Mark Dayton writing a large check to the DFL party and thought: why not? He wrote Dayton a letter explaining his plight and asked if he might be willing to help.
The reply was what Orth described as a “generous’’ check. It came with a note from Dayton explaining that as a parent he understood exactly why the Orths had done all they could.
But Dayton offered the check with one stipulation: He was to remain an anonymous donor.
For more than a decade the Orths and Kircher kept the secret, but that changed a week ago when Mark Dayton came to Master’s Café in Olivia as a gubernatorial candidate. Orth asked Dayton’s aides if he could speak privately with Dayton to personally thank him for his gift years ago.
They told him it would be fine to bring it up while others were present, and so he did.
Orth said he really just wanted to say thanks, but felt so much better for the opportunity to do so with others present.
Orth said Dayton responded by turning the tables, telling him that the Tim Orth Foundation has given back to others in such a big way and consequently has paid back his gift many times over.
Orth and Dayton will not discuss the size of the check. Orth said that he did not ask for a specific amount from Dayton. Yet the amount that Dayton donated — when combined with the money his son Tim had raised by lawn mowing and other jobs toward his medical costs — was exactly what was needed to pay off the bill, according to Orth.
Governor candidate Dayton pitches progressive tax (Winona Daily News)
Governor candidate Dayton pitches progressive tax
by Dustin Kass (Winona Daily News)
February 17, 2010
Minnesota’s budget woes could be solved by instituting a progressive tax, in which the richest contribute more to state coffers, gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton said during a campaign stop Tuesday in Winona.
Even a flat tax would lead to billions of dollars in revenue gains, said Dayton, a former U.S. senator now seeking the DFL endorsement for governor. But a progressive tax is his solution to the budget deficit, he told a gathering of eight people at Winona State University’s Somsen Hall.
“I think some of the DFL party has been cowed by years of belief (or) disbelief that you can’t talk about progressive taxes anymore,” Dayton said.
His stop in Winona County came sandwiched between appearances in Houston and Wabasha counties, as part of a plan to visit all 87 Minnesota counties in 87 days while pushing his bid for governor.
Dayton touched on a wide range of other issues during his hourlong appearance — including promising to, if elected, pass another state bonding bill next year to spur economic recovery — but he spoke most ardently about taxes and the possibility to create additional revenue. He dismissed Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s boasts of no tax increases, pointing out that reductions in state aid to cities and counties have forced many of them to raise their levies.
Those cuts can’t continue, certainly not enough to make up future deficit projections in the $5 billion to $7 billion range, Dayton said. Increased taxes on the wealthiest residents would likely fill that void, he said. “I maintain we have a revenue crisis in Minnesota, not a budget deficit crisis.”
Governor Hopeful Dayton Visits Austin
Governor hopeful Dayton visits Austin
Former U.S. Senator Mark Dayton discusses everything from job creation to LGA
By David Richards | Austin Daily Herald
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Former U.S. Senator and Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton (D) made a pair of stops in Austin Monday and discussed everything from Local Government Aid to immigration to how to create new jobs.
Dayton is in the midst of his “87 Counties in 87 Days Tour” that will take him through every county in the state by April 17.
The tour kicked off Jan. 20, the same day Dayton officially announced his candidacy, although he filed for the election more than a year ago.
“It’s the best learning opportunity possible,” he said about the tour, which in Austin Monday included stops at the Coffee House on Main followed by a visit to the Seibel Center.
At the Coffee House on Main, about 10 people sat down with Dayton, including mayor Tom Stiehm, for a meet and greet that lasted roughly an hour.
Local Government Aid took up a portion of the beginning of the conversation, with Stiehm explaining some of the cuts Austin has faced following a decrease in LGA.
Dayton sympathized and said, “I’m for trimming the fat, but I’m not for cannibalizing it.”
Dayton’s statements came on the same day as Gov. Pawlenty proposed millions of more LGA cuts for 2011.
“Without LGA, local government services suffer, and local property taxes then increase,” Dayton said.
On immigration, several in the discussion agreed that the issue is a sensitive, but important one for Austin, including the mayor, who said, “it causes a lot of hard feelings; we need something done.”
Dayton, agreed and shared his stance.
“First, everybody who’s in this country should be here legally, and that’s their legal responsibility,” he said.
In addition, the former senator said that while it’s unrealistic to expect the government to physically deport millions of people, the way the nation deals with illegal immigration needs to change.
“It’s a very dysfunctional system, and one that has to be addressed by the federal government,” he said.
On job creation, Dayton said putting people back to work is a need both statewide and nationally.
“We have 214,000 Minnesotans outs of work right now,” he said. “We have to put them back to work. … As a country, our focus needs to be on generating the jobs we need for the future to expand the economy …”
Dayton’s recipe for job creation includes investing in education, good infrastructure and good state and local services and funding these things through tax increases on the wealthier people in the state.
Austin residents at the meet and greet described the candidate as “level headed” and one who is committed to the ordinary person despite coming from a wealthy family.
Dayton’s great grandfather started the Dayton’s department store brand that has since evolved into the Target Corporation.
“He’s level headed and for us,” Austin resident Vern Grove said. “There’s not much more you can say than that.”
Mark’s Campaign Kick-off Press Conference
Recorded January 20, 2010
Mark Dayton Visits Worthington
Mark Dayton visits Worthington
Worthington Daily Globe; February 11, 2010
WORTHINGTON — Standing inside the former home of his great-grandfather Wednesday morning, DFL gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton led a “listen and learn” session with about 15 Worthington business and community leaders.
Sitting near a piano inside the Historic Dayton House, constructed in 1890 and restored over the course of 2003 and 2004, Dayton answered questions and commented upon such topics as the state and federal economy, education, fair taxation and more. The former U.S. Senator, who served from 2000-2006 and did not seek re-election, is in the midst of 87-county, 87-day jaunt across Minnesota.
Dayton explained his eagerness to help make Minnesota a better place should he be elected governor.
“Before I went to Washington, I said I thought it was a cesspool,” Dayton said in early remarks. “After I arrived, I said I didn’t realize how bad it is.
“Our state used to lead the nation in job creation. After 19 years of failed leadership, Minnesota is now one of the bottom 10 states in employment growth,” he added. “We are eating our own seed corn by disinvesting in the essential ingredients of success in this state. … If I offer anything after 35 years of public service, it’s experience.”
That experience, in addition to his term as a U.S. Senator, includes his tenures as Commissioner of Economic Development, Commissioner of Energy and Economic Development and State Auditor.
District 518 Superintendent John Landgaard told Dayton of his concerns about future funding of education given the state’s current fiscal woes. Dayton promised he would continue to increase education spending annually should be elected governor.
“The education we provide for all children … of all these different backgrounds … will literally make our break this country in the future,” said Dayton, who also called his vote against No Child Left Behind “one of the best votes I made” and complained that comparing “this year’s fourth-grade class to next year’s fourth-grade class” in examining standardized testing scores “is inaccurate, because you’re not controlling the variables.”
Dayton also said he recognized that public schools now have to unjustly rely on public referendums to maintain staff and services.
“We’re cannibalizing public education in Minnesota to our future detriment,” he said.
Worthington City Administrator Craig Clark asked Dayton about his view of local government aid, and invited him to view the city’s budget. Dayton said he recognized the cuts of “50 percent in eight years” in LGA, and that they “put you in an impossible situation where you have to cut essential services and raise taxes. … It’s unfair to areas that have lower per-capital income.
“This isn’t a shift, it’s stealing,” he said. “Cities and counties are political subdivisions; they’re creations of the state. “You can’t just say, ‘You’re on your own, folks.’
Dayton, as he has throughout the campaign, reiterated his plan to raise taxes on the richest Minnesotans.
“I think it’s about fairness,” he stated. “I have a couple of cousins who are not happy with me … but you think a wealthy Minnesotan should be paying two-thirds of what someone making much less?”
Dayton also addressed questions of Worthington Regional Economic Development Corp. Manager Glenn Thuringer, who said: “There’s a lot of talk right now that there’s no state economic development, period.” He also asked Dayton what he’d heard from others around the state about the effectiveness of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).
“I can count on one hand with fingers left over the number of people who say their services have improved,” Dayton said of DEED. “I hear ignorance and arrogance.”
In talking about job creation, Dayton said he would do everything he could as governor in that area.
“The Pawlenty administration claims he cares about business, but doesn’t respond,” Dayton said. “I will go anywhere on this planet to get a job (for Minnesota).”