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I I I Council Meeting Minutes January 8, 1991 Page 2 Soedal Order of Business. continued We've seen budget problems. At the national level, the savings and loan bailout issues. We've seen Congress, in my opinion, failing to deal forthrightly with those issues. For example. according to Hamer's magazine as noted in the paper the other day, Congress spent 30 minutes debating the savings and loan bailout when it reached the floor. and they debated the remodeling of the Capitol hairdressing salon for 40 minutes. Where are their priorities, where is their dedication, and where is their commitment to solving the issues that they need to look at? The budget fiasco resulted in turmoil and I think impacted some elections including the one here in Minnesota. It wiped out our hope for a peace dividend that we were looking at a year ago, and we are now looking at and finally admitting to the fact that we are facing a recession. And that recession is coloring everything that we are looking at in terms of State budgets, City budgets, and Federal budgets. It impacts what we can do. At the National level also we are looking at Keating 5 Hearings, fallowing unfortunately on the heels of the Durenberger hearings. Ouestions of ethics at the National level and Questions of ethics at the State level continue to bother those of us who are in the public service. Because, unfortunately. we all get painted with the brush that it is painting us when people perceive that politicians are dishonest. Most, if not all, of the city officials that I know are honest and are ethical, but we yet have to deal with the fact that some people don't have that perception. The National events and the National budget issues impact us at the City level and they impact us at the State level. And we have to deal with questions of joblessness, homelessness, drugs. crime, education reform, and revenue shortfall. And what we are seeing is that the Federal government is so starved for revenue that it is sucking up or absorbing all the revenues that we generated from income taxes, sales taxes, and whatever. There is no tolerance left I think in many taxpayers pocketbooks for more taxes. That leaves at the State scene with the Governor's race which we all came through with a lot of turmoil. We now have a governor, I hope and pray, who will provide strong leadership. The recent senate race gave us a new senator who I hope will be able to react appropriately at the National level for the priorities of people. We have a State budget problem which is putting pressure on local government aids. putting pressure on our City budgets. and putting pressure on education and human services here in the State of Minnesota and is going to put pressure on tax increases. I think all of us agree that Soedal Order of Business