I worked county fair booths across southern Minnesota this summer. I was able to talk to some of our state representatives and senators. A few of those politicians still don’t get the point that we, the citizens, are fed up with the two old parties bickering at the state Capitol.

We should look at Wisconsin’s work in downsizing their state government. Fewer state employees, less benefits paid out to those employees and less office space to pay for. Our 2006 census from the Secretary of State’s office had our state population at 5,167,101 people. Rep. Kathy Brynaert found at the Minnesota Finance Department that we have 56,258 employees on the state payroll year round. That means we have one state employee for every 92 citizens.

I challenge you to do the research like I did and investigate other state government employment-to-citizen ratios. Why do we have so many state government employees, especially in St. Paul?

Representatives and senators, you can start downsizing our state government by combining the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Pollution Control Agency. Both agencies have control over water quality standards in Minnesota. Did you know that there are nine different agencies that control water quality in Minnesota? Why nine different agencies? We should have one agency with one set of water quality standards, not nine!