St. Paul, MN - Tombstones and bodies filled the halls outside the Governor’s office here, March 23, as participants in a ‘die-in’ demonstrated against the effects of Governor Pawlenty’s proposed cuts in health and human services. Members of the Welfare Rights Committee and the Minnesota Coalition for a Peoples Bailout, along with other social justice groups, joined the protest.
Joanne Gonzalez and Angel Buechner spoke at the press conference before the action, explaining the potential devastation of Pawlenty’s cuts and spoke out against further cuts that are being proposed by Democrats in the House of Representatives.
According to Kim DeFranco, of the Welfare Rights Committee, “Pawlenty’s proposed budget cuts are the most hurtful, illogical, inhumane and criminal to date. If these cuts are passed in this 2010 legislative session, it would bring more harm and devastation to many families that are already struggling. As we continue face severe economic crisis, there is a need more than ever for the very programs that Pawlenty is proposing to cut! Pawlenty is leaving office, but first he is trying to sink Minnesota.”
While the event started as a die-in, it soon morphed into loud and defiant chanting and drumming. For nearly 30 minutes, the capitol building rang with, “Hey hey! Ho ho! Pawlenty’s cuts have got to go!” Security guards eventually shut the doors to the governor’s reception room, only to have to witness dozens of tombstone-shaped signs that protesters pushed underneath the door.
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I just would like to say to
I just would like to say to the main stream media and I know they creep around to read other left stuff, you all did not get what we where doing at the Gov. Pawlenty's Office, our children know all to well what it is like to live in poverty, they are not of ignorance to the situation. It is people like you all that would take an action that clearly speaks how the majority of this state feel about our governor cutting programs and cutting out of the pockets of poor and working people and say that we are putting our kids into situations that they should not have any knowledge of, Then there shouldn't be no young republicans/or democrats club for kids they are to young to-know what dems and repubs our, sorry but honey we are in 2010 and these kids today know allot more then you all think. I do not make my kids participate in anything that they do not want to, but my children understand the struggles and they want to participate, because they are knowledgeable about what this governor is doing to us.
I am from the Twin Cities,
I am from the Twin Cities, and I am intensely proud of the people who stood up against the abysmal cuts to these services. I am equally, if not, more proud of the people who work in these fields, making due with what little resources they currently have. I am NOT proud to claim a governor who has shown, time and time again, that he has little awareness or concern for struggling Minnesota residents.
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