DFL lawmakers in leadership positions — most notably Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk of Cook and House Speaker Paul Thissen of Minneapolis — were basking in great electoral success, but also voicing caution about an overreach by the party in the 2013 legislative session.

But the DFL majorities in both the House and Senate and DFL Gov. Mark Dayton did not heed the “Caution: Overreach Ahead” sign. They instead ran right over it; trampling it in their hurry to enact nearly all of the party’s agenda, regardless of the impact on all Minnesotans — not just those the DFL target as wealthy: Namely people making six-figure salaries, usually of $125,000 or more.

We firmly believe that if DFL leadership had managed to rein in its legislators to limit the party’s reach on tax increases pretty much to fairness — namely the income tax, which properly, we believe, asks more of those who make more — the session would have been generally hailed as an overall success.

But no, the DFL decided to use tax increases the same way former Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty used fee increases — embracing any and all of them. In so doing, the DFL this session profited state coffers from the pocketbooks of hard-working Minnesotans, small- and -large businesses that provide work and thus paychecks in the state, and those people on fixed incomes.

Those on fixed incomes, you may ask? Yes. Does anyone honestly believe that businesses will not pass on the cost of doing business that was increased by higher taxes onto consumers — including those on fixed incomes?

Meanwhile, lawmakers decided to draw the biggest target on those who smoke, firing away at them time and time again with higher taxes on tobacco products. Once again, this incredibly regressive tax goes after those who can least afford the added strain on their finances, including one helluva lot of people on the Iron Range.

Yes, smoking is bad for a person’s health. But it’s legal, for crying out loud. Why won’t the anti-smoking zealots in the Legislature try to make smoking illegal? Gee, wonder if it’s because of all the revenue it generates to be spent as lawmakers see fit?

This was the session of “overreach” by a party whose leaders entered it with a concern that could happen.

Well, it did.

— Mesabi Daily News, June 1