The DFL keeps talking about how important education and we need to raise taxes. Then they do stuff like this and they lose all credibility. Assuming a 4 year college education costs $80,000 at the U, 3.5 billion could put 43,750 Minnesotans through college. Yet it appears grass and wildflowers are more important. Awesome. We are circling the drain folks...

Ten leading conservation groups join in a plan to preserve grassland and habitat. I guess by sharklasers thinking all members of the ten organizations are DFLers. His, or her, comment sure is pertinent to the article.

How much are the conservation groups contributing? What is the source of the state money? If it is the legacy funds, then we VOTED to spend this money in this fashion and NOT to give kids a free ride to college. The only thing wrong with the program is it is about 9 million acres (the number of acres in MN devasted to grow ethanol) short. Bill G.

Bill G sort of brings up a good point about ethanol. Get rid of that boondoggle also! Prairie preservation plan is code for "future campaign contributions".

I suppose we should just farm the whole darn country and forget about prairies and meadows. This way we'll have exhausted the soil everywhere and there won't be any food to feed the children who got a free ride to college. Prairies are necessary. This is a good thing.

Pretty big. It's 1563 square miles, or about the size of Rhode Island.

Mille Lacs is Minnesota's second-largest inland lake at 132,516 acres or 207.056 square miles. So basically an area the equivalant of 7 1/2 Mille Lacs lakes.

Just to give you an idea of how much land will be taken out of food production.

$3.5B over 25 years averages $140,000,000 per year. To watch grass grow in fields that already have corn or soybeans. Hint, dont plant corn or soybeans and guess what grass will grow. It will be grown over in 1-2 years!

The goal of conservation groups is to conserve the land....you might think the money is better spent on education, but that is for education groups to lobby for. I could just as easily argue that education is a waste while people are dying of starvation or from war elsewhwere. pittign one need over another will get us nowhere.

Sounds to me like a money transfer to already-wealthy landowners.

I can put my finger on it but this has bad idea written all over it. I have a strong feeling of buyers remorse or this case payers remorse.