The trouble is, the league simply goes on to make the same point again and again. Like a broken record, the league’s response to every statewide issue is the same: Government, bad; private sector, good.

The league would be a lot more credible if now and then, it found a Minnesota government program it could support. After all, most Minnesotans enjoy and are proud of many functions of Minnesota government, such as the state parks.

The league would shock the state — and see its influence rise — if it turned up at, say, the site of the proposed Lake Vermilion State Park and said, “Gov. Pawlenty’s right. Minnesota needs, will benefit from and should be proud to pay for this spectacular new park.”

Speaking of Minnesota’s state parks, here’s a more current and telling example. Funding for the parks and other conservation efforts has suffered for years. Park maintenance has lagged, water quality in the Land of 10,000 Lakes has eroded, and wildlife habitat has disappeared, as every Minnesotan knows.

So, a constitutional amendment to reverse that decline will be on the November ballot. The measure would increase the sales tax by 3/8 of 1 percent. It would generate about $300 million a year, four-fifths of which would go to outdoors issues and one-fifth to cultural resources and the arts.

The bill won supermajority support in both the Minnesota Senate and House. It’s backed by nearly 300 organizations, ranging from Ducks Unlimited to the League of Women Voters to the Minnesota Association of Small Cities.

Missouri enacted a similar measure in 1984. In 2006, Missouri’s parks-and-soils sales tax came up for renewal at the ballot box.

Missouri voters approved, 71 percent to 29 percent.

At the very least, all of this points to the possibility that the outdoors-and-arts initiative is “good government.”

So, what does the Taxpayers League do?

“Sen. Rod Grams, chairman of the ‘No Constitutional Tax Increase’ campaign, joined Taxpayers League of Minnesota President Phil Krinkie in kicking off the vote ‘No Constitutional Tax Increase’ campaign,” the league trumpeted in a press release last week.

In his First Inaugural Address in 1981, President Ronald Reagan spoke these famous words: “Government is not a solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” The Taxpayers League of Minnesota clearly has taken those words to heart.

The trouble is, not even Reagan himself believed them. By the time he left office, government spending had grown, and a new cabinet department had been added to the executive branch.

Conservative columnist George Will understands why. “The government is, because a vast majority insists on it, involved in assuaging the two great fears of life — illness and old age,” Will wrote in 2002.

That means “the conservatism that defined itself in reaction against the New Deal — minimal government conservatism — is dead.” Dead as an effective political movement, that is, given that the majority of Americans seem to be less interested in slashing government than they are in finding cost-effective government programs that work.

The parks-and-soils sales tax in Missouri seems to qualify. Because of it, “the Missouri state park system has consistently been ranked as one of the best state park systems in the nation,” the Missouri Department of Natural Resources reported last year.

“It was recognized in 2005 as one of three nationwide finalists in the 2005 National Gold Medal and State Park Awards Program. Based on feedback gathered through guest comment cards distributed throughout state parks and historic sites, overall visitor satisfaction in 2005 was 94 percent.”

And of course, it’s hard to argue with Missourians’ resounding support of the sales tax as recently as 2006. So, there’s a fair chance that Minnesota’s outdoors-and-arts sales tax would be a good-government measure, too.

But not if the Taxpayers League can help it.

Reagan was wrong: Government is the solution to some problems, and every American knows it. That includes officials of the Taxpayers League.

Now, they should start acting on that knowledge, rather than blindly opposing every proposal that comes along.