The chairwoman of Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton's Broadband Task
Force has echoed Republican criticism of a new state sales tax
on telecommunications equipment.  Margaret Anderson Kelliher, a
former Minnesota House speaker, said the tax could be an
obstacle to new broadband infrastructure and lead to fewer jobs
in that sector. She has written to Dayton about the tax and told
Minnesota Public Radio News for a story Tuesday that the tax
should be repealed.  Kelliher is a Democrat and currently
directs the Minnesota High Tech Association. She argues the tax
will make it harder to reach a state goal of having border-to-
border broadband by 2015. The tax moves in the opposite
direction of a task force recommendation to expand an exemption
so it would cover more types of telecommunications equipment,
such as fiber-optic cable.  "This I think is a case where being
able to correct this and take it back and make it the way it had
been for about a decade or more, makes a lot of sense," Kelliher
said.  The tax is expected