February 14, 2008
Feb 14 13:17 Gov. Pawlenty's State of the State Focuses on Taxes, Economy Feb 14 13:35 Leader Sertich's Response Feb 14 16:14 House Democrats Pursue Fishing Expedition While Ignoring FISA Bill Feb 14 18:26 Kelliher's Transportation Tapdance Feb 14 20:29 Pelosi's Democrats Shirking National Security Responsibilities Feb 14 22:07 Ban Barry Bonds
Prior Months: Jan
Gov. Pawlenty's State of the State Focuses on Taxes, Economy
After checking numerous articles, that's the consensus of the various reporters. Here's one such article :
Governor Pawlenty says Minnesotans are concerned about a fragile economy, and that's more reason than ever to avoid tax increases. Pawlenty delivered his State of the State speech at the St. Cloud Civic Center Wednesday morning. The Republican governor is using the address to highlight several proposals he's already put before the Legislature.Here's the Pi-Press's Bill Salisbury's said:
Pawlenty also added a new proposal to the mix: a special commission to recommend business-friendly tax changes that would drive job growth and economic activity. Pawlenty is also reminding lawmakers that the state is looking at a projected budget deficit. He says he won't hesitate to use his veto to hold down taxes and spending.
Faced with a budget shortfall and a skeptical Democratic Legislature, Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty proposed only a few modest initiatives in tax policy, education reform and energy development in his State of the State address here today.Here's the opening paragraph of Scott Wente's article in the WC Trib :
Pawlenty devoted most of the speech to his previous themes, such as holding the line on taxes and spending and changing the way we pay for health care.
In his only new initiative, the governor announced he would create a "21st Century Tax Reform Commission" focused on improving the state's job climate. He will fill it with entrepreneurs, investors and others experienced in creating private sector jobs.
"We need to reduce taxes and regulations that discourage job growth, income generation, investment, entrepreneurial activity, research and exports," he said. "We'll need to do that in a manner that also leaves us with a state budget in stable condition."
Gov. Tim Pawlenty praised Minnesota's agriculture and mining sectors and reiterated his opposition to tax hikes in a speech Wednesday that some lawmakers thought lacked a plan to address the state's lagging economy.Here's Sen. Pogemiller's reaction to Gov. Pawlenty's 21st Century Tax Reform Commission:
But Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis, said the state hasIs Sen. Pogemiller saying that the only thing that needs to bring Minnesota's tax system into the 21st century is to close one loophole? I might be wrong but it sounds like Sen. Pogemiller is arguing for the status quo. I'd love to hear Sen. Pogemiller explain how closing tax loopholes encourages entrepreneurial activity or improves the job climate. I'm willing to see if Sen. Pogemiller gives a coherent explanation on his beliefs but I'm not holding my breath on that.
conducted many tax studies in recent years, and policymakers don't need another one to know what to do. "Continually admiring the problem is not the most important thing to do," he said.
Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis, said lawmakers already know how best to improve the tax system, including by closing corporate tax loopholes.
"We don't need to study the issue any longer," Pogemiller said, though he added that the Legislature will go along if tax committee leaders wish.
Look at the different messages that Sen. Pogemiller & Sen. Senjem delivered after the speech:
"If we can't grow Minnesota business we can't sustain all the services that government wants to do and perhaps needs to do," said Senate Minority Leader Dave Senjem, R-Rochester.I'll respectfully disagree with Sen. Pogemiller. It doesn't take "creativity and leadership to bring revenue to the table." All it takes is an insatiable appetite for adding additional burdens to families who are already hurting.
But the proposal of a tax commission fell flat for Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis.
Pogemiller said the state's tax system has grown increasingly less fair by forcing property tax increases on homeowners, renters and businesses and by failing to close corporate loopholes.
"I think continually admiring the problem is probably not the most productive thing to do. Anybody can cut things. It takes creativity and leadership to bring revenue to the table," Pogemiller said.
In fact, I'd argue that keeping tax rates high has an adverse effect on our economy. Here are some ways in which high marginal tax rates hurt Minnesota's economy:
- High tax rates are ruining Minnesota's ability to attract new businesses into the state,
- High tax rates are discouraging existing businesses from investing in their business.
- High tax rates reduce a business's profits, all but eliminating their motivation to expand.
That isn't working in the 21st century because other states are offering lower tax rates while offering high quality education options. The other thing that's likely happening is that Minnesota's college graduates are being hired by businesses in other states.
Until we scrap the DFL's tax increase mindset, we won't be competitive in creating new businesses & new wealth.
Posted Thursday, February 14, 2008 1:22 PM
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Leader Sertich's Response
As I said yesterday, I invited various leaders at Gov. Pawlenty's State of the State Address to respond. I just got this email response from House Majority Leader Tony Sertich:
Gary:I appreciate Leader Sertich for taking the time from his busy schedule to personally respond. This email is posted verbatim, just as I promised.
It was good to meet you in St Cloud yesterday. Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the Governor's State of the State address. I do appreciate your desire to print responses verbatim.
It was good to be invited to the great city of St. Cloud for the State of the State address. It is a growing and important regional hub with a rich history. As a representative from greater Minnesota, I appreciate the Governor's desire to bring our state government to places around our state.
One of the single greatest concerns of Minnesotan's today is the struggling economy and its impacts on our daily business and personal lives. I was disappointed the Governor did not make growing jobs and higher wages a centerpiece of his address. Last year alone, we lost over 23,000 jobs and we are lagging behind the national economy.
For this reason, you will continue to hear from the leaders of the Minnesota House that our work will be focused on improving our state's economy, creating job growth, protection of existing jobs, higher wages, more affordable health care and economic development by investing in our transportation systems, higher education institutions, natural resources, and community infrastructures.
Thank you again for the opportunity to respond.
Tony
Posted Thursday, February 14, 2008 1:36 PM
Comment 1 by Political Muse at 14-Feb-08 08:05 PM
I am glad to see that you got a respectful response from Sertich.
I was disappointed to see your previous post in which some chose to disparage you when you were obviously being respectful. That is not how you act when a constituent speaks!
House Democrats Pursue Fishing Expedition While Ignoring FISA Bill
House Republicans walked off the floor in protest when the House Democratic leadership opted to vote on contempt of Congress charges against Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten. Here's the full account:
House Republicans Thursday left the chamber ahead of a vote seeking to hold White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before a panel investigating the firing of several United States attorneys.The Democrats' decision to not debate the FISA reform bill potentially puts the entire nation at risk. As such, it's one of the riskiest, most irresponsible decisions in recent House history. Knowing that the temporary FISA reform bill runs out this Saturday should've been all the motivation needed to propel the House Democratic leadership to action. Instead, we're hearing this type of drivel :
The move was intended to show that Republicans want to work on a permanent update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act rather than be part of a "partisan fishing expedition," as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) put it.
At a press conference following the walkout, Boehner said "Before Congress leaves town, we must give our intelligence officials the tools they need to keep America safe. "The president will delay his trip to Africa to deal with this critical issue. And Republicans are prepared to stay here as long as it takes to complete our work," Boehner added. "The terrorist threat to our country is not going away. We must do everything we can to protect the American people, and we should start by passing the bipartisan Senate bill."
House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers said lawmakers should not be "stampeded" into approving permanent legislation now , saying more time is required to examine documents among other things.That's insane. The Protect America Act was signed into law on August 5, 2007. Now Rep. Conyers is saying that they need more time and that they're getting stampeded? Competent leadership would've made this their highest priority months ago. Competent leadership would've passed this important legislation months ago.
Instead, the bunglers running the House are pushing this to the final minutes. It's bad enough when the House didn't bother even debating the appropriations bills until the start of the new fiscal year. That's inexcusable. Not taking action on the FISA reform bill until the stopgap expires puts us in danger of terrorist attacks because we won't be able to listen into terrorists' conversations.
UPDATE: Here's Eric Cantor's post on the walkoff :
House Republicans have walked out to protest the Democrats' refusal to consider Senate-passed FISA legislation that would enable America's intelligence agencies to effectively monitor terrorists who are plotting to attack. While Democrats can't find time for that, they did find time to debate the merits of specific individuals on the Administration staff. This is an outrage; our first duty is to protect America. Democrats refuse to take that seriously.This is a perfect illustration of why voters shouldn't trust Democrats on homeland security. They had at least two acceptable options: They could've debated their own bill, then voted on it. They could've debated the Senate bill and voted on it. Instead, they chose to debate whether or not Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten were guilty of contempt of Congress because they wouldn't testify in one of the many House Democrat fishing expeditions into the Bush administration.
I'm a firm believer in partisanship but I won't tolerate partisanship when it potentially puts American lives at risk.
This is a huge reminder as to why there is more than a dime's worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats. Anyone who stays home this November after reading about this is as irresponsible as the House Democratic leadership team.
Posted Thursday, February 14, 2008 4:16 PM
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Kelliher's Transportation Tapdance
Dist. 22A Rep. Doug Magnus has an interesting editorial in the Worthington Daily Globe. The editorial is titled "Speaker's handling of MnDOT issues a 'tap dance'".
I found House Speaker Margaret Kelliher's recent transportation letter to be quite interesting, especially since she continues to tap dance around the reasons why she has become a transportation roadblock.We've known about this logjam for awhile now. What's apparent is that the DFL is trying to not release the I-35 money until Gov. Pawlenty signs off on the huge tax increases in Sen. Murphy's Transportation Bill. I'm saying that it's apparent because TCAG could've released this money the instant it hit that account. I suspect that the DFL will be forced to appropriate the money the minute the public catches wind of this.
Kelliher doesn't want the Legislature's Transportation Contingency Appropriations Group (TCAG), an eight-member group she co-chairs, to authorize MnDOT to spend nearly $200 million in federal funds that was sent from Congress following the I-35W bridge collapse. This is after she reneged on a December agreement saying she would call a January meeting to review MnDOT's financial status.
We're now in February, and MnDOT's still waiting for the authorization to spend $200 million of additional federal transportation funds. That means $55 million in construction projects across the state will soon be delayed. Kelliher says decisions by an eight-member committee of lawmakers should be reserved for emergencies.
The $200 million that arrived from Congress comes from a fund called the "Emergency Relief Program." Don't you think a funding decision regarding the collapse of a bridge carrying 141,000 vehicles a day qualifies as an emergency?
Further, House File 562 created the TCAG. With Kelliher's vote, the bill passed the House 95-39 - I opposed it - and it passed unanimously in the Senate with 65 votes. That's 160 of 201 lawmakers, or 80 percent, that wanted this group to handle unanticipated appropriations.
So if we don't view bridge collapse funding as an emergency, then why was this group ever created and why did Kelliher support it?
That isn't the only bone that Rep. Magnus has to pick with Ms. Kelliher:
The Speaker mentions a transportation bill is coming. Where is it?Here's the quote I got from my 'adopted' state Rep. Steve Gottwalt :
I'm the Republican Lead on the House Transportation Finance Division, and I haven't seen or been asked to offer suggestions on how to make this year's bill better - or more likely to be signed into law.
I'd welcome the opportunity to negotiate and put together a transportation bill that truly is good for all of Minnesota. I previously authored a comprehensive transportation funding bill that was supported by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. That project specific bill included funding for Highway 60. Kelliher seems to know about Highway 60 issues; I'd be interested to see if her secret, no-negotiations-necessary bill addresses this need.
"There is clearly middle ground on transportation that would move things forward but the DFL leadership has indicated that they will not go there."I'd tell Rep. Magnus not to hold his breath waiting for an invitation to negotiate a truly bipartisan transportation bill but I'm sure he already knows better than to get his expectations of bipartisan cooperation up. Last night, I told King that the DFL appears to be taking a 'My way or no highways' approach to transportation. I'd love to be proven wrong on that but I'm not holding my breath on that either.
It's time for the DFL to stop playing politics with the emergency funds that the feds appropriated for the I-35W bridge collapse.
In the aftermath of the collapse, Amy Klobuchar said that " A bridge in America just shouldn't fall down ." Alot of people agreed with that statement.
I wonder how many voters agree that politicians shouldn't play political games with disaster relief funds. That's exactly what the DFL-dominated TCAG is doing under the 'leadership' of Speaker Kelliher.
Posted Thursday, February 14, 2008 6:28 PM
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Pelosi's Democrats Shirking National Security Responsibilities
As I posted earlier , Republicans walked off the floor when Democrats refused to debate the FISA bill. Here's Michele Bachmann's statement about the GOP Walkoff:
American's safety must come before partisanshipIf that isn't bad enough, Democrats now are prepared to let the Protect America Act lapse :
(Washington, D.C) Today, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) released the following statement after Democrats allowed the Protect America Act to expire:
"It is unconscionable that with America's security on the line, the Democrats chose to spend Congress' time on pointless partisan posturing. As a member of Congress, I serve no higher duty than to help keep our friends, families and loved ones safe. The Protect America Act has been a critical part of the effort to prevent, interrupt and foil terrorist attacks. Yet with it set to expire in just two days, the Democrats refused to work with Republicans to reauthorize it.
"The Protect America Act provides vital updates to the original 1978 FISA provision, allowing law enforcement and intelligence services to meet the threat posed by the enemies of today. For over six months House Democrats have refused to bring a comprehensive, long-term FISA bill to the floor.
"Even the Senate passed a bipartisan reauthorization bill. And the President cleared his schedule to ensure that terrorist chatter wouldn't slip through the cracks while our intelligence officers awaited these important surveillance tools.
"But the Democrats were more interested in establishing commemorative weeks, honoring groups and taking cheap shots at Administration officials. About the most substantive thing they had planned for today were technical corrections to a 36-year-old fungicide bill. And so I joined my fellow House Republicans in walking off the floor today in protest.
"America's safety must come before partisanship. Democrats need to work with Republicans to pass long-term FISA reform. I hope that today's Republican action will help propel a FISA bill onto the floor so we can get back to the business of protecting the American people."
President Bush said Thursday that failure to update the Protect America Act will "harm our ability to monitor new terrorist activities and could reopen dangerousTo be blunt, Ms. Pelosi is feeding us a line of BS. The FISA appellate court ruled that the NSA had to get a warrant anytime foreign communications were routed through American switches :
gaps in our intelligence."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in response, dubbed such talk fear-mongering. The president has every authority to continue needed eavesdropping under another law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), she said. Moreover, the authorities granted under the temporary surveillance law enacted in August will carry on for a year, she added.
The prelude to approval of the plan occurred in January, when the administrationSimply put, Ms. Pelosi's actions should enrage thinking people of all political stripes. It's unconscienable to think that Congress would simply walk away from their responsibility of protecting the American people.
agreed to put the wiretapping program under the oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The court is charged with guarding against governmental spying abuses. Officials say one judge issued a ruling in January that allowed the administration to continue the program under the court's supervision. A ruling a month or two later, the judge who made it and its exact timing are not clear, restricted the government's ability to intercept foreign-to-foreign communications passing through telecommunication "switches" on American soil.
The security agency was newly required to seek warrants to monitor at least some of those phone calls and e-mail messages. As a result, the ability to intercept foreign-based communications "kept getting ratcheted down," said a senior intelligence official who insisted on anonymity because the account involved classified material. " We were to a point where we were not effectively operating."
Mr. McConnell, lead negotiator for the administration in lobbying for the bill, said in an interview that the court's restrictions had made his job much more difficult.
" It was crazy, because I'm sitting here signing out warrants on known Al Qaeda operatives that are killing Americans, doing foreign communications ," he said. "And the only reason I'm signing that warrant is because it touches the U.S. communications infrastructure . That's what we fixed."
I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the fact that the FISA Appellate Court ruling is idiotic. In their ruling, they effectively said that yes, even though a communication was from one foreign country to another foreign country, it wasn't a foreign call because it went through a US switch.
The new 2008 Protect America Act would expand and update the government'sIf the NSA has to resort to antiquated laws, then we aren't doing everything that's needed to keep us secure. That message should be the NRCC's campaign theme from now until Election Day.
ability to monitor technologies such as the Internet and cellphones. If the current law is allowed to lapse, the US will be unable to respond quickly to new terrorist threats, say Republicans and some Democrats, who are urging approval of a bill the Senate passed on Tuesday.
To do anything less than our utmost is unacceptable.
Posted Thursday, February 14, 2008 8:31 PM
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Ban Barry Bonds
While the Barry Bonds travesty played out, people kept saying that there wasn't proof of him using steroids. That lame defense just came to a crashing halt . Here's the details:
SAN FRANCISCO -- Barry Bonds tested positive for steroids in November 2001, just a month after hitting his record 73rd home run of the season, U.S. prosecutors said on Thursday.This isn't a shocking revelation. Anyone who had watched him go from being a skinny youngster to where he is now knew that he'd been taking steroids. In fact, people have been saying for years that Bonds' single season homerun record was the direct result of steroids. Just look at his stats . If you eliminate his record-setting season, the best he did was 49 home runs in 2000. In 21 full major league seasons, he hit 40 or more home runs 8 times: in 93, 96-97 and 2000-2004. It wasn't a stretch to think that he was using steroids during his record-breaking season.
The allegation came in a legal filing in his steroid perjury case that referred to Bonds' long-time trainer, Greg Anderson.
"At trial, the government's evidence will show that Bonds received steroids from Anderson in the period before the November 2001 positive drug test, and that evidence raises the inference that Anderson gave Bonds the steroids that caused him to test positive in November 2001," U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello wrote.
The U.S. government made the assertion in a document that asked a federal court to reject Bonds' motion last month to dismiss the charges that he lied about past steroid use.
I'm a baseball purist. That's why Bonds' single-season record should come off the books. Once you eliminate the 73 home runs he hit in 2001, he falls short of the 700 mark, putting him well behind Henry Aaron and Babe Ruth, which is where he should be.
Baseball's first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, banned Shoeless Joe Jackson after the 1920 season for his part in the 1919 Black Sox scandal, in which the Sox fixed the outcome of the World Series. I don't see a major difference between the Black Sox Scandal and what Bonds did.
That isn't the only trouble he's in:
In December, the record seven-time National League Most Valuable Player pleaded not guilty to lying to a federal grand jury in 2003 when he denied using performance-enhancing drugs.I'm not a lawyer but I've gotta think that that's a big problem for Mr. Bonds. I don't see how he can test positive for steroids in 2001, then tell a federal grand jury in 2003 that he'd never used performance-enhancing drugs.
It would be appropriate to have him spend some time in a federal prison for lying to a grand jury. It would be a disgrace if he didn't get convicted and if he didn't spend time in prison.
Posted Thursday, February 14, 2008 10:09 PM
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