May 17-19, 2009
May 17 03:44 Saturday Night's Afterthoughts May 17 10:57 Huntsman a 2012 Rival? Says Who? May 17 14:38 Can You Call It a Budget? May 17 16:03 AFSCME Urges Veto Override May 17 20:56 **BREAKING NEWS: VETO SUSTAINED** May 18 02:55 Let's Rally To Eva Ng's Cause May 19 00:36 We're Safe For Another Year May 19 02:06 Senate Ends In Disgrace May 19 08:45 DFL Leadership?
Saturday Night's Afterthoughts
After watching much of the Tax Bill Conference Committee, one thing still sticks out in my mind: the testimony of the League of Cities activist who said that Gov. Pawlenty was raising property taxes by not signing an income tax increase.
Rep. Kohls rightly pointed out that city and county governments and entities like the Met Council can raise property taxes.
The reason why that statement sticks out for me is because the townhall meeting I attended this week. At the meeting, Mayor Dave Kleis had the unenviable responsibility of explaining why 4 of St. Cloud 7 parks weren't being opened this year. Numerous people from the neighborhood showed up with their little children. (One parent event held her little girl up to Mayor Kleis and instructed the little girl to "tell him not to close the pool.")
Mayor Kleis did a good job of explaining that this particular park had the highest maintenance costs and the fewest visitors. He then mentioned that some of the people by Hester Park were raising money from private donors to open that park up. Immediately after saying that, the young families that live in the neighborhood asked if the city of St. Cloud would open St. Cloud Park up if they raised enough money.
Mayor Kleis's instant response was that that offer extended to every park in St. Cloud.
This is a perfect example of local governments using ingenuity and flexibility to keep providing so-called quality of life' services without raising property taxes. It destroys Saturday night's testimony. Unfortunately, not all mayors think like Mayor Kleis. Minnesota would save alot of money if they did.
Which leads to this bigger point: the DFL hasn't spent enough time thinking about what Mayor Kleis calls do differentlies. The pop-culture term is reform. Taxpayers call them smart governance.
The DFL hasn't looked for unique ways of providing services. They didn't bother finding out if the things they were spending money on were needs. They didn't think about asking if the way they're currently doing things was the efficient way of doing things.
One positive that came out of Saturday night's hearing was testimony given about a set of cuts recommended by MAPES (What MAPES stands for, I don't know). Anyway, leaders from both parties will look the list over before resuming things today. If they can agree on a package, they might be put into a bill and sent to Gov. Pawlenty's desk for his signature. Rep. Sertich later mentioned that he thought that it might even be possible for Gov. Pawlenty might be able to make these cuts through executive order.
Posted Sunday, May 17, 2009 3:44 AM
Comment 1 by Margaret at 17-May-09 07:39 AM
MAPE= Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, the state workers union.
Comment 2 by Gary Gross at 17-May-09 08:32 AM
DUHHH Thanks Margaret.
Huntsman a 2012 Rival? Says Who?
According to this article , Jon Huntsman was a Republican that the White House worried about. Before I'd believe that, I'd have to first believe that Cindy Sheehan will unseat Nancy Pelosi in next year's Democratic primary. That won't happen anytime soon.
Commentators pointed out that Mr Obama had cleverly removed a possible opponent from the 2012 election race. Mr Huntsman has won fans for his moderate politics and was the co-chairman of Senator John McCain's presidential campaign last year. "I did not expect, as national co-chair of Senator McCain's presidential campaign, to be called into action by the person who beat us," said Mr Huntsman.Thinking that Huntsman was a viable presidential candidate in 2012 is utter lunacy. Being a co-chairman to McCain's campaign would've been a mark against him. Believing in the policies that McCain believed in would've been the disaster that sunk him.
Let's put it this way: Huntsman would've been the 2012 cycle's Sen. Hagel. That means he would've been the media's darling with practically no support with GOP primary voters and caucus goers.
REMINDER: The national media will always swirl around moderates like Huntsman. They think that the only way to win elections is by being more like them. That's nonsense. If the people are given a choice between a Democrat and Democrat lite, they'll pick the Democrat every time.
The GOP picking a squishie is like throwing pail after pail of cold water on a raging campfire. It's the best way to ensure a miserable election cycle for the GOP.
ADDITIONAL HINT: That's why Charlie Crist is a disaster waiting to happen. Even if he's elected, it'll be like electing a Democrat.
Posted Sunday, May 17, 2009 10:58 AM
No comments.
Can You Call It a Budget?
The DFL has been whining about Gov. Pawlenty's impending line item vetoes of their budget. The question I have is simple: Did the DFL pass a budget or did they just pass a bunch of spending bills? King ponts out here that things like "Salary & Earned Income", "Rental Income" and "Dividends, Interest, Cap. Gains" are at the top of the sheet, presumably because spending plans are worthless if you don't have money to spend.
The DFL's budget included a deficit of over 8% of the total budget. ($31,000,000,000 is 91% of $34,000,000,000.) Minnesota law demands that budgets be balanced going into the new biennium. As such, the DFL hasn't met its constitutional obligation. Let's stipulate for this discussion that Gov. Pawlenty had signed the Senate's Tax Bill. Sen. Bakk's bill was projected to raise $2,200,000,000 in new taxes. That's still a deficit of $800,000,000 or 2 percent of the budget.
I'd argue that Gov. Pawlenty is simply finishing the job that the DFL-dominated legislature refused to do. I'd further argue that Gov. Pawlenty is the only person who has lived up to the responsibilities laid out in Minnesota's Constitution.
It's difficult to think of the DFL's plan as a budget because it doesn't do what Minnesota's Constitution mandates. In fact, in its current form, it falls almost 10 percent short of balancing.
It's also worth noting that the DFL-dominated House voted down Rep. Steve Gottwalt's bill that would've saved the state millions of dollars from the HHS budget, the part of the budget that's causing the most trouble. Let's remember that this legislation passed the Health Care and Human Services Policy and Oversight Committee with unanimous support .
During last night's meeting of the LCPHP, Speaker Kelliher said that the DFL was willing to look at any list of cost savings. That's the right attitude. Unfortunately, the DFL-dominated legislature's actions haven't matched Speaker Kelliher's words. Why didn't they start looking for savings the first week of the session? Why didn't the legislature do what St. Cloud does annually, namely, determine revenues, then set priorities, then fund according to their priorities?
I'm a bit skeptical, too, about the DFL's sudden interest in finding cost savings rather than budget cuts. If the DFL thought that cost savings were a priority, why didn't they pass Rep. Gottwalt's reform legislation? The DFL's claims would have more credibility if they'd shown a propensity towards finding cost savings starting with Day One.
Posted Sunday, May 17, 2009 2:38 PM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 17-May-09 06:26 PM
Why didn't the DFL set priorities? Because to them it is an alien concept. Everything that government wants to do is a Good Thing(TM) and therefore is not subject to tiny little details like not having the money. One DFLer, asked to explain her vote in favor of a tax increase, said, "The State of Minnesota has needs." One presumes, therefore, that the millions of Minnesota taxpayers and their families do NOT have any needs and should simply be grateful for whatever few farthings the government gives back to them.
AFSCME Urges Veto Override
According to this post , AFSCME Council 5 union members are pushing the House to override Gov. Pawlenty's veto of the DFL's Tax Increase Bill. The likelihood of that happening is ZERO. I hope Speaker Kelliher calls for a vote this afternoon so we can dispense with the DFL's nonsense. Jim Abeler and Rod Hamilton, the two remaining members of the GOP Override Six, have both said that they'll sustain Gov. Pawlenty's veto. Here's a portion of Polinaut's post:
The Republican governor opposes any tax increase. Union leader Eliot Seide said public employees want a balanced budget solution. "They want to cut unnecessary spending, like outsourcing and JOBZ," Seide said. "And they want to raise taxes fairly on those who have the best ability to pay. That's why we're here today."Raising taxes on the job creation engines is especially stupid during tough economic times.
On another note, Chris Coleman's statement that cutting St. Paul's LGA would force him to cut the fire and police departments' budgets indicates that the DFL isn't good at setting the right priorities. Here's what Mayor Coleman said :
St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said his city faces a potential $30 million cut in 2010 and said that reductions in police and fire departments would be necessary. Pawlenty has criticized local mayors who have claimed the cuts in LGA would come from public safety rather than non-essential services.What person in their right mind starts by cutting public safety budgets? If I lived in St. Paul, like a certain NARN member does, I'd ask Mayor Coleman what things he isn't cutting. I'd want to know which budgets Mayor Coleman thinks should rate a higher priority than public safety.
"Anyone that stands here and tells you that public safety is a priority and then tries to cut aid to cities that provide it is not being honest with you," Coleman said.
Posted Sunday, May 17, 2009 4:03 PM
Comment 1 by R-Five at 17-May-09 04:22 PM
There may be some rural exceptions, but Mayors Rybak and Coleman are certainly lying when they say LGA cuts force police/fire layoffs. Last I looked, Minneapolis spends $2 on Community Development for every $1 on Police.
Comment 2 by mitch berg at 17-May-09 06:11 PM
A lot of people are asking Mayor Coleman why he's targeting public safety first.
Of course, we all know what he's doing; aiming at cops and firemen to cow the citizenry into demanding more state spending. Which benefits all the rest of AFSCME.
By the way, the St. Paul Mayor's race is the biggest race in MN this year. Please chip in a few buck for Eva Ng, the GOP-endorsed candidate for mayor. She could use the help.
Comment 3 by Gary Gross at 17-May-09 07:46 PM
Mitch, You're exactly right. Only an idiot would make public safety their FIRST cuts. I'd hoped to stir up the people who live in St. Paul to thinking about doing what's right.
I join with you in highlighting the St. Paul mayor's race. Eva Ng sounds like an impressive person.
In fact, I'd gladly join with you in highlighting Chris Coleman's stupidity & highlighting Eva Ng's candidacy. Let's do a fundraising cross-post so she can beat him.
**BREAKING NEWS: VETO SUSTAINED**
Minutes ago, the House of Representatives sustained Gov. Pawlenty's veto of the Tax Bill. The vote was 85-49, meaning that 2 DFL legislators voted with all 47 House Republicans.
UPDATE: Rep. Sertich delivered a made-for-TV speech talking about how not voting to increase taxes will result in poor people being left without health care and would drive up property taxes. He further added that increasing taxes would create jobs.
What was stunning to me is that Rep. Sertich insisted that we'd create jobs by increasing taxes.
Minority Leader Seifert did a great job of highlighting that the DFL's budget doesn't balance. Leader Seifert also spoke to the point that the DFL spent no time offering reforms that would produce cost savings.
The DFL-dominated legislature is the definition of a do-nothing legislature.
UPDATE II: I've just confirmed that Rep. Poppe and Rep. Pelowski were the DFL legislators who voted with all 47 House GOP legislators to sustain Gov. Pawlenty's veto of the Tax Bill.
Posted Sunday, May 17, 2009 11:17 PM
No comments.
Let's Rally To Eva Ng's Cause
Last night, I highlighted St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman's pathetic diatribe. Here's what Chris Coleman said during that diatribe:
St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said his city faces a potential $30 million cut in 2010 and said that reductions in police and fire departments would be necessary. Pawlenty has criticized local mayors who have claimed the cuts in LGA would come from public safety rather than non-essential services.Mitch Berg responded to Coleman's quote by first saying that this is Coleman's attempt to get people to call for more taxes. Mitch then said that raising taxes benefits AFSCME. Mitch is right on both points. Mitch then said that Eva Ng is running in St. Paul and that she could use some support.
"Anyone that stands here and tells you that public safety is a priority and then tries to cut aid to cities that provide it is not being honest with you," Coleman said.
I wholeheartedly agree. That's why I'm encouraging conservatives to contribute to her campaign or to volunteer to help spread her message .
The sooner Minnesota is rid of the blight known as Chris Coleman's administration, the better off we'll all be. Here's something from Ms. Ng's website that conservatives everywhere should enjoy listening to:
It is time to change how our city is run. We cannot stand by as the budget of the city grows while our citizens cut. Our businesses and citizens struggle under the weight of lower incomes and rising taxes and fees while the current administration continues to expand local government size and spending.It's time that St. Paul was run as efficiently as St. Cloud is. It's time we said "ENOUGH!!!" Enough with the irresponsible spending, enough with the excessive taxes. The only thing that St. Paul doesn't have enough of is prosperity. We've seen Chris Coleman's administration run St. Paul into the ground. It's time for someone to change the way things are done there. It's time for the city to be run right.
Posted Monday, May 18, 2009 2:55 AM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 18-May-09 05:40 PM
forgive me, but when Coleman the Republican was mayor wasn't there eight balanced budgets with no tax increases and police + firefighter employment was higher.
Maybe the Democrat Coleman should look at what the Republican Coleman did. And just think how much worse things would've been if Coleman hadn't left him the city of Saint Paul in such great shape before the democrat coleman destroyed it
walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Comment 2 by MBerg at 25-May-09 09:50 AM
Norm Coleman (who governed his first term as a DFLer before switching in '96) and moderate DFLer Randy Kelly (who endorsed Bush for President in '04) BOTH held the line on taxes and spending.
And it was, in effect, ending this record of fiscal responsibility taht was the DFL's main campaign; Chris Coleman ran on raising spending but (!) being "responsible" by raising taxes (and counting on TONS of LGA).
So yeah. Please do what you can to help Eva Ng.
We're Safe For Another Year
We're safe for another year. Sort of. Rest assured that the DFL will spend this summer telling people that conservatives threw old people out into the street, that conservatives don't care about children and that conservatives only care about the rich.
The reality is that the DFL refused to do its job. The DFL refused to set the right priorities. The DFL wouldn't even propose a real budget. Instead, they carped all session about how Gov. Pawlenty's budget didn't do this or didn't do that. Now it's settled.
Gov. Pawlenty told legislators last Thursday that he'd take matters into his own hands if they didn't pass a budget that included tax increases.
We should also thank the GOP House for sustaining each of Gov. Pawlenty's vetoes. We should thank the Senate GOP for proposing many worthwhile reforms. Both sides of the GOP legislature worked hard to pass meaningful reforms. Unfortunately, we didn't have the numbers to get good things accomplished.
Now it's time we got to work and got these legislators alot more company when they start the 2011 session. It's time that we contributed the money and the hours needed to make Dave Senjem the Senate Majority Leader and make Marty Seifert the next Speaker of the House.
Posted Tuesday, May 19, 2009 12:36 AM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 19-May-09 06:17 AM
The DFL is being very helpful. Expect them to continue their "sky is falling tour" for the next 8 months, and then to start the election year session with the voters pretty well knowing that the sky is still firmly in place, without the DFL's so-called help!
Senate Ends In Disgrace
With minutes left to go in the session, Senate President Jim Metzen swore at Deputy Senate Republican Leader Michelle Fischbach when Fischbach raised concerns about the final minutes of the session, something that drew the ire of Senate Minority Leader Senjem:
"The ending of this session was a disgrace. I cannot believe what the Senate DFL did and Senate Majority Leader Pogemiller and the Senate DFL should be embarrassed," Senate Republican Leader Dave Senjem (R-Rochester).
That isn't all Senjem said:
"The legislative session is now complete and due to the Senate DFL's lack of leadership, the Minnesota Senate did everything except something to solve the growing budget deficit," said Senjem. "As of today, the Legislature only provided a solution of $800 million or 12.5 percent of the $6.4 billion budget deficit," said Senjem. "The Senate DFL's budget problem is simple mathematics: They passed legislation that spent $34 billion, but only $31 billion was available to spend. Minnesotans know that you can't spend more money than you have."
The bottom line is that the DFL failed to set priorities. Instead, they relied on raising taxes and on Obama's aid to the states. Both strategies failed miserably.
The Senate GOP put out a list of things that the DFL failed to accomplish. Here's the list:
The Senate DFL leadership failed in the following areas:
- Failing to set priorities lead to the Senate DFL passing job killing tax increases. The Senate DFL campaign to make the wealthy "pay their fair share" by putting them into two of nation's top 10 tax brackets would have hurt small-business owners who report business income as personal income, slowing their short-term growth and eating into their long-term investment capital.
- Failed to set spending priorities lead to cuts to schools, nursing homes, hospitals, children, the elderly & disabled. The Senate DFL's approach to solving the state's $6.4 billion budget hole wasn't to do some fine tuning around the state's top priorities, but rather to take an axe and chop 7 percent across the board without any meaningful reforms or tools for local authorities to cope with those cuts.
- Failed to set priorities lead to spending without reforms. An important education funding bill did not carry any significant reform to improve teacher quality at the college level or to provide incentives for academic achievement, no statewide teacher salary settlement reform, no changes to teacher union bargaining, and no satisfactory long-term solution for a statewide high school graduation math test replacement.
- Failing to set priorities lead to hockey arena loan forgiveness and a soft on crime public safety bill. Despite attempts to remove a loan forgiveness provision, the Legislature passed a jobs and economic development bill that would have canceled the remaining $33 million of Xcel Energy's $48 million hockey arena loan. Similarly, DFL cuts in public safety were originally made by reversing accomplishments in felony DWI and predatory offenders, mandatory minimum sentencing, and mental health treatment, and balances budgets by letting out convicted criminals.
Saying that the the DFL's report card could look is understatement. The DFL's biggest problem is that they don't set priorities. The lobbyists' wish lists are their budget targets. At some point, the word no had has to work its way into the conversation. I didn't see the DFL say no very often except when it came cutting taxes but that's not surprising.
Originally posted Tuesday, May 19, 2009, revised 07-Mar 2:56 PM
Comment 1 by Proof? at 19-May-09 11:39 PM
Anyone have video of this? I was watching the final minutes and did not see this. I feel like we need some proof before using Metzen's alleged cursing as a springboard for more stale GOP rhetoric.
DFL Leadership?
Posted Tuesday, May 19, 2009 8:45 AM
Comment 1 by R-Five at 19-May-09 06:47 PM
I think we're making a bit too much of these last hours. Long hours, pressure, tempers, even DFL'ers are people, too.
That said, DFL had almost five months to get this done. I think they just assumed they could buy 3 GOP votes at crunch time like last year. "We can be bought, why can't they?"
Comment 2 by J. Ewing at 20-May-09 08:09 AM
I think the DFL assumed that the old playbook, run out the clock and throw a hail-Mary tax increase at the Governor in the last seconds, then harangue him into submission, would always work. Sorry, DFL, but you can only pull that trick a few times, and those times are up. You will now get what you have long deserved, if the GOP is smart enough to capitalize on it.
