April 1-5, 2011
Apr 01 13:37 DFL Refuses To Set Priorities Apr 01 14:44 Why Republicans Should Stand Strong Apr 02 10:44 Sen. Manchin Supports Sen. McConnell's EPA Reform Bill Apr 02 12:46 Dayton Admits That Sen. Berglin Was Asleep at the Switch Apr 02 20:22 Grandma Got Run Over...By the GOP??? Apr 03 09:30 Ellliot's Drama Queen Seide Apr 05 01:14 Minnesotans Are Better Than That Apr 05 10:16 How To Win A Budget Shutdown
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
DFL Refuses To Set Priorities
Based on their arguments this past week, it's apparent that the DFL doesn't intend on getting serious about setting priorities, much less cutting spending in any meaningful way. This article's quotes remove all doubt:
'There's no doubt the governor is going to veto this bill,' said Sen. Roger Reinert, DFL-Duluth. 'But it's still very frustrating to sit here every day, whether it's local government aid (for cities) or education funding for schools, and watch the other party attack Duluth. I thought voters wanted us to work cooperatively and not make this about partisan politics.'
Sen. Reinert's credibility isn't growing. If he'd admitted that money had shifted from "integration aid" to "improving reading proficiency."
Sen. Reinert didn't note that Duluth is shrinking . The 1960 census put Duluth's population at 107,312. The 2010 census puts Duluth's population at 86,265. That's a 20% drop in half a century. To be fair, Duluth's population has stabilized in the 80,000+ range the last 30 years.
That means people are leaving Duluth, often called the "San Francisco of the Midwest", because their liberal policies have led to stagnation. Question: If policies are triggering stagnation, whether it's population or economic stagnation, why continue with these discredited policies?
What's happened in Duluth is typical of the DFL. Status quo stupidity has settled in. New ideas are rejected because the Tom Doohers are refusing to join the 21st Century. Thankfully, Sen. Dave Thompson is challenging the status quo stupidity:
St. Paul - It was reported Thursday that the Anoka-Hennepin School District will likely lay off around 500 teachers this June. As cost drivers like salary increases, 'steps and lanes,' health care and pensions continue to accelerate, school districts' budgets can't afford to keep teachers in the classrooms. Anoka-Hennepin is the largest school district in the state, serving nearly 40,000 students in the northern suburbs of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Senator Dave Thompson (R-Lakeville) gave the following statement regarding the Anoka-Hennepin announcement.
'The news from Anoka-Hennepin School District further illustrates the financial pressure placed upon school districts by out-of-control increases in salaries and benefits. Good teachers will be lost; class sizes will increase; students will be negatively impacted. That is why a pay freeze, like the one we passed today in the Senate, is necessary,' said Senator Thompson. ' The choice is simple: hold the line on wages and save jobs, or raise wages and let students pay the price .'
"It is not too late to save some, if not many of the teaching jobs. If Anoka-Hennepin knows that a salary freeze has been enacted, the district could readjust its budget assumptions and recall those that get layoff notices," added Senator Thompson.
When parents are faced with the choice of spending money on integration programs or freezing teachers' salaries which will keep teachers employed, I'm confident that they'll pick keeping teachers employed.
It's easy being a liberal. All it takes is frequently saying yes to your political allies and raising taxes on one group or another. Being a conservative means having the ability to set priorities.
Perhaps the most controversial provisions freeze teacher pay, eliminate collective bargaining for teachers for salary issues, eliminate their right to strike and eliminate seniority and tenure as a basis for teacher pay in favor of five-year contracts where teachers get raises based mostly on student test scores.
This isn't controversial. It might be controversial to teachers unions but it isn't controversial to taxpayers. That's especially true when freezing teachers' salaries keeps 500 teachers in classrooms.
'Ending teacher tenure is not going to improve test scores. These aren't steps to help students, they are vindictive steps to attack teachers and their unions,' Wanner said. 'It's part of the ongoing Republican attack on working people."
Wanner apparently is part of the DFL wing that thinks only union employees are "working people." That's arrogant in the extreme.
As for Wanner's claim that ending teacher tenure won't improve test scores, he can't prove that. Further, he can't prove that keeping tenure intact will improve test scores. He can't prove it because it hasn't been tried before.
What is provable is that high quality teachers will improve test scores. It's also important that we admit that the most experienced teachers aren't automatically the best teachers.
Dayton had already warned Republican lawmakers earlier in the week that he would veto any major state spending bills if they included major policy changes. He asked lawmakers to put policy changes in separate legislation, advice Republicans so far have ignored.
Who made Gov. Dayton king of Minnesota? It's his right to veto bills, even bills that set the right budget priorities and the right policies. If the policies make sense, why veto the bills?
If Gov. Dayton insists on acting like a king, the showdown will happen. When things crystalize, the DFL will be exposed as supporting unsupportable policies and spending amounts.
Posted Friday, April 1, 2011 1:37 PM
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Why Republicans Should Stand Strong
Scott Rasmussen's polling is proof that Republicans should stand strong on cutting the budget by the most aggressive amount possible:
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% of Likely U.S. Voters think making deeper spending cuts in the federal budget for 2011 is more important than avoiding a partial government shutdown. Thirty-one percent (31%) disagree and say avoiding a shutdown is more important. Twelve percent (12%) are not sure.
Anytime you're on the positive side of what's essentially a 2:1 issue, that's a politically strong position. This polling utterly refutes Harry Reid's and Little Chuckie Schumer's claims that Republicans' positions are "extreme".
If Reid and Schumer think that 57% of likely voters are extreme, they're welcome to make that argument. I'm betting they'll quickly abandon this argument.
More importantly, this polling hasn't changed in a month:
This shows little change from late February when 58% of voters said it was better to have a partial government shutdown than to keep spending at current levels.
The voters' message this past November was unequivocal. They're tired of DC's reckless spending. Apparently, they're fine with things if it takes a government shutdown to get that message pounded into the Democrats' thick skulls.
This information should frighten Democrats:
Most voters, as they have for years, say cutting taxes and reducing government spending are best for the economy.
The partisan divide is predictable. Fifty-four percent (54%) of Democrats say avoiding a government shutdown is more important than deeper spending cuts. Seventy-six percent (76%) of Republicans, and 67% of voters not affiliated with either of the major parties, disagree.
The fact that independents, by a 2:1 margin, are fine with a shutdown vs. reckless spending should get Democrats' undivided attention.
What this polling says is that it's time for Republicans to strike while the proverbial iron is hot. It's obvious that Rep. Thad McCotter gets that:
Now isn't the time to compromise and betray the American people that spoke with such a loud, unequivocal, voice this past November. The polling shows that the American people haven't changed their minds. Their principles haven't shifted.
George Will once wrote that "if the American people speak loudly enough and long enough, sooner or later, the leaders will follow." Let's hope Republican leaders in the House and Senate stiffen their resolve and tell Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer that their wimpy budget cuts won't cut it with the American people. Let's hope that they say that they won't vote to betray the American people's trust.
If that happens, then this polling information will rightfully be seen as a Godsend.
Posted Friday, April 1, 2011 2:44 PM
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Sen. Manchin Supports Sen. McConnell's EPA Reform Bill
Sen. Manchin, (D-WVA), the man who took over Robert Byrd's seat, has signed onto Mitch McConnell's EPA reform legislation :
Q: 'You signed onto the McConnell Amendment as a Democrat, but you're the only Democrat I think who's signed on to the McConnell Amendment. Why can't you get, you're a persuasive person, you wear people down, why can't you get other Democrats to sign onto the McConnell amendment?'
SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): 'Well, I'm working on them I can tell you that from the standpoint, and I don't know whether they don't realize, I think a few more votes, I think they're going to vote for it, I really do. Now I guess they don't want to take the lead on something that I feel so strongly about. I just believe that the EPA has totally overstepped its boundaries. It was never an agency put in a position to the create public policy that's going to affect us and change our way of life, I truly believe.
So I feel strong enough to sign on. Other people might not, but I believe there'll be 13 to 15 Democrats that will vote for it.'
Coal Belt senators like Bob Casey, Sherrod Brown and Mark Warner will have a difficult time voting against Sen. McConnell's bill. Sen. Baucus has said that he'll support Sen. McConnell's bill. I can't imagine Sen. Tester, who's locked in an uphill fight for re-election in Montana, voting against Sen. McConnell's bill.
Ditto with Claire McCaskill in Missouri. Ditto with Conrad in North Dakota, though he's retiring. I can picture Joe Lieberman voting for this because he's retiring, too. Bill and Ben Nelson of Florida and Nebraska respectively could probably be talked into voting for Sen. McConnell's bill, too. Ditto with Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.
Sen. Warner isn't up for re-election this time but he will be in 2014. That will be right after Gov. McDonell's term expires. A Warner-McDonnell matchup in the Virginia of 2011 has to cause more than a little heartburn for Warner. That'd be a stiff challenge for Warner because McDonnell's popularity is high and stable in a state that will return to the red column in 2012.
Sen. McConnell's legislation is sure to cause heartburn for Senate Democrats. If Sen. Manchin is right that 13-15 Democrats are willing to vote for limiting the EPA's authority, it's going to make for very interesting campaigning in 2012.
Rep. Morgan Griffith's op-ed in Human Events will cause Coal State Democrats some heartburn, too:
Coal is a vital domestic natural resource that powers the U.S. economy. More than 50% of the U.S. electric supply comes from coal-fired power plants. This obviously translates into a lot of jobs: In 2009 there were 1,400 mines in the U.S. employing over 87,000 miners. There were also 31,000 jobs related to the transportation of coal and 60,000 jobs in coal-fired power plants.
Notably, these approximately 178,000 jobs do not include the indirect employment supported by industry, estimated to be almost two million jobs. These jobs pay their workers well, as 2008 figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show: Nonsupervisory coal miners earn an average of $1,140 per week or a little more than $23 per hour on average. This compares well to just above $18 per hour elsewhere in private industry.
I can't imagine Coal State Democrats, whether they're in the House or Senate, voting to let President Obama expand EPA's authority. They know that expanding EPA's authority a) will kill the coal industry and b) corrupt the legislative process to unthinkable levels.
Sarcastically speaking, killing 180,000 high-paying, mostly union jobs isn't a resume-enhancing step for a Democrat seeking re-election. It's more likely a self-imposed death sentence.
Regardless of what you think of politicians, their most refined instinct is their instinct for re-election.
Sen. McConnell's legislation is delicious. First and foremost, it's great policy. Next, it's putting Democrats in the position of picking between either abandoning their president in his re-election year or abandoning their constituents. We know that Democrats ignore their constituents all too frequently. That said, they don't ignore their constituents when they're up for re-election.
Let the political fighting begin.
Posted Saturday, April 2, 2011 10:44 AM
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Dayton Admits That Sen. Berglin Was Asleep at the Switch
This post highlights the fact that Sen. Berglin was asleep at the switch the past 4 years. Gov. Dayton essentially admitted that with this announcement:
Minnesota health plans will now be required to compete against each other to manage state-subsidized health care programs for elderly, disabled and poor Minnesotans.
Gov. Dayton announced the change in state policy Wednesday (March 23). He said noncompetitive contracts have favored managed care plans at the expense of taxpayers. Last year the state paid more than $3 billion to health plans doing business with the state.
Had Sen. Berglin been paying attention, she could've included a provision into either the past 2 HHS omnibus budget bills that required bidding or she could've written and passed a policy-only bill that would've gotten substantial bipartisan support AND Gov. Pawlenty's signature.
Gov. Dayton's actions this week should give Minnesota's businesses a chilly feeling:
One example of the type of savings that are possible made news headlines last week, when UCare voluntarily returned $30 million in excess reserves it had accumulated from doing business with the state. UCare's donation suggests that plans could be profiting from state programs.
In announcing the UCare giveback, Gov. Dayton called upon all of the state's public health plans to also return their excess earnings and reserves.
First, what does Gov. Dayton consider "excessive earnings"? Next, doesn't this sound too much like strong-arm tactics that the PEUs use?
The governor also issued an executive order that requires regular audits of health plans, and full public disclosure of their profits, reserves, and administrative expenses.
Again, this is an admission that Sen. Berglin wasn't doing her job. Either that or she thought this wasn't that important because she thought their profits were reasonable.
At minimum, it's proof that Sen. Berglin didn't conduct oversight hearings on the issue. Shame on her for that. Regardless of the findings, the legislature should constantly searching for the truth. Oversight hearings must be at the center of that truth-finding mission.
The Minnesota Nurses Association chimed in with this statement :
"For too long, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty's administration looked the other way when it came to these HMOs, and as a result these corporate executives were making massive profits off our taxpayer dollars while our patients suffered," said MNA Vice President Eileen Weber, RN. "Thanks to Governor Dayton, we're finally going to start getting some definitive answers to what has become a $3 billion question."
HMOs and health insurance plans receive $3 billion in taxpayer funds per budget cycle to provide state health care services. MNA Nurses joined former Minnesota Hospital Association Attorney David Feinwachs and others in late 2010 to begin blowing the whistle on the disturbing lack of transparency and accountability involved in these contracts.
Prior to this year, Sen. Berglin had chaired the Senate HHS committee for well over a decade. At any point during that period of time, Sen. Berglin could've held oversight hearings into these issues. That she didn't either reflects her disinterest in the issue or her understanding that profits from these programs was reasonable.
I'd also note that the MNA is both a union and a politically active, partisan organization. They're enthusiastic supporters of single-payer health care :
Member and staff time, as well as substantial financial resources, will be committed to advancing the following areas of priority.
- Position MNA for negotiations from strength across Minnesota
- Organize to increase MNA membership and participation and promote MNA mission and strategic goals through political activism and collective action.
- Educate and mobilize members around health care reform, and pursue short and long-term strategies to achieve a single-payer health care system with guaranteed health care for all.
- Ensure the integrity of nursing practice and advance safe patient staffing standards and principles through collective action, collective bargaining, legislative initiative, grassroots organizing, political action and education consistent with the MNA Strategic Plan and the objectives of National Nurses United (NNU).
I've yet to find a single-payer advocate who doesn't think health insurance companies' profits aren't outrageous. I'm 99+ percent certain that's because they don't exist. Look at AMSA's take on single-payer:
- Increased access to preventive care and the ability of government to purchase prescription medications in bulk would also help drive down health care costs. However, the corresponding drop in revenue for pharmaceutical companies could lead to a reduction in overall research and development, slowing down technological advancement.
- There would be a removal of profit-motive in health care. The driving force behind the health industry would be patient care and not profit maximization.
That's the nuttiest thinking I've seen lately. Eliminating the incentive is eliminating the product. Why would doctors continue practicing if they aren't making money? Why would people go into medicine? They'd rack up huge student loan debt, then find out that their wages won't pay their loans off quickly. How is that appealing to students?
One hopes that what Gov. Dayton and Minnesota DFLers have set their sights on is so mething like this . But it will be a little under two years, before things can really start moving in that direction.
I'm betting that 2 years is optimistic squared. To move in that direction, you need control of the legislature. That won't happen anytime soon, especially considering how redistricting will alter the state legislative map. People moved to the most conservative districts while fleeing the most liberal districts. Look at the legislative districts in Rep. Ellison's and Rep. McCollum's districts. Compare them with Rep. Kline's and Rep. Bachmann's districts. Rep. Ellison's and Rep. McCollum's districts have to grow by roughly the same amount as Rep. Bachmann's has to shrink. Then there's Rep. Kline's district, which has to shrink by 69,524 people to get to the 662,991 per district person average. I'm not a redistricting expert by any stretch of the imagination but I've gotta believe that there will be a significant migration of state legislative districts from the urban/inner ring suburban parts of the state to the outer ring/exurban parts of the state. That won't be kind to the DFL. At the end of the day, the reality is that either Sen. Berglin didn't pay attention to the health insurance industry or Gov. Dayton's EO is a PR stunt in search of a problem. It might look good to his supporters but it won't change anything that Sen. Berglin couldn't have gotten changed at any time during the past 4 years.
Posted Saturday, April 2, 2011 12:46 PM
Comment 1 by Linda Berglin at 04-Apr-11 02:30 PM
Dear Let Freedom Ring,
I believe you have ignored some facts in your post titled: Governor Dayton admits Senator Berglin was Asleep at the Switch.
In past legislative sessions I proposed and included in the omnibus budgt bill provisions to return excessive HMO reserves to the state. This proposal then received a fiscal note from the Office of Management and Budget showing a savings of over $50 million, you might ask why did this not pass in a year with a budget deficit? Governor Pawlenty said he would veto the budget bill if this was included. It was not I who was asleep at the switch but Governor Pawlenty who protected the HMO's excess profits!
Comment 2 by Lady Logician at 05-Apr-11 07:33 AM
And heaven knows the DFL didn't have majorities large enough to over-ride a Pawlenty veto right Senator Berglin?
LL
Grandma Got Run Over...By the GOP???
During Mary Lahammer's segment of State Capitol politics, DFL Liar-In-Chief Ken Martin said "Unfortunately, this week, Grandma got run over by the GOP." I knew when Brian Melendez announced that he was getting forced into retirement by Alida Messenger, Gov. Dayton's ex-wife, that the DFL would take a hard turn left.
I didn't think they'd go this over-the-top this quickly. I guess I should've expected that considering who they elected to replace Chairman Melendez. This is from one of the first Strib articles quoting Chairman Martin :
Ken Martin's challenge as new DFL State Party chairman in a small way may be reflected in his brother.
Martin, of Eagan, recently spoke of a brother living in the northern exurbs, a carpenter by trade hard hit by the recession, who votes Republican.
He votes Republican, Martin said, because he's wrongly convinced Democrats want to take away his guns, tax him out of his home, tell him where and where he can't snowmobile.
None of that is true, Martin explained.
'He votes his fears over his hopes, over his pocketbook issues,' said Martin. 'We just have to take those (wedge) issues off the books,' he said.
There isn't a part of that article that's even remotely close to the truth. That's why I titled the post "Strawmen as far as the Eye Can See".
What's puzzling about Chairman Martin's statement is that the House GOP devoted the week to debating the Tax Bill, the K12 Bill, the Public Safety Bill and one other bill that I can't recall. None of the bills had anything remotely to do with seniors.
It's impossible to negotiate with a political party that's that disinterested in the truth. Just like ABM's smear campaign this summer, which Chairman Martin as part of, the DFL seems disinterested in the truth.
This afternoon on Mitch and Ed's show, they interviewed Sen. Roger Chamberlain. Sen. Chamberlain said that Gov. Dayton used words like draconian, saying that the Republicans' budget work includes 'a lot of drastic and very poorly thought-through, or not thought-through, actions.'
If those words weren't coming from the candidate whose first two budgets didn't balance, (the first missed by $2,100,000,000, the next by $1,000,000,000) I'd take him seriously. Gov. Dayton, whether you agree or disagree with his policies, has a mathematics skills problem.
His first tax-the-rich gimmick, he predicted, would raise an additional $4,600,000,000 in revenues. Later, he revised that down to 'only' $4,000,000,000. When the MMB finished examining the policy, they said it'd raise $1,900,000,000 in additional revenue.
In other words, Gov. Dayton was only off by a tiny 60% on the centerpiece of his economic package. Let me repeat that. Gov. Dayton was 60% off in his prediction for the centerpiece of his economic package.
Now I'm supposed to believe that his ex-wife's appointed hatchetman after he's accused the GOP of throwing Grandma under the proverbial bus? If the DFL and their political allies had a history of caring about the truth, I'd possibly give them the benefit of the doubt.
I wrote here about ABM's hatchet job against Tom Emmer:
Settle in high flying corporate executives, because Tom Emmer's Minnesota is going to be more fun than your last trip in a golden parachute. Here in Tom Emmer's Minnesota, we believe that paying for good schools and hospitals is the job of the unwashed masses. That's why the slightly regressive taxes of the past have been replaced by a massively regressive tax code in Tom Emmer's Minnesota.
In Tom Emmer's Minnesota, we don't even care if you have your interns set up post office boxes all over the world to avoid paying your taxes. Even if those funds would go to fund nursing homes and other medical facilities, in Tom Emmer's Minnesota we want nothing to get in the way of the gobs and gobs of money coming your way, not even fair play.
Rest assured, my very rich friend. This isn't just a one-time deal. You can trust that in Tom Emmer's Minnesota, solid investment in good schools, nursing home facilities, clean lakes, fixing roads or health care for 'regular folk' will never get in the way of your extreme wealth and stealthy tax maneuvering.
This post on ABM's blog was part of FactCheck.org's study of campaign ads . Here's the opening of their analysis:
Minnesota's race for governor is pitting corporate money against money from labor unions and wealthy Democrats. So far, the misleading attack ads are all coming from the liberal side, and the corporate side is being badly outspent to boot. The Alliance for a Better Minnesota, a group funded by labor unions and the family of Democratic contender Mark Dayton, has raised nearly $1.7 million so far. Its ads have:
Accused GOP-endorsed candidate Tom Emmer of sponsoring a bill to "reduce penalties for drunk drivers." That's misleading. The bill would have required that accused drunk drivers be penalized only if convicted.
Said Emmer was "arrested twice himself for drunk driving." That's true, but the arrests were nearly 20 and 30 years ago.
Claimed Emmer voted against "corporations and CEOs" paying higher taxes. That's false. He voted against a Democratic bill to raise state income taxes for all upper-income individuals, not corporations.
Claimed Emmer's vote "created" a huge state deficit. That's false as well. The deficit existed prior to Emmer's vote against a Democratic plan to raise taxes to help close it.
Though that's substantial proof that the DFL, through ABM and Ken Martin, didn't hesitate in playing fast and loose with the truth, that isn't the only 'indictment' FactCheck.org levies against ABM. Here's another:
An earlier ad by ABM also contained false claims, accusing Emmer of supporting a plan that "created a huge deficit," while opposing requiring "corporations and CEOs" to pay higher taxes.
The ad claims that Emmer "opposed a plan that would force corporations and CEOs to pay their fair share of taxes." That's false. The bill did not mention corporations or corporate CEOs at all. What it would have done is raise taxes on more than 100,000 high-income individuals, pushing the state's top individual income tax rate up to among the highest in the nation.
The bill cited by the ad was actually a Democratic budget measure (H.F. 2037) to close a $3 billion budget deficit. Among other things, it would have raised the top state income tax rate, for individuals, not corporations, to 9.1 percent (from 7.85 percent) for all couples making more than $200,000 a year, and individuals making more than $113,100. That would have made the state's top rate "higher than all but five states for single filers and six states for married joint filers," according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The newspaper called the bill an "exercise in futility" because Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty had vowed to veto it.
An estimated 122,000 taxpayers would have been affected, and while that group no doubt includes some corporate CEOs, it also would have included many more small-business owners, doctors and other professionals, not to mention high-income farmers and retirees. And whether or not the higher rate is "fair" is a matter of opinion on which even Democrats are divided. It passed the state Senate by a single vote, with Republicans and 12 Democrats voting against it. It also passed the Democratic-controlled House but Gov. Pawlenty vetoed the bill, forcing the Legislature to return in special session and pass a revised budget bill, without any income tax increase, which the governor signed into law.
In the final analysis, there's just too much proof that DFL leaders like Ken Martin are willing to slash the truth in the hopes of raising government control of Minnesotans' lives. Martin's statement about sweet, little Grannie is as devoid of the truth as ABM's accusations against Tom Emmer.
Posted Saturday, April 2, 2011 8:22 PM
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Ellliot's Drama Queen Seide
To hear only Elliot Seide's perspective on Minnesota's emerging budget, you'd think that the GOP was putting every PEU employee through Chinese water torture or waterboarding them. At least, that's the impression left by this article :
Last week, GOP-majority lawmakers passed bills that would freeze state workers' wages, eliminate more than 5,000 state jobs, send employees' health insurance costs soaring, ditch teacher tenure protections and chip away at their right to strike.
"It brings Wisconsin right to Minnesota," said Eliot Seide, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 5, the largest state workers union.
The poor little drama queens. While Minnesotans in the private sector having their pay cut by 5-10 percent, if they aren't losing their jobs entirely, Elliot Seide is whining about a temporary pay freeze and the guarantee that state government will shrink by 5,000 workers through retirement.
Seide's whining 'sky-is-falling' routine isn't getting old. It's been old for a month. Commbine his whining with that of Sen. Bakk and Rep. Thissen and you get the impression that the DFL is filled with whining people who couldn't offer a solution if their lives depended on it.
In fact, on Almanac Friday night, Sen. Bakk whined about everything that's wrong with the emerging Minnesota budget. He said that the Vikings stadium announcement letter was purely political, that it was designed to get the media to "write about anything other than" the GOP's budget.
With that, the shiny object media refused to ask Sen. Bakk a) where the DFL budget was or b) why Gov. Dayton's budget remains orphaned . When it comes to the DFL's contributions to the budget, they've either been MIA entirely or WIA (Whining In Action). Their contributions have been minimal, though not entirely non-existent.
Geoff Michel sums it up nicely:
The Senate voted to freeze public school employees' wages, for example, to prevent larger class sizes, program cuts and more layoffs, said Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, R-Buffalo.
"When did it become anti-labor to try to avoid layoffs in a crippling recession?" asked Deputy Senate Majority Leader Geoff Michel, R-Edina. "There is no doubt that what we have passed provides for more tools for multiple levels of government to get through a really rough economy, a really rough financial situation."
That isn't good enough for Elliot Seide:
The big difference between Minnesota and Wisconsin is, in Seide's words, "8,700 votes."
In a sense, that's true. Minnesota is one Gov. Dayton or Gov. Walker different in that Gov. Dayton is bought and paid for by the unions, which means he won't be the guy who will solve Minnesota's PEU unfunded liability problem. That's the problem Elliot Seide says doesn't exist :
'We do not have a pension crisis,' said Eliot Seide, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 5. 'This is, simply put, an attack on public workers.'
Of course it isn't a crisis in Seide's eyes. PEUs aren't willing to be part of the solution. Is the problem real? The Civic Caucus thinks so and can prove it:
As of June 30, 2009, the unfunded accrued liability for all state-local pension funds in Minnesota totaled $24.3 billion, according to LCPR, which is the difference between an accrued liability of $65.6 billion and current assets of $41.3 billion. Expressed another way, Minnesota's funding ratio (assets as a percentage of liabilities) was 63.0 percent.
The bad news for Minnesotans is that $24,300,000,000 isn't the real unfunded pension liability:
However, others contend that the figure of $65.6 billion for 'accrued liability' is understated. For example, state law requires actuaries to estimate an 8.5 percent annual return on pension investments. That number might sound high today, but LCPR cites data that illustrate annual return exceeded 8.5 percent for many years. According to one estimate, reported by the Minnesota Taxpayers Association (MTA), accrued liability would increase by about $1 billion if an 8.0 percent annual return were used. If a rate of 5 percent or 6 percent (a typical government bond rate) were chosen, unfunded liabilities would rise by about 30 percent, according to the MTA.
The real unfunded pension liability for the next 30 years is $32,000,000,000. That's more than $1,000,000,000 a year from Minnesota's general fund budget. That isn't a crisis in Elliot Seide's, Tom Bakk's, Gov. Dayton's or Ryan Winkler's eyes.
A Senate-approved 15 percent reduction in the state workforce over the next three years means "one out of six state employees would get whacked," Monroe said. "We're in for the fight of our lives."
Republican Rep. Keith Downey of Edina, the architect of the 15 percent plan, disagreed. A state study issued last year projected 12 percent of the state's aging workforce would retire in the next four years, he said.
Shrinking a 1970's model of government by 15 percent is only Herculean if you think that the DFL would be losing those automatic campaign contributions. Otherwise, it's a reform whose time is long past its time.
I just finished watching KSTP's At Issue With Tom Hauser. During the Face-Off segment, Javier Morillo-Alicea made the outlandish accusation that "Republicans would rather close schools than raise taxes on the richest 5% of Minnesotans."
There can't be negotiations with lying lunatics like that. Morillo-Alicea's accusations are entirely divorced from reality. They must be ignored in their entirety. Frantic, dishonest rants like Morillo-Alicea's do nothing to solve problems. Their sole contribution is to the frustration factor that builds at the legislature as the clock starts ticking louder.
Gov. Dayton often talks about raising taxes as not being that big a deal, that Minnesotans he knows "are better than that." Apparently, he doesn't know Morillo-Alicea or the Minnesotans he knows really aren't "better than that."
Based on his reliance on the unions in getting elected, it isn't likely that he doesn't know the president of a major union.
It's apparent, too, that Gov. Dayton's special interest allies are totally indifferent to supplying solutions beyond Gov. Dayton's tax-the-rich mantra.
Republicans should ignore the DFL until the DFL starts offering substantive solutions that won't kill the private sector. If the DFL and their special interest allies' only solution is raising taxes on Minnesota's job creators, then let's have Minnesota see that in plain sight.
Posted Sunday, April 3, 2011 9:30 AM
Comment 1 by Rex Newman at 05-Apr-11 06:21 PM
Actually, I would rather close schools rather than raise taxes on the richest 5% of taxpayers.
Minnesotans Are Better Than That
Gov. Dayton tried justifying his tax increases by saying that Minnesotans are better than that. Let's think this through from a local perspective.
The census data indicates that people are fleeing the places where local sales taxes and property taxes are soaring. It isn't a coincidence that Rep. Keith Ellison's and Rep. Betty McCollum's districts need to grow by approximately 96,000 people combined, about the same amount as Rep. Michele Bachmann's district needs to shrink. That's before talking about John Kline's district needs to shrink by 69,524 people.
People don't want to be shackled with high taxes and intrusive governments. They aren't that interested in $50,000 drinking fountains and the other things that St. Paul and Minneapolis put high priorities on.
They just want their roads plowed and maintained, their firefighters and police properly compensated and their government kept to a minimum. It isn't surprising that these are the cities that are thriving or at aren't sinking like a rock.
When times are better, they'll spend money on parks but they don't factor them into the budget but they're cautious in that respect.
Gov. Dayton apparently still hasn't learned that Minnesotans are, for the most part, fairly stoic.
What does that have to do with taxes? It means that we don't require lots of money lavished on us. It means that community organizations and corporate charities fill in so government doesn't have to.
Posted Tuesday, April 5, 2011 1:14 AM
Comment 1 by Alison at 05-Apr-11 02:22 PM
Minnesotans aren't fleeing to lower-taxation states--if anything, they're going to larger, more tax-heavy cities like New York, LA, SF, Chicago. Honestly, when was the last time you heard someone tell you that they're moving to South Dakota, without the intention of leaving again after five years?
People don't impartially choose where they want to live based on taxation figures. No, people make their choices based on quality of life: what a locale has to offer in public amenities, aesthetic appeal, public transportation, quality public education, and high-quality, living wage jobs.
Minnesota CAN do better.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 06-Apr-11 09:40 AM
Believe that if you'd like but that isn't where Minnesota businesses are expanding in. Marvin Windows' expansion was in North Dakota, 3M's expansion was in Texas while Delta/Northwest moved to Atl, GA.
How To Win A Budget Shutdown
Frank Luntz's interview with Sean Hannity Friday night gives the GOP the blueprint for winning a budget shutdown if it comes to that.
LUNTZ: I've got to point out one word before we even start the conversation and that's Sen. Schumer using the word extremism. That's all he's talking about and he was caught on tape, as some of the viewers know, saying repeatedly, "always call the Republicans extremist, always talk about extremism." That doesn't work in this debate. The American people want principle, they don't want politics.
HANNITY: I want to get into this. They see Schumer getting into politics here and then having Howard Dean say that he's rooting for a shutdown. I think the American people realize $14,000,000,000,000 in debt, that this is unsustainable.
LUNTZ: And in fact, whether you talk about a $30,000,000,000 cut or a $60,000,000,000 cut, Americans would say "Do whatever it takes." Number 1: There's gotta be a light at the end of the tunnel. There has to be some big success story at the end. Number 2: It can't be about typical partisan politics where both political parties lose. And 3: They have to understand...Boehner used the word plan, it's a plan of action. It's what they're looking for. Not a strategy but action. Get it done!!!
Later, Hannity talks about the Rasmussen poll that talks about people supporting a government shutdown. Here's Dr. Luntz's reply:
LUNTZ: Take it one step further. They would support a government shutdown if they felt like it would lead to significant budget cuts. To shut the government down...And I've gotta be blunt about this...To shut the government down for the sake of shutting the government down only gets the support of 20, maybe 25 percent of the American people. To take you up to that 50 percent, they have to know that meaningful, significant cuts in wasteful Washington spending will be made so their kids won't get stuck with debts for years and years to come.
In short, the American people want to know that conservatives are serious, that they're sincere about the promises that they make and that they'll do what they said that they'll do.
The era of Politics-As-Usual is screeching to a halt.
The questions that the vast majority of voters are asking is something akin to what John Kasich used to ask in crafting federal budgets: What kind of America do we want to live in?
President Obama, to be blunt, is great at talking the talk. His stumbles start with walking that talk.
If Republicans want to present a clear distinction between themselves and President Obama, they'll have to a) offer an appealing vision to America and b) keep their promises. By then, the American people have had 4 years of grand promises, empty words and miserable failures.
By then, they'll be ready for a man who makes sense and keeps his promises.
Posted Tuesday, April 5, 2011 10:16 AM
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