January 17-18, 2011
Jan 17 13:26 Minnesota Budgeting 101 Jan 17 01:58 Franken Interview Observations Jan 17 04:07 Retire This Myth Jan 17 05:47 What's Wrong With This Picture? Jan 17 20:05 Why 'Cuts' Aren't Cuts Jan 18 14:08 Melendez Going Out With a Bang Jan 18 01:08 Venting Over O'Care Jan 18 01:57 Flipping Sertich's Seat? It's a Strong Possibility Jan 18 16:53 At Loggerheads Already
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Minnesota Budgeting 101
If I had a sawbuck for each time a DFL candidate or pundit said "we've got a $6.2B deficit", I'd b retired and living on an island in the Carribean. It's time to teach a class in Minnesota budgeting 101.
1. The MMB is the office that puts the forecast together. They get the revenue projection from the Dept of Revenue, then factor in the spending. To do that, they look at the omnibus spending bills signed by the governor at the end of the budget year.
2. The term budget year means each odd numbered year because Minnesota runs a biennial budget.
3. Each spending bill has 2 sets of numbers.
4. The first number is the spending number for the upcoming biennium, which starts on July 1 of that year. For example, omnibus budget bills passed in May, 2007 went into effect on July 1, 2007.
5. Each of those spending bills have a second number, commonly referred to by legislators as a budget tail. That number isn't obligated to be spent. It's merely a suggestion by the legislature on how much they want to spend for the next biennium.
For instance, the tails to the spending bills passed in 2007 are for the budget that starts on July 1, 2009.
6. When the MMB put the budget projection together for the 2009 budget year, they were obligated to use the tails from the 2007 omnibus spending bills.
SPECIAL NOTE: The legislature can totally ignore the budget tails from the previous legislature. These are projections. One legislature can't make spending decisions for a future legislature.
SPECIAL NOTE II: In 2007, Nora Slawik introduced a bill that would've paid for some welfare moms' babysitting fees if they went to school. It never became law but it's a perfect illustration for how meaningless the tails are.
Slawik's bill called for spending $105,000,000 for the biennium starting on July 1, 2007. The tail for Rep. Slawik's bill, for the biennium starting on July 1, 2009, called for spending $1,050,000,000, an increase of over 900 percent.
Now for a real life example. According to this MMB pdf document , the global education budget for 2009-2010 is $9,068,000,000. The amount projected for the global education budget for the 2011-2012 biennium is $12,590,000,000. I'm not using a calculator but that's at least a 35 percent spending increase.
Increasing spending on anything by 35 percent while the economy is struggling isn't just irresponsible, it's downright reckless.
The truth is that the DFL started 'supersizing' the budget tails on bills after Gov. Pawlenty vetoed their 'autopilot budget bill', which would've instructed the MMB to add in inflation into their budget forecasts.
The initial purpose of adding in inflation into the budget forecast is the purpose behind supersized budget tails: to make the deficits look much bigger or the surpluses much smaller than they really are. The end game is to use these numbers to raise taxes. PERIOD.
I know from multiple past experiences that the DFL hates prioritizing spending. During a Saturday afternoon debate in Sept. 2007, Steve Gottwalt argued that government needed to do a better job prioritizing education spending . He said this in response to Tarryl arguing that education just needed more revenue. After Steve's statement, Larry Haws said "Maybe we do need to prioritize."
For Tarryl, prioritizing spending wasn't even an option. For Larry, it was a concept totally foreign to him. To legislators like the "Foul-Mouthed Sandy Pappas", increasing Higher Ed spending by $296,000,000 is nothing more than a "bare-bones, inflation-only budget ":
Even though there is increased spending, several committee chairs aren't happy. 'It's a bare bones, inflation-only target,' said Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul. Pappas chairs the Senate Higher Education Committee.
Three-hundred-million dollars is earmarked under the Senate plan for higher education. But Pappas doesn't think it's enough and is worried tuition will go up even more than anticipated.
'In my mind, I'm able to keep the systems whole, but they're not getting enough resources to hold down tuition,' she said. 'If I had more money and could give them more, they could hold down tuition or I could put more money into financial aid, but there certainly isn't any new money for new initiatives for moving the state forward in the higher education area.'
Let's be clear about this: Higher Ed's budget wasn't $296,000,000. That's the size of the increase to their budget.
The point of this is to show that the DFL scoffed at major increases to some of the state's biggest budgets. This isn't characteristic of a political party that puts a high priority on protecting taxpayers' pocketbooks.
The DFL's talk is mostly about the DFL knowing that if they publicly support Gov. Dayton's campaign budget, they'll be criticized by bloggers, TEA Party activists and a majority of the state's independents.
That isn't the position you want to put yourself in this early in the legislative session.
Posted Monday, January 17, 2011 1:26 PM
Comment 1 by Colin at 18-Jan-11 12:54 PM
The DFL did not come up with the deficit. Pawlenty's department heads did. They had eight years to be fired if they didn't work for him.
Almost $4 billion of it is not an increase, but (#1) paying back Pawlenty's education cost shift (high-priced loans) and (#2) restoring the amount of the shift which schools spent as debt.
Cut the former--schools will be forced to cut for two more years of high interest payments. Tough, but it could be rationalized.
Cut the latter--schools will be forced to cut an additional $1.9 billion or twenty percent on top of eating cost inflation. If you're going to cut, stop being a pansy and own up.
Melendez Going Out With a Bang
Based on his LTE to the Duluth News Tribune , it's safe to say that DFL Chairman Brian Melendez intends to go out with a bang.
Over the past two years, President Obama and Democrats in Congress worked extremely hard to end the worst practices in insurance industry and improve access to health care for Minnesotans. The law that passed, albeit imperfect, made significant improvements that already have benefited everyday Minnesotans, small-business owners, seniors and children.
TRUTH-IN-ADVERTISING REWRITE:
Over the past two year, President Obama and Democrats in Congress ignored the American people and shut out Republicans in crafting legislation to take over the American health insurance industry.
The law that passed, albeit imperfect, imposed $670,000,000,000,000 in new taxes or increases in existing taxes while imposing onerous regulations from the office of HHS Secretary Sebelius.
While there are a few benefits in the bill, these benefits would've been included in any health care reform bill written. Any bill written would've included a provision that guaranteed coverage for people with PECs. Any bill would've included tax credits or tax deductions to make it easier for people to buy health insurance.
Chairman Melendez's LTE is about painting the rosiest picture possible. If that requires not mentioning the job-killing provisions included in the O'Care bill, then that's scrubbed by 'admitting' that the bill "is imperfect". How magnanimous.
And, sorry, but it's either naive, disingenuous or both to think rank-and-file Minnesotans who might lose those services or see their taxes go up (or both) will support this kind of targeted tax break, a reality only magnified knowing the state must raise taxes or cut services (or both) to fill a $6.2 billion budget gap.
The DFL is whining because Minnesota's day of reckoning for the DFL's reckless spending has arrived. Their insistence on spending one-time money to artificially prop up the budget can't be done anymore. This GOP legislature is committed to living within its means. It's committed to not spending money it doesn't have on things the state can't afford.
This week, House Republicans in Washington are expected to vote on repealing health-insurance reform, without debate, without hearings and without discussion. Tea Party Republicans around the state already have lined up in favor of repeal, and Cravaack is leading that charge. Less than two weeks into his first term, Rep. Cravaack already has pledged to vote to repeal the health-care reforms that benefit Minnesotans.
Today, on behalf of those Minnesotans relying on the benefits in the health-care reform law, I say: Don't do it, Chip!
Let's be honest about what a Cravaack vote for repeal really means. A vote for repeal would be a vote to give control back to the insurance companies. Cravaack's vote would deny coverage to children with existing conditions, cancel coverage when people get sick and limit the amount of care Minnesotans can receive, even if they need it. It would let insurance companies discriminate against women, raise premiums by double digits without accountability and kick children off their parents' insurance before age 26. A vote for repeal would hurt small businesses during difficult economic times. Cravaack's vote would eliminate tax credits for small-business owners to help them compete with large employers and make health coverage for employees more affordable.
TRANSLATION: This isn't fair. I want Pelosi back as Speaker. This isn't fair.
Another thing that Chairman Melendez isn't telling Minnesotans is that the GOP replace bill will have tax cuts and credits to help middle class people purchase health insurance. Chairman Melendez wants people to believe that the Democrats' health care bill is the only legislation that included tax cuts for health insurance. That's BS.
Chairman Melendez touts the O'Care provision of keeping kids on their parents' insurance until they're 26. That's treating a symptom, not fixing the problem. If Democrats hadn't included tons of onerous coverage mandates, insurance prices would've been more affordable, thereby fixing the problem rather than adopting a 'kick-the-can' approach.
Not that I expected this but why won't the DFL admit that much of their bill includes job-killing provisions? In public, their O'Care bill is almost perfection personified. In private, they're preparing for caving on a number of the most onerous provisions in the bill.
If the bill is so great, why are so-called moderate Democrats bailing on the bill? Why is Kent Conrad retiring rather than running for re-election? Might it be that he's never had a close race but he's worried about running in another negative
Democrat cycle in 2012?
I know it's Melendez's job to paint lipstick on the proverbial pig but this is ridiculous. The reality is that Democrats in DC, along with the spending habits of the DFL in St. Paul haven't worked. They've brought us closer to our day of reckoning.
After Wednesday's vote to reject the principles of O'Care, Democrats will start abandoning parts of O'Care to save their electoral hide. They'll try and convince people that they're actually moderate and willing to listen to We The People.
That won't work because the people will be reminded that they were the people who voted for this job-killing monstrosity in the first place.
Posted Tuesday, January 18, 2011 2:08 PM
No comments.
Franken Interview Observations
Sunday am, Esme Murphy interviewed Sen. Franken, starting with a question on whether last weekend's assassination attempt in Tucson changed how he's meeting with constituents. Sen. Franken said that he's been in touch with the Capitol Police since then but that he didn't intend on changing anything in terms of meeting with constituents.
That makes sense because I've yet to see him hold a public get together with constituents. When he's met with people here in Minnesota, it's mostly been with union members in their union hall or other special interest groups in a relatively protected environment.
The next question for Sen. Franken was about repealing Obamacare. The first thing Sen. Franken mentioned was that it wouldn't be wise to repeal it because of a misleading (my term) CBO report that shows repealing it now would add $230,000,000,000 to the deficit over the next 3 years.
That's misleading because the only financial transactions happening right now are 2 states opting into the Early MA receiving money and the collection of huge tax increases. In other words, the $230,000,000,000 being added to the deficit is a reflection of the federal government collecting revenues from the tax increases while not having any expenses.
How many businesses would show a profit if they were collecting revenues but they didn't have any expenses? That's how silly a question that is.
Sen. Franken then started talking about all the terrific provisions that'd be lost if Obamacare was repealed, including the provision that doesn't let insurance companies drop people if they have a pre-existing condition. What Sen. Franken didn't mention, intentionally, is that the Republicans' replacement legislation would have the same provision in it.
The other thing that Sen. Franken didn't mention is that Obamacare's way of insuring people with PEC's is to tell insurance companies that they must cover these people and to tell them that they can't charge a penny more in premiums for people with PEC's than they charge for healthy customers.
If car insurance companies were forced to cover drivers with multiple DUI's but they couldn't charge them higher insurance premiums, how long would they last? The end result would be that everyone would be charged higher premiums.
Think about it. If Company A had to charge the same rate for drivers with high risk profiles as they pay for people who have a lengthy record of driving responsibly, they'd have to charge safe drivers higher premiums to compensate for the dangerous drivers.
That's why HHS Secretary Sebelius recently announced price control regulations. She knows that insurance companies will have to charge higher health insurance premiums to pay for the additional customers with PEC's.
There's even a name for this phenomenon: cost-shifting. It isn't that I'm surprised with Sec. Sebelius's announcement. It's quite predictable. I'd argue that it was inevitable considering how Obamacare was constructed.
It's important that people understand the difference between price controls and cost controls.
When Insurance Co. A is forced to cover High Risk Customer 1 for the same price as Save Driver 1, Insurance Company A's cost for High Risk Customer 1 didn't decrease. The only thing that changed was the price Insurance Company A could charge High Risk Customer 1. The cost is still high. The insurance premium price charged isn't.
Sen. Franken is peddling a series of vastly inferior products to a needy public. I'd love seeing him debate Paul Ryan, Dave Camp, Thad McCotter or Mike Pence on this issue. He'd be mocked by the public after the debate.
Watching that debate would be torture for the DFL, delightful for free market capitalist conservatives.
Conservatives should thank Esme for her interviewing Sen. Franken. By the time he's up for re-election, we should have a ton of ammunition to run in campaign commercials against Sen. Franken.
Posted Monday, January 17, 2011 1:58 AM
No comments.
Retire This Myth
If there's anything reliable about the DFL other than having an unquenchable thirst for raising taxes, it's their mantra that not raising taxes inevitably leads to higher property taxes. That's the upshot of this article :
The Republicans in the majority of both houses have said they do not favor any tax increases to deal with the deficit. Minneapolis legislators, however, are strong supporters of income tax increases or other revenue sources to help balance the budget.
Dayton favors a mix of tax increases, budget cuts and reform.
Pogemiller said taxes will rise one way or another. He favors an income tax hike on higher earners. If not, the Legislature will be forced to cut its aid to local governments.
'If you cut (Local Government Aid) you will raise property taxes,' he said.
Pogemiller said Minneapolis lost about half of its Local Government Aid during the Tim Pawlenty administration.
Loeffler also favors new state revenue, and she cited closing corporate tax loopholes and raising fees and permitting costs as possible solutions.
'Property taxes have been going up dramatically even though peoples' housing values have been flat or gone down,' she said. 'That's not fair. It's one of our least progressive taxes.'
What isn't fair is when mayors and city councils raise property taxes because they refuse to set sensible spending priorities. They should be ashamed of themselves for mistreating their citizens.
In 2008, I went through St. Paul's operating budget. I wish I'd made a list of all the wasteful spending I found. It was pathetic. The crap they spent money on made me want to scream. If I'd lived in St. Paul, I would've created that list, then I would've brought it to a city council meeting to ask them why they'd spent money so recklessly.
Why aren't R.T. Rybak and Chris Coleman required to act with any fiscal discipline? I won't lose a splitsecond of sleep over Minneapolis and St. Paul not getting a big increase in LGA. If they can't run their cities properly, then let their citizens see how inept they are. Let their citizens experience the pain that comes from electing spendaholic mayors and city councils.
I hope that this GOP majority tells R.T. Rybak and Chris Coleman that they won't get their annual bailout stipend, that they're gonna have to figure out ways to make their dollars stretch a little farther.
This is Minnesota, a state of innovators. It's time R.T. Rybak and Chris Coleman discovered their innovative side. It's time they put their innovative skills to use by setting smart spending priorities and saving its citizens' money.
In St. Paul and Minneapolis, that would be a rare change indeed.
Even with new revenue sources, Minneapolis legislators say reforms and tough cuts will be coming.
Loeffler, Greene and Pogemiller spoke of the importance of funding education. However, K-12 Education funding makes up 38 percent of the state budget and higher education makes up 9 percent of the state budget.
Pogemiller said state health care costs are rising by 8 percent annually. Because of the state's aging population, it's unlikely to make any real cuts to the health and human services budget, which is about 29 percent of the total budget.
'I would love to see a bill that addresses the $6.2 billion deficit without raising taxes, but I just don't think it's going to be possible,' Greene said.
The DFL legislators admit that they'll have a number of tough votes ahead even if they raised taxes. Shouldn't Minnesota's legislature start with figuring out how many dollars can be saved via reforms and actually saying no to the DFL's special interest group allies? Shouldn't the DFL legislators say that the first option to balancing the budget is raising taxes on people?
After all, it isn't as though they're undertaxed. It isn't as though cities are setting smart spending priorities.
When cities have made the difficult decisions, they'll understand what the legislature does.
This quote really irritates me:
'I would love to see a bill that addresses the $6.2 billion deficit without raising taxes, but I just don't think it's going to be possible,' Greene said.
Did Rep. Greene attempt to put a list of line items together that could be cut? Did she think that there might be a less expensive way of providing the same service level at a cheaper price? Does Rep. Greene have any reform proposals in the HF hopper? If she doesn't, isn't she saying something isn't possible without checking what's possible?
Shame on her for not doing her due diligence first. Shame on her for giving up without making a spirited attempt at rethinking how government works.
Cities will certainly attempt to get their LGA payments 'restored'. They shouldn't get their hopes too high. It's time cities became reform-oriented. It's time they relied on themselves first, the state second. (A distant second at that.)
Minnesota families have been making sacrifices for a few years already. The state has made some difficult choices, too. Isn't it time that cities started making difficult decisions and reforming their government?
Posted Monday, January 17, 2011 4:07 AM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 17-Jan-11 08:24 AM
Wouldn't it be high comedy if, after the ZBB exercise, we finished the year with a budget surplus? And if most citizens (that is, the ones not in the public trough) not noticing the difference?
Comment 2 by walter hanson at 17-Jan-11 10:01 AM
Gary:
I will loe some liberal try to answer this question. We spend something like $10,000 per student.
If you have a class of 16 students and the teacher makes $60,000 how is the other $100,000 spent?
It seems like maybe if these organizations focsed on spendng the other $100,000 better we might get better performance without having to spend another cent.
Walter Hanson
Minepolis, MN
What's Wrong With This Picture?
This quote from Mike Dean indicates that government is broken and needs fixing. BADLY.
Allegations of voter fraud have surfaced again and again. A new bill going through the Minnesota House of Representatives hopes to change that. The bill will require all voters to show a photo-ID. It sounds simple but the bill is already meeting a lot of resistance.
"It's going to make voting as painful as a trip to the DMV," Mike Dean with Common Cause Minnesota said.
Dean obviously doesn't have faith in this legislature's ability to craft intelligent legislation. That's his right. It's just that he's wrong.
Crafting Photo ID legislation won't make voting painful. It'll make it more efficient. I didn't hear any complaints from Indiana or Georgia, both of whom require a photo ID to vote.
In fact, Dean's statement isn't factually accurate:
Fraud is not a problem in the state, according to Dean. In fact, he thinks the bill is too intrusive and could hurt voter turnout among seniors, students and the poor.
"It disenfranchises those groups of people from voting," he said.
At best, these are Dean's opinions. I'm not certain that they're even that. They might be nothing more than his spin. I don't know that he believes what he's saying.
I'm positive that he can't verify any of his statements. Progressives have been making these assertions seemingly forever. They haven't offered proof of their assertions' validity.
From this day forward, when Mike Dean or Mike Dean sound-alikes make these claims, I'll insist that they provide verifiable proof. I'll remind them that allegations aren't proof.
Just because a person represents a well-known organization doesn't mean they should acquire instant credibility, especially when that organization is as troubled as Common Cause MN :
Common Cause Minnesota sent a letter to the 100 largest corporations and largest unions asking them to pledge not to make political contributions from their general treasury during the upcoming elections. The corruptive influence of these contributions will impair Minnesota's ability to address the critical problems that face the state.
Political contributions from corporate treasury violate the most basic standards of corporate responsibility by placing profits ahead of everything else. Read our editorial in the Star Tribune on this issue .
The upshot of this is that Common Cause MN sent a letter to major corporations urging them not to use their recently-affirmed First Amendment rights because left-leaning organizations might make a stink about their contributions. BTW, left-leaning is my charitable way of wording this.
Common Cause MN should keep its nose out of people's First Amendment rights. If people protest against Target, that's their First Amendment right. If Target chooses to ignore these fringe groups while contributing to candidates they think will pass pro-business legislation, that's their right as affirmed by the SCOTUS.
I'd love hearing Mike Dean's explanation for why he thinks Photo ID would disenfranchise voters. I'd love hearing him explain why he thinks, especially after hundreds of felons voted in the 2008 Coleman-Franken race, that voter fraud doesn't exist.
Two years ago, I spoke with Pat Kessler about voter fraud. Pat said that studies he'd read showed voter fraud was "statistically insignificant." I told him that I agreed with that but that that wasn't the right benchmark.
I said the right benchmark was whether voter fraud was electorally significant. I then explained that voter fraud isn't likely to happen in races that aren't expected to be tight, that the most likely elections to get targeted were the tightest elections.
My logic was that it isn't worth the risk of getting caught for committing voter fraud if those votes won't tip the election. Similarly, if a race is expected to be tight, the risk-reward ratio is distinctly different.
Pat agreed with that logic.
At our fair booth, almost a dozen election judges told us that Photo ID would improve their jobs significantly. It's time to listen to the experts. It's time to make their job easier.
Posted Monday, January 17, 2011 5:47 AM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 17-Jan-11 08:00 AM
Interesting that the first group he mentions is students, when current election law PROMOTES double voting by students, on the basis of their student photo IDs. If there was only one State photo ID accepted at the polls, 99% of the student voter fraud could be eliminated.
Why 'Cuts' Aren't Cuts
MnPublius has written this post talking about how Rep. Mark Buesgens plans to cut education funding by 20 percent:
Mark Buesgens, a leading conservative and one-time chair of the Tom Emmer campaign, has made a budget proposal that would be absolutely devastating to Minnesota's public schools. His proposal would make a 20 percent cut to school funding, and would not pay back the $1.4 billion we owe our schools to pay back last biennium's school shift.
Buesgens' plan claims to 'freeze' spending at the current levels. In reality, it ignores shifts that were made and Federal money the state received, and actually drastically reduces school funding. Buesgens' proposal will result in schools getting $1.9 billion less this biennium than last, at a time when enrollment is increasing and they're actually due to get a $1 billion increase in funding. This cut of nearly $3 billion is approximately 20 percent of the forecast school funding.
The key phrase in the last paragraph is "they're actually due to get a $1 billion increase in funding." They aren't due anything. The 2009-2010 legislature can't bind the hands of the 2011-2012 legislature on spending. Minnesota's constitution doesn't allow it. If MnPublius wants to argue that that's what EdMinn and the Department of Education suggest, that's fine.
I'm sure that the various lobbyists and special interest groups would love for the legislature to treat these budget tails as though they were etched in stone atop Mount Sinai but that simply isn't reality. Reality is that this biennium's budget figures will be hammered out after seeing what's needed. It won't be the figure that the education community has requested.
I spoke with Rep. Buesgens this afternoon. He said that the most important thing for people to know is that it's unconstitutional for previous legislatures to tie the hands of future legislatures. Rep. Buesgens added that the current budget includes one-time money that's used to artificially prop up ongoing expenditures.
When I asked if that's where structural deficits come from, Rep. Buesgens confirmed that's exactly where they come from.
My representative King Banaian has a bill that will dramatically change the budget process. When HF2 is enacted, it will demand that each department, and each agency within that department, justify the money it's requesting.
This legislature will ask difficult questions. They'll ask why they need the number of administrators they currently have. They'll ask whether those administrators can't be terminated and their salaries can't be used for funding classrooms instead.
The DFL is basing their comments on continuing with the status quo. The GOP, it appears, is basing their policies on not using one-time money to artificially prop up budgets, which contribute mightily to Minnesota's structural deficit.
The DFL's status quo mindset has gotten the state into trouble. It's now time to rectify that situation. Minnesota families can't afford to wait.
Posted Monday, January 17, 2011 8:05 PM
Comment 1 by Jeff Rosenberg at 18-Jan-11 05:23 AM
There's a big problem with your analysis. It's not just a cut from the projected spending. It's a 14 percent cut from last year's spending. That's nothing short of disastrous.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 18-Jan-11 01:25 PM
Jeff, Why can't you admit that the DFL's reckless spending the past 4 years, including the spending of one-time money to artificially prop up their special interest allies' spending wishes, are at least partially to blame?
Why did the DFL legislature insist on doing what it wanted while ignoring many reforms offered by GOP legislators that would've saved Minnesota's taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars? Why didn't the DFL work with Gov. Pawlenty in moving Minnesota towards a more capitalist economic system that would've been more self-sustaining & dynamic instead of insisting on an economic model that requires major bonding bills to artificially prop up the economy.
The reality is that the bonding bills are just the Minnesota version of a stimulus bill. We all know how those have worked recently, don't we?
Had more GOP ideas been implemented, we'd have a stronger economy & many of these discussions wouldn't be relevant. Instead the DFL focused on funding government rather than on creating a flourishing economy. The DFL's day of reckoning for their reckless spending has come. DEAL WITH IT!!!
Comment 2 by J. Ewing at 18-Jan-11 07:52 AM
The last I saw, the plan was a very modest increase in education funding, paid for by cuts in other areas of the budget. But a small cut in education funding will NOT hurt education, since huge increases in funding over the last 20 years haven't gotten us anything except posh palaces for pontificating poobahs-- the education elites. No insult to the vast majority of teachers who work hard and, often, get great results, but the rest of the gravy train has to get unloaded.
For starters, get rid of any money we spend for "reducing class size" until somebody proves that doing so improves education. Then get rid of any money we spend on "integration" or whatever we're calling it these days, again until someone proves that this actually benefits education. Then require that school budgets be "program based" so that everybody can see what money goes where. From there any necessary further trimming will be obvious.
Venting Over O'Care
This afternoon, FNC Digital Editor Chris Stirewalt reported that some so-called moderate Senate Democrats are open to re-open discussions on O'Care. He said that there's even been hints that they're willing to discuss eliminating the individual mandate.
This evening, Rep. John Garamendi, (D-Calif.), said that "the bill was never a perfect bill" and that they always knew they'd have to "return to tweak it."
It's impossible to take Rep. Garamendi's spin seriously since the Democrats, both in the House and Senate, caved when their votes were needed to ram the bill down the American people's throats.
In the House, so-called right-to-life Democrats like Jim Oberstar and Bart Stupak dropped their opposition to the bill the minute Speaker Pelosi told them she needed their votes. There was a little haggling on Stupak's part to save political face but the cave was obvious.
Rep. Garamendi's statement rings especially hollow considering the fact that multiple bills were written and passed in the House and Senate. After the various bills passed, they were 'condensed' into a House version and a Senate version without any input from people like Paul Ryan, Dave Camp, Judd Gregg or Sen. Barrasso, not in committee rooms but in Sen. Reid's and Speaker Pelosi's offices far from the cameras.
Now they're 'accepting' the thought that they'll need to 'tweak' the bill a little bit. How accomodating of the D's.
There's just one flaw with that accomodation: most of the D's bill either adds to the deficit, doesn't lower health care or health insurance premium costs, encourages overuse of health insurance coverages and doesn't introduce cost-changing competition to the equation.
That's before talking about the unconstitutional individual and employer mandates, the $670,000,000,000 worth of job-killing tax increases or the federal government's takeover of the student loan industry.
Other than those things, the GOP's and the Democrats' plans are practically identical.
That's what happens when two groups of tyrants get together behind closed doors, forbids input from the opposing political party, especially since the GOP's ideas were infinitely more popular and made more sense. Reid and Pelosi certainly couldn't entertain the GOP's input in that setting.
Now that serious jurists have ruled or hinted that the individual mandate is unconstitutional and with the Supreme Court split with 4 progressive and 4 conservative jurists with center-right justice Anthony Kennedy likely to cast the deciding vote, the Obama administration suddenly is in a mood to negotiate.
This isn't likely to be a good faith negotiation. It's more likely to be a face-saving negotiation intended to only go as far as necessary. It won't have anything to do with doing what's right for the people.
Last week, President Obama called for Americans to use words that heal, not wound. Implicit in that sentence was a call for bipartisanship. With all due respect, bipartisanship isn't what's needed because bipartisanship might only mean that opposite sides of a debate agree to scratch each others' backs.
What's needed is old-fashioned statesmanship, where men of gravitas whose word meant something, set aside party considerations to do what's right for the nation.
What Republican in their right mind would trust Pelosi, Reid, Schumer or Durbin?
Rather than negotiating a deal where each side says 'I'll give you this if you give me that', what we need is a negotiation where genuine heavyweights figure out what's best for the country, then persuade enough people from both sides to do what's right.
Rep. Garamendi said that repealing O'Care would lead to people needlessly dying. That isn't statesmanship. That's hyperbole and it should be instantly rejected. That won't happen with Rep. Pelosi leading the House Democrats.
The next 2-3 election cycles will clean out alot of the Democrats who can't be trusted. Politicians like Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Nancy Pelosi won't be defeated. Their numbers will shrink and they'll become more irrelevant with each passing electoral cycle.
By then, hopefully, Republicans and SCOTUS will have cleaned up the policy and constitutional mess Obama, Reid and Pelosi created.
Posted Tuesday, January 18, 2011 1:08 AM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 18-Jan-11 07:07 AM
Perhaps Senate Democrats need to realize that the longer O'care is exposed to public debate, the worse things will look for them, and that in the end it will all be pointless because the GOP House will defund the monstrosity anyway. The public will see none of the "benefits" and all of the downsides. Even Democrats (except for Franken) are smart enough to do political calculus if nothing else.
Flipping Sertich's Seat? It's a Strong Possibility
I've had a conversation with a loyal reader of this blog over whether the MNGOP can flip the seat that Tony Sertich just retired from. From what I'm told, flipping Sertich's seat is a distinct possibility.
Consider this:
Paul Jacobson, the candidate this past fall against Sertich, already has lit pieces ready to go, signs ready to be put up and already qualifies for public subsidy. That's a huge boost in what's essentially a month-long race.
It's important to note that the bench isn't particularly deep in the district. In November, voters were voting for the possible next Speaker of the House. This time, they'll be voting for a freshman in the minority. I'm betting that the enthusiasm won't be deep for Sertich's replacement.
Another factor that shouldn't be overlooked is that, prior to this election, Jim Oberstar didn't have to work at re-election. He'd run a few ads, remind people that he's running again, walk in a parade or two, then cruise to victory.
This fall, all that changed. During Chip's race, the CD-8 GOP activists got fired up, did the work and got major re-inforcements from the unions. I won't predict that Mr. Jacobson will get the union support that Chip got but I'll bet that he'll have alot of fired up volunteers working hard for him.
I'm told that Al Franken got 3,700 more votes in HD-5B than Oberstar and Sertich got this year. While it must be noted that there's an expected difference between a presidential election and a midterm, that's still bigger than the usual difference.
Unless I miss my guess, I'd bet that apathy is the DFL's biggest foe in this special election.
Let's remember that Loren Solberg, the chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee during the 2009-2010 session was defeated by Carolyn McElfatrick in HD-3B.
Combined, these aren't encouraging indicators for the DFL. Rather, I'd say they suggest that this seat will flip on Feb. 15.
Posted Tuesday, January 18, 2011 1:57 AM
Comment 1 by Aaron Brown at 18-Jan-11 08:51 AM
Bless your heart for this post. I know this district pretty well and while I wouldn't rule out a strong performance from Jacobson if he motivates his base, especially in a special, he is still a long shot. Solberg lost but Solberg's district was far more of a swing district than this one. Oberstar carried 5B (his home district) 56-40, which is lousy for him but it was a lousy year for him and he did worse than any other DFLer. Again, I'm not dismissing Jacobson, he's not bad, but this is a strong DFL district. It will take something bigger than the 2010 trend to change the outcome.
I will be covering this race, including Jacobson, over at my blog MinnesotaBrown.com.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 18-Jan-11 12:56 PM
Aaron, thanks for noticing my coverage. While I'm not an Iron Range native, I've got a number of strong ties to the area. A number of those 'ties' are politically active people whose observations I trust.
In a short sprint to a special election like this, seemingly minute things can turn into major factors in a campaign. This should be fun watching this election.
At Loggerheads Already
It's less than a month into the 2011 session and already Gov. Dayton is rejecting budget cuts that will be required to balance Minnesota's budget:
Governor Mark Dayton says he doesn't support any plan that doesn't address the full $6.2 billion budget deficit. He characterized the GOP plan as "piecemeal."
"I want to deal with this as a complete package." Dayton told MPR News. "To look at it as one side of cuts in the areas of higher education which will mean higher tuition for students and cuts to local government aid which means higher property taxes is taking too narrow a perspective on it."
Gov. Dayton obviously hasn't gotten the memo that Minnesotans have rejected the notion that increasing Higher Ed spending will stabilize tuition cost. They don't. All they've done is led to more spending by university presidents. Students and parents haven't seen a penny of stabilization in tuition costs.
Gov. Dayton wants us to believe the myth that LGA cuts automatically lead to property tax increases. While there's no arguing that LGA cuts lead to difficult spending decisions for mayors, city council members and county commissioners, it's equally true that sometimes that leads to reforms that help put budgets on a more sustainable long-term path.
Here's what Gov. Dayton is whining about:
The first phase of the budget balancing plan would cancel the return of the Political Contribution Refund program that uses tax money to refund political contributions up to $50 for individuals and $100 for couples, saving $11.8 million. It also keeps local government aids and credits, MnSCU and the University of Minnesota at Fiscal Year 2011 levels.
In the current budget that ends June 30, 2011, the bill gives the Minnesota Management and Budget commissioner the directive to reduce state agency spending by $200 million to prevent a 'Christmas in June' for agencies that spend excess money in order to protect their total level of funding.
'We have seen that government spending continues to increase even in the face of tight economic times. We need to send a message to state agencies that it is time to stop all non-essential discretionary spending,' said Holberg. 'A dollar saved now will allow the legislature to re-examine spending priorities and ensure that government budgets reflect the spending priorities of taxpayers and the state,' added Holberg.
Why would Gov. Dayton reject a provision giving MMB the authority to prevent a potential "Christmas-In-June" spending spree? That's just plain reckless. Speaker Zellers and House Ways and Means Chairwoman Mary Liz Holberg talked about past questionable expenditures here :
House Speaker Kurt Zellers, R-Maple Grove, talked about the delivery of a large number of chairs in June, days before the end of the budget. They apparently were bought because money remained.
Holberg said a former state worker told her that he was given a new laptop computer days before his job ended.
By saying he'd reject this proposal, Gov. Dayton is saying no to cutting reckless spending that might be used on higher priority items. Is he that reckless with taxpayers' money? Apparently.
Not to be outdone by his governor, Senate Minority Leader Bakk issued this statement :
Minnesota is facing a serious budget challenge, and all sides agree that we will need to make significant spending reductions in the months ahead to bring the state's budget into balance.
Our caucus will be taking a close look at the cuts proposed today by legislative Republican leaders, but will reserve final judgment until they put a complete budget solution on the table. As of now, their plan would solve about one-sixth of the $6.2 billion deficit facing our state.
It is telling, however, to note what is included in the first round of budget cuts offered by the Republican majorities: cuts to state colleges and universities, cuts to property tax relief programs, and cuts to health care for working families. Despite the Republican rhetoric around 'reform' and 'redesign,' it's clear that an all-cuts budget is going to have a dramatic impact on Minnesota families.
It also points to the irresponsibility of the Republican proposal to offer millions of dollars in tax breaks to large corporations during these difficult times. The question is: should we really be raising taxes on working families at the same time we're cutting taxes on out-of-state corporations?
The DFL certainly has their lies down cold. The GOP budget principles aren't limited to cutting agency after agency, bureaucracy after bureaucracy, though that's certainly part of it. Part of their budget principles, by Bakk's own admission, is to reform parts of Minnesota's government and to redesign other parts of the government so that they meet the needs of the 21st century.
The DFL's budget relies on funding a 1970's model of government. It's time for them to step into the 21st century.
Sen. Bakk is continuing the lie about Minnesota facing a "$6.2 billion deficit." That's a fabrication and Sen. Bakk knows it. We're only facing that big a deficit if we're willing to increase the state's spending by 27 percent. Nobody in their right mind thinks the spending increase should be more than 5 percent, if that.
We've only got a $6.2 billion deficit if the legislature agrees to spend $39,000,000,000 this biennium. The state's high water mark in spending was for the biennium that started on July 1, 2007. The budget bills signed that year would've spent less than $35,000,000,000. That budget included spending alot of one-time money, thereby adding to Minnesota's structural deficit.
First, it's important to admit that it's irresponsible to spend one-time money to patch ongoing budgetary issues. Next, it's important that we admit that state government hasn't established sensible spending priorities. Finally, let's admit that raising taxes on anyone with the economy this fragile is idiot economics. Even radicals like President Obama admitted that a month ago.
Finally, Sen. Bakk just couldn't submit his statement without playing the tried-and-true class warfare card. I'm wondering if it's an unwritten rule or if it's genetic that the DFL plays the class warfare card in its statements.
Either way, Gov. Dayton and the DFL have today proven that they aren't serious about eliminating irresponsible spending. Rest assured, Minnesota voters will be reminded that their DFL legsilators voted against reckless spending by state agencies.
Posted Tuesday, January 18, 2011 4:53 PM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 18-Jan-11 05:38 PM
Gary:
I didn't get a payraise last year. I'm not getting once this year. So why should the state be give a 27% spending increase which requires tax increases which lowers income for everybody?
Makes no sense, but then again no reporter or Democrat thinks like this.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
