January 18-20, 2015
Jan 18 02:22 Mitt: Nice guy, terrible candidate Jan 19 02:28 DFL nastiness shows early Jan 19 08:20 Progressive Mark Dayton? Jan 19 12:42 Juan Williams' disgusting bias Jan 20 01:25 Deciphering TWS's unscientific poll Jan 20 01:40 MnSCU service awards Jan 20 03:32 DFL legislators talk transportation
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Mitt: Nice guy, terrible candidate
After reading this part of this article , it's clear that Mitt Romney shouldn't be the GOP presidential nominee:
He said Mr. Obama and Clinton would have America "walk back from red lines...lead from behind...[carry] a small stick." He ticked through the world's hotspots: Libya, Iraq, Ukraine, Iran. "Terrorists are not on the run," he said. In a "post-Obama era," he argued, the next president will need to use economic and diplomatic strength to shape events around the world and "make the world safer for freedom."
Mitt's right that President Obama's red lines are seen by President Putin as being more of a rose color than red. Mitt's wrong that diplomacy is what's needed to shape world events, especially with terrorists and Putin.
What's needed with President Putin is a combination of supplying Ukraine with arms to defend themselves against President Putin's expansionism and the US announcing plans that they're building a natural gas pipeline to Ukraine. Couple those things with hitting reset on Hillary's reset button. That isn't done with a cheesy-looking red button. It's done by putting US missiles in Poland, Romania and throughout the Baltic States. That doesn't mean going to war with Russia. It simply means confronting Putin's expansionist initiatives. Better yet, it means acting proactively to prevent Russia from attempting to expand its influence.
President Putin is acting like a superpower. The West's mistake is in treating Putin's Russia like they're a superpower. They aren't. They never will be. Their economy can't produce the wealth they need to compete with an economic and military superpower.
This paragraph highlights what went wrong with Mitt's 2012 campaign:
On the third principle, he said, "We're an abundant nation. We have the resources" to lift people out of poverty. He didn't say precisely how he would accomplish that without increasing the size of the government, but he argued that Mr. Obama's policies have not worked. "They work for a campaign, but they don't get the job done," he said. Only conservative principles like a focus on family formation and education, he added, would "end the scourge of poverty in this great land."
That's exceptionally timid. Just blast it out there. Capitalism is the only economic system that lifts families out of grinding poverty. Mitt's biggest personal weakness is that he's an apologetic capitalist. What he needs is a lesson like this from Milton Friedman:
Republicans need a candidate who a) isn't bashful about being a capitalist, b) loves explaining the virtues of capitalism vs. the tyranny of collectivism and c) highlights the times where capitalism has improved people's lives.
In 2015-16, that means highlighting how Obama's EPA has hurt the coal, the natural gas and oil industries and how private citizens and local governments have made life significantly better for people. Highlight how North Dakota's state policies have helped the Bakken lead a fossil fuel comeback that led to cheap gas prices. The GOP presidential nominee needs to remind people of the Democrats that said we "can't drill our way to cheap gas prices.'
Mitt won't make that case. That's why he's wrong.
Posted Sunday, January 18, 2015 2:22 AM
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DFL nastiness shows early
Usually, it isn't until the last month of a legislative session that the DFL breaks out into their time-tested nastiness. We're about to start the third week of the 2015 and the DFL is already taking out their long knives against Republicans. Here's the vicious lie that Mindy Greiling told Friday night:
Gov. Dayton is right. That's just a mirage, la-la land. People keep saying that. Even Carol Molnau wasn't able to do anything about that except for having a bridge fall down when she cut some corners.
Thankfully, Brian McClung quickly exposed Ms. Greiling's lie. Here's what he said:
Look, you can't blame Carol Molnau and budget cuts for the bridge falling down. The report from the NTSB showed that that was a design flaw from the 1960s so let's just put that aside.
Ms. Greiling isn't stupid. She's just frequently dishonest and mean-spirited. She knows that the I-35 Bridge is the federal government's responsibility. The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the crash and put together the definitive report on the crash. I recall the report's conclusions and how little dispute there was with the NTSB's conclusions.
Jim Oberstar, then the chairman of the Transportation Committee in the US House of Representatives, certainly didn't dispute any of the NTSB's findings of fact. Steve Murphy, then the chair of the Transportation Committee in the Minnesota Senate and Frank Hornstein, then the chair of the Transportation Committee in the Minnesota House of Representatives didn't disagree with the NTSB's findings of fact, either.
Now, 5 years after the NTSB report's release, Rep. Greiling is attempting to rewrite history. That's shameful but instructive. This isn't a mistake. It's a revelation. It's who the DFL have become. The DFL's dishonesty is disgusting and predictable.
It used to be that death and taxes were the only things in life that were guaranteed. DFL dishonesty and mean-spiritedness should be added to that list of guarantees.
Posted Monday, January 19, 2015 2:28 AM
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Progressive Mark Dayton?
There's no question that Gov. Dayton is a progressive. In 2010, he campaigned on the issue that Minnesota's tax code wasn't progressive enough. Immediately upon getting sworn in, he submitted a budget that raised income taxes. During the campaign, Gov. Dayton criticized Tom Horner's cigarette tax for its regressivity. In 2013, Gov. Dayton signed a plethora of regressive taxes. This year, he's pushing hard for another regressive tax increase that will hit the poor and the middle class harder than it'll hit "the rich."
When Republicans said no to raising taxes on the poor and the middle class, Gov. Dayton threw another temper tantrum:
Mark Drake, the new president of the Minnesota Jobs Coalition, noticed Gov. Dayton's change of mind in this op-ed :
During a recent press conference in which he reiterated his support for a gasoline tax increase, Dayton mocked a GOP transportation proposal as "pure fantasy," dismissing the plan's funding mechanism as derived from "la la land" and "Fantasy Island." Yet Dayton's name-calling can't change the fact that he's long been an opponent of the very type of gas tax increase that he's now pushing.
"I don't support a gas tax increase at this time, because I think there's not public support for it," Dayton said in 2012. Dayton added that he opposed such a hike because "I don't see it as providing nearly the amount of money necessary to make significant and really identifiable progress."
"I don't support a gas tax. I don't think the people of Minnesota are prepared to support it and that's the critical consideration," Dayton assured Minnesotans in 2013. "If it's going to raise more revenues than the current gas tax, then it's going to result in higher fuel prices for middle-income Minnesotans. I think they're not in a position economically to have that," Dayton emphasized that same year. During his 2014 re-election campaign, Dayton again expressed opposition to a gas tax increase. "I have thought all along that this requires a long discussion in a non-election year," Dayton stated.
It's time for Gov. Dayton to stop with his flip-flopping. Gov. Dayton and the DFL didn't promise to raise taxes during the campaign. In fact, they tried claiming that repealing their tax increase from 2013 was a tax cut. Gov. Dayton and the DFL promised voters property tax relief.
I wrote this post and this post to show that the DFL failed with that promise.
There's no question that Gov. Dayton and the DFL prefer a progressive income tax system. Likewise, there's no doubt that Gov. Dayton and the DFL like raising regressive taxes, too. Their record is littered with proof of the DFL voting for progressive and regressive taxes.
Tax the rich is the DFL's mantra but tax everyone is what the DFL believes in. The DFL just isn't honest enough to admit the latter in public.
Posted Monday, January 19, 2015 8:20 AM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 19-Jan-15 04:03 PM
Gary:
Lets not forget to mention the sole purpose of the gas tax is to build roads and bridges. The DFL wants to use this money let alone the motor vehicle excise tax to build trains and fund mass transit systems. Shouldn't the DFL if they raise the tax put it exactly where it's suppose to go?
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Juan Williams' disgusting bias
Juan Williams' column is filled with faulty premises. Here's the first of Williams' faulty premises:
Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) strategy for defeating Democrats in the final two years of the Obama administration is clear: divide and conquer.
There's no doubt that Democrats are divided over Keystone. What Williams didn't detect is that the people are incredibly united on the issue. Almost 70% of registered voters support building the Keystone XL Pipeline. A pathetic 25% of registered voters oppose building it.
If Democrats want to listen to the environmental activist wing of the Democratic Party, that's their right. If Democrats want to ignore the will of the American people, that's their option, too. Just don't try telling me that that's divide and conquer. That's giving people the option between doing the right thing and playing partisan politics.
Now he is testing Sen. Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) ability as minority leader to hold Senate Democrats together in opposition to a Republican agenda favoring the pipeline, halting immigration reform, lowering corporate taxes, and seeking to destroy Obamacare.
If significant numbers of Senate Democrats are willing to join with Republicans to force presidential vetoes, McConnell wins. He gains the power to paint himself as the good guy working across political lines. And he will smear the remaining Democrats as members of an out-of-the-mainstream party in the grips of leftist ideologues - Obama, Reid, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and possibly Hillary Clinton.
Sen. McConnell's agenda this year consists of passing lots of things that 70+ percent of the American people support. Pundits call that picking off the low-hanging fruit. It's the stuff that President Obama and Sen. Reid ignored the past 4 years.
It isn't surprising that Republicans have a different agenda than President Obama and Sen. Reid. President Obama and Sen. Reid frequently thwarted the will of the American people. They weren't just characterized as out-of-the-mainstream ideologues. It's that President Obama and Sen. Reid have been out-of-the-mainstream ideologues.
In 2010, the American people spoke with a clear voice that they didn't like President Obama's and Sen. Reid's agenda. This past November, they spoke with an even clearer voice. They rejected President Obama's and Sen. Reid's agenda.
Rather than listen to the American people, President Obama said that he isn't interested in the American people's agenda. President Obama and the Democrats have forcefully said that they're interested only in their agenda.
Hooray for Sen. McConnell for putting the Democrats' feet to the fire. It's time to find out if they're aligning with the American people or with the Democrats' special interest allies.
Posted Monday, January 19, 2015 12:42 PM
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Deciphering TWS's unscientific poll
After reading Daniel Halper's article , it's clear that there isn't a clear Republican frontrunner. Still, the unscientific poll is helpful. Here's the results of TWS' unscientific poll:
Scott Walker--mentioned on 44% of the ballots as either first, second or third choice; first choice on 18%. Thus, 44/18.
Ted Cruz--35/16.
Ben Carson--26/10.
Mitt Romney--24/12.
Bobby Jindal--20/3.
Jeb Bush--18/8.
Marco Rubio--18/4.
Rand Paul--16/6.
John Kasich--15/4.
Rick Perry--15/3.
Mike Huckabee--12/3.
John Bolton--10/3.
Mike Pence--9/2.
Chris Christie--8/2.
Rick Santorum--7/2.
I don't agree with Bill Kristol's statement:
So the most important take-away from the poll is this, I think: not only isn't there a clear front-runner, there's not even a clear handful of front-runners.
I strongly disagree with that statement, though I agree that there isn't "a clear front-runner." I'd disagree that there isn't a "handful of front-runners." Clearly, there's a handful of front-runners. That group is made up of Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, with Gov. Bush coming in with a lackluster finish.
At this point, it's difficult to take Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie and Rick Santorum seriously. I'll give Pence, Perry and Kasich a shot, though it's clear they're in a lower tier at this moment, because they can raise money and they have a compelling record to run on.
It's impossible to picture a path to the nomination for Rand Paul, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie or Rick Santorum. Huckabee and Santorum won the 2008 and 2012 Iowa caucuses but their base of Christian conservatives isn't their's anymore. Scott Walker's message will play well with Christian conservatives. Rand Paul's libertarian message will appeal to voters in New Hampshire but it won't play well in Iowa and Florida. Sen. Paul's message definitely won't play in South Carolina, with its military bases and its Bible Belt roots.
In 2012, Mitt Romney got trounced in South Carolina. It isn't a stretch to think that he won't do well this time.
It's a million political lifetimes away but there's already some voter sorting happening already. It'll be interesting to see whether that stratification continues.
Posted Tuesday, January 20, 2015 1:25 AM
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MnSCU service awards
MnSCU Awards For Outstanding Financial Management Leadership
by Silence Dogood
On January 5th, MnSCU announced a series of awards "Recognizing Outstanding Financial Management Leadership."
http://www.mnscu.edu/media/newsreleases/2015/010515.html
There are two types of awards. The "Chancellor's Award," which is "presented to individuals or teams whose efforts support the MnSCU Strategic Framework and result in systemwide improvements in financial management, services, or processes. Award criteria focused on innovation, collaboration, and new work that is above and beyond regular duties."
For 2014, there were two Chancellor's Awards:
Rick Straka, Vice President for Finance and AdministrationThe second award is an "Outstanding Service Award," which is "presented to individuals or teams who provide outstanding service at the campus level. Award criteria focused on those who have made significant systemwide contributions that warrant recognition."
Minnesota State University, Mankato
Bill Maki, Vice President for Finance and Administration
Bemidji State University and Northwest Technical College
For 2014, there were ten Outstanding Service Awards:
Budget CommitteeWhile there really isn't an official competition between SCSU and Mankato, it is striking to recognize that one of the two Chancellor's Awards went to someone at Mankato and three of the ten Outstanding Service Awards went to individuals at Mankato. SCSU was noticeably absent.
Fond du Lac Tribal & Community College
Finance Staff
Dakota Community & Technical College
Finance Staff
Inver Hills Community College
Lori Voss, CFO and Vice President of Administration
Minnesota West Community & Technical College
Helen Wenner, Purchasing Card Coordinator
Minnesota State University, Mankato
Debra Norman, Accounting Officer
Minnesota State University, Mankato
Steve Smith, Associate Vice President for Budget and Business Services
Minnesota State University, Mankato
Business Office Team
Saint Paul College
Deb Kerkaert, Vice President for Finance and Administration
Southwest Minnesota State University
Business Office and Financial Aid Teams
St. Cloud Technical & Community College
Perhaps a 0.07 Composite Financial index for FY14 and a $9,542,000 budget shortfall for FY15 had something to do with that.
Posted Tuesday, January 20, 2015 10:01 AM
Comment 1 by Crimson Trace at 20-Jan-15 09:51 AM
I see the chancellor also received an award from all 7 MnSCU universities...the vote of no confidence award.
DFL legislators talk transportation
It's clear from this article that DFL legislators are jumping aboard the Metrocrat DFL's transportation package:
Range legislators and the governor recently addressed the issue in telephone interviews with the Mesabi Daily News.
'The gas tax is one if the most unpopular taxes there is,' said Sen. David Tomassoni, DFL-Chisholm. 'But when we ask if people want roads and bridges fixed, 80 percent say yes ... then an extra dime on the gas tax and 80 percent say no.'
Other Range legislators expressed support for raising Gov. Dayton's transportation bill, too:
Rep. Jason Metsa, DFL-Virginia, has one of the biggest road/bridge projects scheduled in the state, the Highway 53 relocation venture that will require a new bridge spanning the Rouchleau Pit, that will require a lot of MnDOT dollars. 'I support a gas tax increase. We have Highway 53 ... and there are projects like that all over the state.'
Rep. David Dill, DFL-Crane Lake, said he would back a gas tax increase if it is part of a 'sweeping change' for funding roads and bridges. 'A gas tax increase is no good for rural folks ... but we also use a lot of roads,' Dill said. 'We have serious problems and our job is to fix them. The longer we take, the shorter is the long-term.'
It's worth noticing what these legislators didn't say. They didn't mention the other tax increases in Gov. Dayton's and Move MN's plans. It's still possible that they support raising the other taxes and fees, too. It's just that they weren't mentioned in this article.
I predicted that the DFL would return to ask for another tax increase shortly after the DFL passed a gas tax increase in 2008. I said then that that bill raised taxes and fees that didn't fix roads and bridges. I said then that too many of the tax increases were dedicated for transit projects that did nothing for fixing roads and bridges.
It isn't surprising that the DFL is returning to raise the same taxes that they raised in 2008. It isn't surprising that Gov. Dayton and the DFL is telling people that their transportation bill is to fix Minnesota's roads and bridges.
The DFL said the same thing then that they're saying now. This isn't surprising. It's just frustrating that Gov. Dayton and the DFL are attempting to raise taxes to pay for additional transit projects, aka DFL ribbon-cutting ceremonies, while telling Minnesotans that they're just trying to fix outstate Minnesota's roads and bridges.
All I'm hoping for is a little honest from the DFL. Apparently, that's asking too much of the DFL.
Posted Tuesday, January 20, 2015 3:32 AM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 20-Jan-15 06:49 PM
Gary:
You will think some reporter will eventually ask why don't you stop for like three years mass transit projects and spend every dollar on roads and bridges?
By the way how much has been spent on mass transit instead of roads and bridges?
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
