Unlamented, Ineffective Shutdown Ends Unnoticed
The 18% of Minnesota government workers affected by the mis-named "Shutdown" will be returning to the jobs that, a week ago, were considered non-essential.
That's gotta go under "damnation by faint praise", huh?
While the perpetually indignant mistakenly treated recognition of the non-essentialness of the affected jobs as a personal attack on the state workers involved, the fact is it should give the citizens of this state some pause as to how overstaffed and underworked so much of our state bureaucracy is.
The Strib tries to go to bat for the employees...:
State employees had the option of taking vacation pay for the first two weeks of the shutdown, but about 3,150 employees would have burned up their vacation benefits by next Friday, according to state employee relations officials. After July 15, the idled employees faced formal layoffs, costing the state millions of dollars in unemployment and severance costs.
In other words, "...we should end the shutdown because the one-time costs would temporarily take our minds off the money we'd save".
But even the Strib has to notice the obvious sometimes:
But in many ways, the shutdown's effects were small. Essential services, such as the State Patrol and some health and welfare programs, continued operating. Partial budget bills passed piecemeal kept other services going, and a last-minute deal kept state parks open.
In other words, the "shutdown" (sorry for the scare quotes, but if it affects less than a fifth of the government, the term does not apply in any rational way) made almost no effect on 90% of non-state-employees.
The Strib, of course, focuses on the 10%:
But the failure to finalize a new $30 billion budget provoked widespread anger and disgust among Minnesotans, raising pressure on all sides to reach a deal.
"If you're an incumbent — I don't know who the good guys are and the bad guys are — you gotta go,'' said Tom Grant, a sales manager from New Brighton. "Failure is not an option when it comes to looking out for the people of Minnesota. Enough is enough. This is a joke.''
Here's the joke: it'd be interesting if an independent pollster (not the Minnesota Poll, thank you) would poll the state to see how many people noticed, or cared, about the shutdown.
Posted by Mitch at
July 9, 2005 06:23 AM
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One good thing that could come out of this, is that if the DFL wants to attack Pawlenty's feeble justification for this "health impact fee" on smokers, the DFL will then have to admit that smokers were NOT a financial drag on the State, so what was Skip Humphrey’s big tobacco suit all about, except pure extortion? With the taxes smokers paid before, they more than covered the cost of any government subsidies to their health care. And smokers typically don't consume health care, or anything else, for as long as non-smokers do. Pawlenty on the other hand, could say that the "impact" goes beyond the smoker himself, to loss of income for the family, making the family eligible for more State services. It'll be interesting to see how each side spins this at election time.
Posted by: RBMN at July 9, 2005 08:24 AMThere was a government shut down? Dang, I miss everything. I wish somebody would tell me these things....
Posted by: Eracus at July 9, 2005 10:18 AMIt will be tempting for many non-Democrats to beat up on Pawlenty for losing in this budget impasse, but this loss was incurred in November, not July. Elections mean something, and when the Republicans lost over a dozen seats in the House, the simple political reality was that they would not have as much leverage in ensuing budget battles. Rather than get disgusted with Pawlenty, I'd suggest that those who want a smaller government in Minnesota would be better served by putting their shoulder to the wheel, and get Democrats tossed out of the legislature. Pawlenty ain't the source of your problems.
Posted by: Will Allen at July 9, 2005 10:50 AMIn a marriage, it takes two to make it work but only one to make it dysfunctional.
With regards to Tom Grant’s quote, you don’t need to get rid of all the incumbents, just one: Dean Johnson. There were no consistent, consecutive legislative stalls or shutdowns until he became the DFL majority leader in the senate.
With him out of power, I sure the senate would get back to doing really work instead of trying to score political points.
Posted by: rrd at July 9, 2005 11:36 AMIf Governor Ah-Nuld can get a no new taxes budget in California, Governor Pawlenty probably could've done it in Minnesota.
Posted by: JamesPh. at July 9, 2005 01:27 PMI haven't lived in Minnesota since the late 80's, but I seem to remember that the state budget was 4-6 billion back then. How the heck did the budget inflate so much over 15-20 years? Or am I misremebering the old budget number?
Posted by: Terry at July 9, 2005 07:36 PMRe: Terry at July 9, 2005 07:36 PM
Didn't you know that inflation is about 10% here in Minnesota, or at least in some parts of St. Paul?
Posted by: RBMN at July 9, 2005 10:51 PM$30 billion is hard to grasp. Think of it instead as $6,000/year for every man, woman, and child in the state.
Posted by: Gideon at July 10, 2005 02:22 PMIt IS faint praise to be considered "non-essential," but that's not quite the same as "unnecessary" or "wasteful."
Pretend we intend to build a bridge somewhere in a year or two. The right-of-way agents are today acquiring land and the bridge design engineers are today calculating bearing loads.
If tomorrow we have another shut-down for budget reasons, do these guys need to come to work? Are they essential, like police or firefighters? Of course not. But do they need to come to work eventually, so we can get the bridge built? Obviously so.
They could be idled for a few days and no big deal, we'll catch up eventually. But sooner or later we need those people back at work. So they're "non-essential" but not "unnecessary."
Full disclosure: my wife does computer support for a state agency. She was deemed non-essential so she just burned off a week of vacation. But sooner or later, somebody is going to have to do the virus updates, install the new maintenance releases, and help you reinstall your printer driver, either her or a contract vendor. Her job function is "non-essential" but not "unnecessary."
Posted by: nathan at July 11, 2005 09:37 AM.