Category Archives: Governor

DFL: “Peasants! Continue Rendering Tribute!”

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This is the photo that “Alliance for a Better Minnesota” posted on Twitter just now, in the wake of the announcement that Minnesota has a billion dollar budget surplus:

That’s right, Governor Dayton. Thanks for putting $1.2 Billion in the state coffers. Those must have been some righteous Renoirs you sold.

Oh, wait. What’s that? The surplus is revenue above and beyond the $2 Billion in tax hikes that is forecast to be taken in by the state in the coming year.

From us. The taxpayer.

And yep, the DFL is already trying to think of ways to spend it – to give a little of it back to you, the people who  paid it in in the first place, and spend the rest on, largely, graft for the DFL’s owners supporters. 

Oh, yeah – notwithstanding the fact that the surplus exists solely because of the GOP’s restraint in spending and holding back the budget (imperfect as they were at that) over the past four years, the DFL is claiming credit…

…along with every dime they can from this surplus.

So yes.  Thanks, Governor Dayton, for taking more of my money – about $250 for every man, woman and child in Minnesota – out of the economy than even the DFL’s spendthrift budget could. 

Thank you so very much.

What Minnesota Deserves

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Knowing that the media will never allow it to amount to anything serious, Governor Dayton “takes responsibility” for the MNSure fiasco:

Dayton reacted Thursday to a report from Optum, a unit of Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth Group. The report found MNsure’s problems are widespread and cannot be solved by the March 31 federal deadline for most people to have health insurance or pay a penalty. Optum said the state could try to fix the current system, which could take up to two years, or try to get it minimally functional for 2015 enrollment while building a new system from scratch.

Both options are exquisitely expensive.  There’s an old software engineering saying; “Fast, Cheap, High Quality – you can have two”.

And that’s at best.

And we’re not going to get “at best”.  Why?

Emphasis added:

“Those are the decisions that the new management is going to be making, and obviously the Legislature will be involved and the board and I’ll have my say in it too,” Dayton told reporters.

Even in the private sector, “designed by committee” is a synonym for “Bulgarian goat rodeo”.

Healthcare is impossibly complex; politicians operate entirely in the realm of oversimplification, and that’s even if they have a general sense of “what is right”, which our DFL-dominated legislature does not.

Politics is the worst possible way to allocate scarce resources and solve complex problems.

“But we’re going to fix it. We’re going to improve it. I’m determined we’re going to give Minnesota what it deserves.”

Minnesota already got what it deserved when it swept the DFL into power.

Will it deserve better this fall?

Debate

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Last Saturday, Brad Carlson and I had the great pleasure of hosting the first ever North Ramsey County Republicans Gubernatorial debate.  The event was put on by the three BPOUs in northern Ramsey county – House districts 42A, 42B and 66A.

We had five of the GOP governor candidates on stage with us; Marty Seifert, Jeff Johnson, Rob Farnsworth, Dave Thompson and Scott Honour.

We had about 100 people in the house at Concordia Academy – which, for a first-time GOP event deep in Blue Ramsey County on a day with greasy roads was excellent turnout.  A lot of people also tuned in via the live stream and, of course, on AM1280 (the debate was during my show’s regular time slot).

Bill Salisbury of the Pioneer Press was there, and wrote about the event in a piece titled “Debate reveals similar messages from GOP’s five candidates for governor” – which was a perfectly valid first impression of the event.  Candidates are being cautious now, playing largely to the party base (for caucus purposes) while trying to woo uncommitted and non-activist Republicans (for the primaries, which look pretty inevitable at this point).

Salisbury:

But the audience of about 100 partisans and students at Concordia Academy wanted to know: Who is the most electable?

That’s the biggest difference between this year’s Republican contest and the party’s 2010 nomination battle.

“No one asked that question four years ago,” former House Minority Leader Marty Seifert said after the 90-minute debate. In 2010, Seifert lost the GOP gubernatorial endorsement to conservative firebrand Tom Emmer, who then was defeated by Democrat Mark Dayton despite a wave that swept Republicans into control of both houses of the Legislature for the first time in four decades.

This year, Seifert said, grassroots Republicans are hungry for a win and less concerned about ideological purity.

It’s a different race than it was four years ago; bidding to replace Mark Dayton is different than trying to follow-up Tim Pawlenty.

The audience questions were sharp and incisive, and I think they accurately reflected the concerns of real Minnesotans pretty clearly; the economy, the disintegration of health insurance under Obamacare and MNSure, and – most poignantly – a lot of high school kids wondering what kind of economy they were going to be graduating into.

From my perspective as a co-moderator?  The candidates were pretty similar; all various shades of “conservative enough”.  Farnsworth was pragmatic, and a bit of a homespun technocrat, with fairly detailed ideas for solutions to problems raised.  Seifert was sharp – like someone who’s spent four years working through the questions, having a brisk, calibrated answer to everything.

m.twincities.com/twincities/db_295955/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=604T07tB

Debate Tomorrow!

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Tomorrow, AM1280 will be joining with the North Ramsey County Republicans in putting on the first really good gubernatorial candidates’ debate of the season!

Brad Carlson and I will host the event, at the Concordia Academy in Roseville (just north of Highway 36 on Dale Street).  The debate will start promptly at 1PM, and will be heavily audience-participation focused. 

As this is written candidates (in alpabetical order) Rob Farnsworth, Scott Honour, Jeff Johnson, Marty Seifert and  Dave Thompson are all on the line-up.  This may be the best debate you’ll hear before the caucuses. 

It’s a fund-raiser for the North Ramsey County Republicans (House districts 42A, 42B and 66A).  Admission is $10 if you register in advance.  Refreshments will be provided, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume some of us are going to adjourn to a local watering hole afteward for a post-debate wrapup. 

So sign up and come on out!  It’s going to be a fun event!

Two Days ‘Til The Debate!

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This Saturday, AM1280 will be joining with the North Ramsey County Republicans in putting on the first really good gubernatorial candidates’ debate of the season!

Brad Carlson and I will host the event, at the Concordia Academy in Roseville (just north of Highway 36 on Dale Street).  The debate will start promptly at 1PM, and will be heavily audience-participation focused. 

As this is written candidates (in alpabetical order) Rob Farnsworth, Scott Honour, Jeff Johnson, Marty Seifert and  Dave Thompson are all on the line-up.  This may be the best debate you’ll hear before the caucuses. 

It’s a fund-raiser for the North Ramsey County Republicans (House districts 42A, 42B and 66A).  Admission is $10 if you register in advance.  Refreshments will be provided, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume some of us are going to adjourn to a local watering hole afteward for a post-debate wrapup. 

So sign up and come on out!  It’s going to be a fun event!

Bad Lieutenant

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Can you fog a mirror? Then you too can be a lieutenant governor!

As Yvonne Prettner Solon bids farewell to the office of Lieutenant Governor, should Minnesota do so as well?

When it comes to political shockwaves, the announcement that Lt. Gov. Yvonne Prettner Solon would not seek a second-term as Mark Dayton’s running-mate barely constitutes a ripple in the political waters.  And why not?  Over the past four years, Prettner Solon joined a long and undistinguished list of Minnesota lieutenant governors who served their time largely under the radar of the media and electorate.  Even Prettner Solon’s own webpage touts her “actions” as a small collection of out-of-state/out-of-country travels, with a dash of in-state touring on behalf of federal initiatives (helpfully spelling as a typo as well).

Prettner Solon’s (in)actions say less about her tenure than about the limitations of the office of lieutenant governor itself.

John Nance Garner’s infamous quote about the Vice-Presidency as “not worth a bucket of warm piss” (often sanitized as “warm spit”) might as well apply to Minnesota’s lieutenant governors.  With perhaps the exception of Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau, who served as the commission of Transportation in the Pawlenty administration, Minnesota’s lieutenant governors have served almost no active role in policy direction or political leadership.

Indeed, the trend-lines for the state’s lieutenant governors have seemingly further minimized an insignificant position.  Whereas past lieutenant governors had gone on to serve in higher office, such as Rudy Perpich, Sandy Keith, Karl Rolvaag, C. Elmer Anderson and Edward Thye, the past several decades haven’t even seen lieutenant governors make a post-office political impact.  Joanne Benson, Joanell Dyrstad, and Marlene Johnson all made bids for higher office in the 1990s (Governor, U.S. Senate and St. Paul Mayor, respectfully) and lost – badly.  None of them even made to the general election.

All of this begs the question – does Minnesota require a Lieutenant Governor?

Seven states forgo the position, with two of those states, Tennessee and West Virginia, having the office of lieutenant governor be only an honorary title on the Speaker or President of the State Senate.  The line of succession, often the only value to the office, goes either to the Senate President or the Secretary of State.  In Minnesota, about the only other value to the office is as a gender counterweight to the top of the ticket.  Lou Wangberg was the last male lieutenant governor of the state – a fact useful only as trivia for political nerds.  Otherwise, every winning ticket (and most of the losing tickets) have had a female running-mate since 1982.

Closing the office of lieutenant governor won’t save Minnesota much.  The combined office budgets of the Governor and his lieutenant are only $3.3 million.  But if Minnesota could willingly end a constitutional office like State Treasurer, which had at least some active management in state affairs, then why not do the same for a office that has strayed far from any meaningful policy or political moorings?  Every candidate for governor claims they will reinvent the office of lieutenant governor with their selection.  Dayton himself promised that Prettner Solon would become a “strong partner” if elected.  If travelling to Canada and opening a Duluth office were parts of Dayton’s idea of partnership, he didn’t say in 2010.

Outside of the endorsement process for both parties, the role of lieutenant governor serves absolutely no purpose.  And in an era where it appears both parties are drifting away from placing much value on being the endorsed candidate for governor, whatever justifications remain for the office are quickly disappearing.

ADDENDUM: Even Prettner Solon seems to have expected more out of her office, if her comments at her press conference were accurate:

She has said she and the governor have a distant relationship. She said she anticipated being more involved in more policy initiatives as lieutenant governor, but she carved out a niche of her own working on initiatives for seniors and Minnesotans with disabilities.

Debate: Saturday

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This Saturday, AM1280 will be joining with the North Ramsey County Republicans in putting on the first really good gubernatorial candidates’ debate of the season!

Brad Carlson and I will host the event, at the Concordia Academy in Roseville (just north of Highway 36 on Dale Street).  The debate will start promptly at 1PM, and will be heavily audience-participation focused. 

As this is written candidates (in alpabetical order) Rob Farnsworth, Scott Honour, Jeff Johnson, Marty Seifert and  Dave Thompson are all on the line-up.  This may be the best debate you’ll hear before the caucuses. 

It’s a fund-raiser for the North Ramsey County Republicans (House districts 42A, 42B and 66A).  Admission is $10 if you register in advance.  Refreshments will be provided, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume some of us are going to adjourn to a local watering hole afteward for a post-debate wrapup. 

So sign up and come on out!  It’s going to be a fun event!

When Out And About This Weekend

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This Saturday, AM1280 will be joining with the North Ramsey County Republicans in putting on the first really good gubernatorial candidates’ debate of the season!

Brad Carlson and I will host the event, at the Concordia Academy in Roseville (just north of Highway 36 on Dale Street).  The debate will start promptly at 1PM, and will be heavily audience-participation focused. 

As this is written candidates (in alpabetical order) Rob Farnsworth, Scott Honour, Jeff Johnson, Marty Seifert and  Dave Thompson are all on the line-up.  This may be the best debate you’ll hear before the caucuses. 

It’s a fund-raiser for the North Ramsey County Republicans (House districts 42A, 42B and 66A).  Admission is $10 if you register in advance.  Refreshments will be provided, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume some of us are going to adjourn to a local watering hole afteward for a post-debate wrapup. 

So sign up and come on out!  It’s going to be a fun event!

Pol Position Deux – The Race to Summit (Ave)

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We breakdown the state of the GOP race for governor.  We offer a similar analysis of the GOP Senate contest here.

___

The seasons have changed significantly since our last detailed analysis of the GOP governor’s race – and so has the political climate.

Last July, Minnesota’s political commentariat had all but official declared Gov. Mark Dayton the winner in his 2014 re-election effort.  Sporting a 57% approval rating, despite a legislative session that saw no shortage of controversial bills (including a warehouse tax even the Star Tribune editorial board begged Dayton to reconsider), Dayton looked in good position to cruise through the fall and winter political doldrums.

Fast-forward six months and Mark Dayton’s numbers are dropping as quickly as the temperature.  Dragging a 52% disapproval rating into the 2014 session, Dayton has been eager to recast his imagine as a traditional tax-and-spend liberal, suggesting he’d return the bulk of Minnesota’s projected $1.1 billion surplus (minus erasing the shift in education dollars) as tax cuts.  The reception to the concept has only been slightly warmer than absolute zero in the DFL caucus, framing a potential conflict between Dayton’s yearning for re-election aid and the legislative desires for more spending.

Tax cuts or not, Dayton’s greatest potential saving grace may simply be his opposition. Continue reading →

Tramps Like Us, Baby We Were Born To NARN

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Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network – America’s first grass-roots talk radio show – brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism, as the Twin Cities media’s sole source of honesty!

  • I’m in the studio today from 1-3.  I’ll be talking with former House minority leader and gubernatorial candidate Marty Seifert about the race for the GOP nomination.  Then, former Representative Jim Knoblauch will join me to talk about his lawsuit against the new Senate Palace Office Building.
  • Don’t forget the King Banaian Radio Show, on AM1570 “The Businessman” from 9-11AM this morning!
  • Tomorrow,  Brad Carlson is  back!  Brad’ll have Marty Seifert on the show.  “The Closer” airs from 1-3 Sundays!

(All times Central)

So tune in to all six hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, the Twin Cities’ media’s sole guardians of honest news. You have so many options:

Join us!

Level To Off

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Minnesota tax revenue is off since July.

After a couple of years of faster-than-expected receipts – read “the economy was growing faster than had been predicted”, largely due to GOP economic policies – things are flat to a little slow.

And if you’re a conservative, you already know why “flat” is as good as it’s gonna get (emphasis added):

The state took in more from personal income taxes and sales taxes than budget officials predicted.

Minnesota workers contributed $2.1 billion in income taxes, about $27 million more than state officials projected. Consumers paid $1.1 billion in sales tax, about $46 million more than expected.

Corporate income taxes came in at $342 million, down $11 million from estimates. Other revenue accounted for $457 million, about $64 million below projections.

This the first budget snapshot since new tax hikes on high earners and a menu of sales taxes on business-related services kicked in.

Catastrophic?  Hardly – yet.

Dispositive empirical proof that the DFL tax and spend policy is going to tank the economy?  Not just yet.

A sign that Minnesota’s economy can’t possibly be amused?

I’ll bank on it.

Open Letter To Alliance For A “Better” Minnesota”

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To:  Carrie Lucking, “Executive Director”, Alliance for a Better Minnesota
From: Mitch Berg, uppity peasant
Re:  Chain Of Command

Ms. Lucking,

The “Special Session” to deal with disaster relief teed up a few hours ago.

Just a hint; it might behoove you to copy your audioanimatronic marionette “Governor” Dayton on any legislation that gets proposed, or especially passed.  The vision of your audioanimatronic marionette our “Governor” proclaiming shock at legislation that the DFL has jammed through embarasses this state makes your chain of command look “not ready for prime time”. 

It’s pretty simple; route things from Governor Ms. Messinger, to you, to handler “Chief of Staff” Bob Hume, to Mr. Dayton.  And spend some time making sure he really knows what’s getting written into law. 

You’re welcome.

That is all.

Scope Creeps

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As Gary Gross notes, the DFL seems at the very least to be floating as a trial balloon that they’re doubling down on the warehouse tax. 

It’s outside the scope Governor Dayton Messinger wanted for the special session. 

I’m torn on this one.

On the one hand, I think that if the warehouse tax goes into effect, it’s going to be a disaster.  And the DFL, and its Praetorian Guard, the media – will spin it – the job losses, the dislocation, the businesses heading across the Saint Croix, the Red, and Duluth Harbor - as a Republican problem because…well…because Gay Marriage, for the Children.  Or something like that. 

On the other hand, this absolutely is the Democrats’ fault.  “Governor” Dayton signed it, I suspect, without even bothering to get Bob Hume to Ask Carrie Lucking to ask Alida for permission to read it reading it.  Being a Democrat, and a couple generations removed from the generation of Daytons who knew anything about running businesses, it didn’t matter to him. 

This is the sort of issue that conservatives – Republicans – should win big, provided that we’re in a party that has the equipment and expertise to fight a message war.

So can you see why I’m worried?

We Warned You. Oh, Yes, We Did.

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2011:  As the GOP majority began working to try to tame Minnesota’s government monkey, the DFL prattled “the GOP is raising property taxes!”. 

It was baked monkey doodle, of course.  The GOP re-focused “Local Government Aid” toward its original mission, helping poor outstate communities, as opposed to subsidizing the urban DFL. 

But in 2012, it was one of the DFL’s big chanting points; “Elect us and we’ll lower property taxes!”, by restoring and boosting Local Government Aid. 

And some of us warned you back then - while the DFL would certainly tuck into the job of wrenching more money out of the parts of the state that pay their way, there’d be no guaranteed cuts in property taxes…

…because the state has nothing to do with what counties charge.

Nothing.  Zip.  Nada.  Zilch. 

But the voters – maniupulated by a lot of emotional issues, and not thinking all that clearly – turned the House and Senate over to the DFL.  And the DFL raised taxes, and jacked up LGA payments to their friends in Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Duluth. 

And then what?

What the hell do you think?   Property taxes aren’t going to budge!

Joe Doakes from Como Park noticed it, and emailed:

St. Paul’s budget proposal has no layoffs; instead, there are new hires and expanded services, which the City Council President Lantry attributes to Local Government Aid received from the State of Minnesota.

Two weeks ago, Governor Dayton and the DFL promised that LGA would produce $120 million in local property tax relief instead of new spending.

But DFL politics aren’t driven by actual results.  All that’s necessary, in a state where the media mostly takes its marching orders from Alida Messinger, is that someone says taxes will go down, probably. 

And that’s exactly what’s happening. 

Doakes:

Nope, not in St. Paul. St. Paul taxes stay the same. The LGA gets spent on fun stuff, not boring old property tax relief. Again.

Joe Doakes

And by “fun stuff”, we mean more government employee union jobs. 

At any rate, I’ll claim a big win here – taxes in Saint Paul won’t drop, and they’ll probably rise.  Taxes in Minneapolis and Duluth will also stay the same, although there will be more “services” that serve precious few at exquisite cost.

The DFL lied.  And it’s you, the taxpayer, that’s paying the price – being taken for a ripe suck at both the state and (most) local levels. 

The funny part?  The DFL’s apparatchiks are still claiming taxes are dropping, even though they aren’t. 

It’s almost like they don’t expect the regional media to fact-check them, or give any coverage to those who do.

Dismal Foreground, Dismal Background

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Governor Dayton says George Zimmerman “went way beyond” what was necessary in the Trayvon situation and thus, Stand Your Ground laws are bad. Aside from Stand Your Ground having nothing to do with that case, specifically Governor, what did George Zimmerman do that was “way beyond?”

Was it when he joined the Neighborhood Watch, was that “way beyond” what was necessary? People shouldn’t join Neighborhood Watch?

When he called 911 upon seeing a person acting suspiciously? People shouldn’t call 911?

Getting out of his car to better direct law enforcement to where the suspect was hiding, was that “way beyond?” People shouldn’t help police?

Returning to his car when the dispatcher told him “we don’t need you to do that,” was that “way beyond?” People shouldn’t obey police?

Failing to run away when Trayvon confronted him, asking Trayvon what he was up to – was that “way beyond?”

Everybody – even Trayvon’s girlfriend on the phone – agrees Trayvon threw the first punch that broke Zimmerman’s nose. Was that Zimmerman’s mistake – allowing his nose to be broken, was that going “way beyond?”

Everybody – including the prosecution, at the end – conceded Trayvon was sitting on Zimmerman’s chest, holding him down so he couldn’t get away and banging his head on the cement sidewalk. Was that when Zimmerman went “way beyond,” leaving all that blood lying around?

All six jurors agreed that Zimmerman truly believed Trayvon was going to kill him. Was forming that belief, going “way beyond?”

Shooting Trayvon to save his own life – was that going “way beyond?” At that instant, what should Zimmerman have done, instead?

I’m willing to give up my pistol permit and throw my pistol in the lake – if the Governor can explain to me what Zimmerman SHOULD have done differently to achieve the same outcome. So far, not hearing any good explanations.

That’s the problem with trying to talk Second Amendment issues with liberals; so many of them pretend to be lawyers on the issue, and yet know nothing about the subject.

Even the lawyers. 

Even the prosecutors.

Black And White And Green And More Black

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Doug Grow – DFL stenographer and reporter for the Joyce-Foundation-supported MinnPost - is convinced that the GOP is lying about the effects of the Warehouse Tax.

Exhibit A?

Grow writes about the Red Wing Shoes’ opting out of building a new distribution center in Red Wing; it’s something we wrote about here in SITD a few weeks ago.  

According to Grow, the GOP’s line is wrong because the executives involved didn’t step out on stage and burn an effigy of Tom Bakk as the cameras rolled. 

Business Is Hard:No, really; asked if the tax was the sole reason Red Wing Shoes deferred its expansion…:

Sachen couldn’t say that it necessarily would have.

Would the project definitely go ahead if the tax were eliminated?

Sachen couldn’t say that was necessarily the case, either.

He did say that the company, which has a facility in Potosi, Mo., is “in talks with Potosi.” But again, he wouldn’t say that there’s a direct link between the tax and the warehouse project.

Who’da thunk it; a businessman whose business depends, on a certain extent, on not pointlessly pissing people off over politics in this rent-seeking environment, gave an honest answer; there are many reasons that a company does or does not go ahead with an expansion.

Which on the one hand means there’s not a smoking gun hovering over “jobs that won’t be created” leading back to the DFL’s Warehouse Tax (point for Grow).  And on the other hand, it means that there never will be that smoking gun. (Take a point away from Grow). 

By the way – Democrats get hurt when conservatives say they don’t understand economics or business.  Reading this next bit, one would have to say “hurt” is probably less appropriate than “chastened”:

Additionally, it should be noted that the Red Wing Shoes warehouse wouldn’t create jobs — other than construction ones in building the warehouse. Rather, it would allow Red Wing to consolidate its current the five warehouses into one facility. Those warehouses, by the way, employ about 80 people, a number that would not increase with a new warehouse.

Er, yeah. 

Making the business – and the efforts of those 80 existing warehouse workers – more efficent gives the business more profit.  Which gets used to hire more people, design more shoes, improve existing products…heck, even just make staying in Minnesota more tenable.  Which means those 80 warehouse jobs stand less risk of becoming 40, or 20, or 0 warehouse jobs. 

It’d also speak to the long-term commitment on Red Wing’s part to keep those jobs in Red Wing, rather than someplace else. 

Leave The Gotchas To The Comedians: Of course, it’s not just Doug Grow.  Dave Mindeman of mnpAct thinks he’s got the DFL Warehouse Tax’s MNGOP critics over a barrel:

In addition, Rep. Garofalo apparently missed the June 28th Star Tribune clarification on where the tax actually applies…..

Myron Frans, state revenue commissioner, said Dayton has asked him to study the issue, and he has spoken with Red Wing officials about their concerns. He said the tax only applies when the producer or manufacturer purchases warehouse or storage services from another firm.

Garofalo offered no other examples of a potential problem. Thus the Red Wing Shoe factory will NOT be affected by this tax.

In other words, Rep. Pat Garofalo is, as usual, making it up.

And Mindeman deigns to condescdend:

I would hope this legislator will someday learn to get the facts right before making another condescending statement of inaccuracy.

Um, yeah.

Garofalo has actually worked in the private sector.  I know this because we worked for the same company, once upon a time; it was he that actually introduced me to the Drudge Report back when we were both minions at a local Fortune 500.

And he knows – as all of us who work in the private sector and pay attention to things do – that businesses rarely make decisions based on single factors, or on short-term stimuli.  Running a significant brick-and-mortar business (shaddap, consultants) is the ultimate long bet; it involves considering everything; access to the needed workforce, communications, supply chain, price to get product to market, taxes…

…and long-term outlook. 

Red Wing – and Laurence Transportation in Red Wing, who also held off on a warehouse expansion that will be directly affected by the DFL’s Warehouse Tax – is betting against Minnesota in the long term, given the way the climate looks now.

And since Mindeman wants to play the “they curiously ignored a Strib article” game, it’d seem he missed one too; Navarre is up and moving to Texas.  It warehouses products – providing the “value add” that the state is taxing – and also works in e-commerce, which is getting slapped by the DFL’s Amazon Tax. 

So it’s gone:

That was the first time the 30-year-old Minnesota firm had said publicly that it planned to move not just some of its warehousing operations but also its headquarters to the site of its recently acquired Speed FC e-commerce operation based in Texas. Navarre acquired Speed FC Inc. last November for $50 million in cash and stock.

Was it just the DFL’s Warehouse Tax?  Or the DFL’s Amazon Tax?

No.  But both of them, and other changes to the state’s business tax code, had to look ugly to a business that’s already losing money – money that will probably be made up by consolidating operations in a lower-tax locale alone. 

If you’re one of the almost 300 employees being pink-slipped, do you think it makes a difference?

They Also Think Penelope Garcia Is Like A Real Investigator: Back to Grow’s column, where in a quote of Governor Dayton’s chief of staff Bob Hume, he shows that…:

  • he is aiming his piece at economic low-information voters, or…
  • …he’s an economic low-information voter himself:

Hume is commenting on Garofalo’s call for a special session to get rid of the tax.  If you work in the  private sector, see if you can spot the clinker:

Bob Hume, the governor’s deputy chief of staff, made it clear that a special session is not in the offing.

“This is a stunt, not a solution,” Hume said in a statement. “The Legislature is coming back more than a month before this tax would take effect, which is more than enough time, if revenues permit, to review and possibly revise this tax.”

A whole month?  To make a decision affecting the profitability, well-being or survival of a business?

These decisions get made based on long-term outlook.

And while the state’s long-term outlook is subject to debate, let’s remember that when the DFL-shilling media says things like…:

To date, though, the Minnesota economy is humming at a far healthier rate than the economies in such business-friendly states such as Wisconsin and South Dakota.

…that the economy still largely reflects Republican policy, set when the state had responsible two-party rule (shaddap about Ventura) between 2002 and 2012.   The DFL’s tax and spend orgy still hasn’t largely gone into effect; even the first of the taxes have been wending their way through the process for about a week now, and the worst is yet to come.

Get back to us in a year. 

Around election time, preferably.

Pol Position – The Race to Summit (Ave)

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We broke down the GOP race for US Senate here.  We now take a similar look at the Governor’s contest.

—–

To listen to the polling establishment that gave us Govs. Mike Hatch, Skip Humphrey and the ’02 version of Sen. Walter Mondale, Republicans should just give up any notion that Mark Dayton could be defeated in 2014.  Dayton posts a 57% approval rating, up from 43% just this past February.  Of course, Tim Pawlenty was sporting a 54% approval rating around this time in his first-term, in what turned out to a nail-bitter of an election decided by Mike Hatch’s failure to attend his anger management class.  And Dayton’s polling numbers, like most politicians, seem to go up when the legislature is out of session and thus his name is off the front pages.

Unlike with the Senate race, GOP interest in the gubernatorial nomination is high and has attracted among the best Republican office-holders still standing after 2012.  The highest profile Republicans may have passed on running (Pawlenty, Coleman, Kline, Paulsen), but if the current crop of candidates represents the GOP “B Team,” they’re certainly stronger than the 2010 field.  And unlike 2010, they probably are more aware of what advertising deluge awaits the winner from the Alliance for a Better More Expensive Minnesota.

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The “Wreck Everything” Legislature

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Before the 2012 elections, the DFL tried to call the previous, GOP-run legislature a “do-nothing” legislature.

Leaving aside the obvious – the government that governs best governs least – it was a lie. The 2011-2012 legislatures accomplished some useful stuff – hobbled by a “governor” who was fully-owned by extremist special interests and some very un-conservative detours like the Vikings stadium.

But as we wait at the halfway point of a session of one-party government, what does the DFL have to show for their unfettered power?

  • Business taxes – especially the warehousing tax – that lop a serious chunk off of Minnesota business’ bottom line, and that already have businesses heading for the exits.
  • Two extra billion dollars taken out of the productive parts of the state’s economy.  Remember – Minnesota’s GDP is about $267 Billion.  Another two billion is nearly a percent – on top of the 30-odd billion in state spending that the state already sucks out of productive use.  Imagine having an additional 1% of your productive income taken out of circulation – $500 a year if you make $50K.   It’s not chicken feed. 
  • A home daycare system saddled with useless graft to the public employee unions, and with its revenue further cut by the state’s move into all-day kindergarten – which adds virtually nothing to kids’ education, but does create lots of new union jobs that pay dues to the DFL. 

And all of that at the end of a session that wasted months arguing about DFL social-domination issues (gun control, gay marriage) and power-acquisition. 

In exchange for what? 

So far, nothing but damage.

I’ll take “do nothing”, thanks.

Eggs For The Omelet

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The Warehouse tax is going to cause all sorts of damage – and some GOP legislators want to do something about it:

Reps. Tim Kelly of Red Wing and Pat Garofalo of Farmington said lawmakers must act soon because the looming sales tax on warehousing services is already prompting businesses to delay planned warehouse expansions.

But the DFL could scarcely care less:

But a spokesman for the Democratic-Farmer-Labor governor dismissed the request as “a stunt, not a solution.

“The Legislature is coming back more than a month before this tax would take effect, which is more than enough time, if revenues permit, to review and possibly revise this tax,” Bob Hume, Dayton’s deputy chief of staff, said in a statement.

Hume is speaking like a bureaucrat and party stooge who thinks the private sector is the same of a hip club in Northeast Minneapolis.

The tax is already killing jobs!

Kelly said two large Red Wing businesses are delaying expansions because of the tax, and the prospect of losing those new jobs calls for quick action.

Stephen Lawrence, president and CEO of Lawrence Transportation Services in Red Wing, said a 6.5 percent sales tax on his company’s services would put them at a competitive disadvantage with firms in neighboring states, none of which has a warehousing tax. He said his business is considering building facilities in Wisconsin.

Governor Dayton was apparently waiting for Alida Messinger to tell Carrie Lucking what he was supposed to say about this.

 

Governor Messinger Dayton: “Eat The Poor!”

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Governor Alida Messinger Mark Dayton, 2011:  ”Rorra rammma hassa humper thunt”.  (Translation:  We’re only raising taxes on the top 1%)

Govenor Alida Messinger Mark Dayton, 2013:  ”OK, poor people gotta pony up too!

The DFL’s current tax plan not only raises taxes on all Minnesotans across the board, but actually raises taxes on the poorest Minnesotans by more than the wealthiest.

2013 Minnesota Tax Bill Incidence Analysis by minnesoda238

Down below is the key table, showing net tax hikes by income “decile”:


That’s right – not only did taxes rise more for the bottom 20% than for the top 10%, but under the DFL plan taxes rose more for the bottom 10% than for Dayton’s friends, family and neighbors in the top 1%!

To add stupid insult to pointless injury – the report (prepared by Dayton’s employees) notes that the taxes on the lower deciles might drop because of “property tax relief”.  But that assumes that city and county governments will pass “their” local government aid raise on to taxpayers, rather than plowing it into more spending – an assumption that history shows is too stupid even to laugh at.

This is the change you hoped for, Working Minnesota?

Fail

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Kurt Zellers announced his candidacy for Governor yesterday, entering an increasingly crowded field.

And seconds after his announcement, the “Alliance For A Better Minnesota” – Alida Messinger’s union-and-plutocrat-funded attack-PR firm, henceforth “ABM”  - was out with the party line on Twitter:

@ABetterMN: Failed Speaker Kurt Zellers led a historic era of partisan politics. WATCH: http://bit.ly/16ukH99 #wrong4mn #mn2014 #mnleg #stribpol

(I wonder how “forcing daycare providers and personal care attendants into a union against their will so the DFL can get another $2M a year in “donations” will be spun as “non-partisan” by ABM and the media that parrots their chanting points without question?)

ABM, of course, is run by “Executive Director” Carrie Lucking.  She’s a former junior high social studies teacher who now runs Messinger’s little message shop; she ran the epic, toxic sleaze campaign that barely squeedged Mark Dayton over the top against Tom Emmer’s flawed campaign in 2010, and packed the polls with the uninformed in 2012. 

But what about in between?

Dave Thul was the first with the story:

@davethul: The irony of @ABetterMN’s ‘failed candidate’ mantra? Their Exec @CarrieLucking left teaching to become a Failed Campaign Manager. #stribpol

She was a “failed” campaign manager, working for a woman who had a failed marriage to a failed Senator. 

Oh, the video about Zellers that Lucking links to?

You be the judge.  But I’d call it an epic failure.

Carrie Lucking:   Remember – the greatest president of either of our lifetimes, Ronald Reagan, was a “failure” running for president.  Once.

Hello Steeltown; Goodbye, DFL

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Jamestown, North Dakota.

15,000 people.  At confluence of the James and Pipestem rivers, about 90 miles west of Fargo.  Home to a state hospital and psychiatric prison (which sounds like something the MN DFL would build for Republicans, but it’s really pretty normal), a school for the profoundly handicapped, a college (my alma mater, as it happens), and a whooole bunch of agricultural businesses…

…and, soon, an iron mill.

A North Dakota company plans to build a $60 million iron producing plant near Jamestown, N.D., using iron ore concentrate from Minnesota.

A subsidiary of Bismarck-based Carbontec Energy Corp. called E-Nugget North Dakota LLC has unveiled plans to churn out 100,000 metric tons of iron annually using North Dakota sugar beet residue in the mix instead of coke coal.

It’s an interesting project; the plant will extract ore from tailings from the old iron mines up north that used to be economically un-feasible to extract.  There are millions of tons of now-usable ore piled up up north.

It’s Minnesota ore, and the research has Minnesota ties…:

The E-Nugget iron making process was developed by Carbontec and Michigan Technological University over the past five years, including large-scale batch tests at a Minneapolis facility, John Simmons, president of Carbontec, said Monday. The company already has plans to expand to a 300,000-ton plant if the startup goes well.

But the plant is being built in North Dakota.  Granted, it’s Jamestown, which – as it’s been throughout most of it’s history – has been safely tucked away from excessive prosperity.  100 miles east of the oil fields and their jobs, and 90 miles west from cha-cha, booming Fargo (yes, I said “cha-cha Fargo”; it makes sense in context), Jamestown is one of few parts of North Dakota that isn’t overheating economically so far.

But it’s not Flint or Newark or Cleveland.  It’s not even Minneapolis, much less Grand Rapids or Virginia, unemployment-wise.

So why there?

Simmons said the Jamestown site is well-situated because of easy access to sugar beet residue feedstock and also because it is adjacent to a Great River Energy power plant and directly on the BNSF rail line. He said the iron ore concentrate could move from the Grand Rapids area to North Dakota in rail cars that move western coal east but generally have been empty on their return trip west.

“We can get the right quality material from Grand Rapids and the rail routes make sense,” Simmons said.

So let’s get this straight;  Jamestown ND, which is about 90 miles from the sugar beet waste, and probably 300 from the iron ore tailings, gets the plant.

Why’s that?

Magnetation expects to start construction on a fourth plant northwest of Coleraine this year. That plant will produce 2 million tons of concentrate [that's the part you dig up, before you process it into iron] annually and will be ready to feed a new Indiana pellet plant the company now is building to supply partner AK Steel with iron ore for its furnaces by 2015. That new Itasca County facility is expected to employ another 160 people. The Coleraine plant ultimately will shift to get its ore from traditional open pit mining. (The company has shelved plans to build a recovery plant at Calumet.)

 

Simmons noted Carbontec also created an E Nugget Minnesota LLC and considered building the plant in Minnesota using wood waste from logging sites as the reductant or binder. He said the company chose North Dakota instead, in part because it’s so much easier to get permits in North Dakota.

Score one for the DFL Environmental Lobby!  More jobs exported to North Dakota!

Let’s let that one sink in; between taxes and permits, it’s cheaper to ship rock 300 miles than it is to process it in Minnesota.

Thanks, Minnesota DFL!

The Mulligan Session, Part II

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The same DFL employees who gave us “E-Pulltabs” as a means of supplying “the state’s share” of an extorted payoff to an out-of-state billionaire for his real-estate upgrade (which fell 95% short of predictions, as predicted by certain right-wing bloggers) are going to try to take a mulligan and get it right on the second try, says this piece from the MinnPost’s James Nord:

The governor’s proposal would increase the cigarette tax from $1.23 per pack to $2.52 per pack – a larger jump than the 94-cent target he’d earlier proposed — and would require retailers and wholesalers to make a one-time payment on existing inventory that would funnel $24.5 million into the stadium reserve account, solving the shortfall there.

Where have we seen this before?

Oh, yeah – cigarette taxes never, ever raise the money they’re supposed to.  They rarely get 2/3 of the way to their goals.  Ever.

And a “one-time tax on existing inventory?”  Look for a fire sale on smokes the week before the tax goes into effect, and for chain convenience stores to shuffle inventory out of state pronto.

Then, if electronic pulltabs or linked bingo games fail to produce the revenue necessary to fund the state’s appropriation bonds for the stadium ["if" - heh.  Ed], the commissioner of Minnesota Management and Budget would have the authority to direct revenue from a closed corporate income tax loophole toward the stadium.

Frans said that closing the “tax avoidance loophole” would prohibit the current legal practice of some Minnesota companies that avoid paying full corporate income taxes on sales they make by shielding themselves through a subsidiary in a different state. He said more than 20 states have similar regulations in effect.

Dear Mr. Nord:  Not that I’m going to tell you how to do your job, but did you happen to ask Mr. Frans what states those were?  And how they’re doing in terms of business climate?  How well “closing” that particular “loophole” worked?

Remember – these are the same people who said “E-Pulltabs” would…y’know…work.

That measure is projected to bring in $26 million in the first year and roughly $20 million annually after that, although those totals could change as the conference committee works out the specifics of their compromise.

Frans said with the new contingency plan, which would also be backed up by current taxes on suites and memorabilia if for some reason it doesn’t perform, officials are ready to close the book on the shaky stadium funding issue.

“We believe it’s reliable, it’s consistent,” he said.

The Messinger Dayton Administration ”believed” a lot of things that didn’t turn out to be true.

If only we had an institution, with printing presses and transmitters and websites, staffed by people who see themselves as part of a truth-seeking monastic order, whose job it was to tell the public about these things.

The Way The Racket Works

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Joe Doakes notes the MNGOP’s big problem.  I’ll add emphasis:

The DFL Governor and DFL Legislators have cut a deal to give more money to children and unions and have it all done by Tuesday. If only those pesky Republicans would agree.

Which they won’t of course, since this is the same pie-in-the-sky nonsense the DFL has been spouting all along, when not devoting the session to social issues such as gun control, gay marriage and bullying in schools.

And when Republicans don’t blindly sign on to the DFL program, why then the shut-down and special session and laying-off-of-cops will all be Republicans fault. Because Democrats had it all worked out, you see, and the Republicans ruined it.

We need better PR people, so WE can get ahead of the news cycle, for once.

Joe Doakes

I wonder if the MNGOP and the caucuses will ever figure that out.  The way they’re doing it just isn’t working.