The GOP released its detailed budget proposal yesterday.

Via MDE, here’s the breakdown:

It’s the “live within our means” budget the GOP has been talking about since the beginning.  No tax hikes – small cuts, indeed, for some Minnesotans.

The Strib:

Etched in billions, the dramatic battle pits DFL Gov. Mark Dayton’s fight to raise taxes against Republicans, who insist that spending must come down.

Dayton quickly rejected the Republican plan.

“Earlier today the governor reiterated his belief that budgets are a reflection of values and priorities … Based on the spreadsheets the GOP put out today, it appears those values and priorities are cutting education, cutting health care, cutting jobs, cutting veterans and raising property taxes,” Dayton spokeswoman Katharine Tinucci said.

Of course, there is not a cut to education.

With little middle ground apparent, Capitol veterans say the fight already has the markings of an extended session that could drip from a timely May adjournment into the summer.

Totally worth it.

The House and Senate, which released slightly different budget blueprints Thursday, would spend almost $1.3 billion less than Dayton proposed on health and welfare programs.

Those outlines give the programs — which eat up a third of the state spending — a bit more money than they are now getting but not enough to keep up with projected health care costs.

And, as we’ve noted many times, the projections and how we arrive at them are a huge part of the problem.

The lawmakers added some sugar to their budget medicine. The Senate plans to build in tax cuts for businesses, while the House wants an income tax cut for middle-income Minnesotans.

Either of them would be a perfectly fine idea.

House Minority Leader Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, called the House move misleading.

“They’re putting money into the pockets of middle-class Minnesotans with one hand while they’re reaching into the other pocket of middle-class Minnesota families with the other hand,” he said.

Rep. Thissen:  Please show us the portion of the budget that requires DFL-dominated city governments to jack up property taxes.

Get on that right now.  Goodness knows you’re not doing anything else.

Kevin Binversie is from Lakeshore Laments.

My original piece on the Crow Wing County case, and my first and second followups from last week.

Back in college, when I was still a liberal, I was involved in the elections for the leadership of the Young Progressives.

I campaigned in favor of Rebekah Zildjian-Grothman.  Her opponent, Joshua-Micah Belcher, got wind of this.

“Mitch – don’t drop out of college if I win!”, he said at a meeting.

“I had no plans to”.   It seemed simple enough.

Oddly enough, all his posters had fine print at the bottom; I was standing by the bulletin board outside the cafeteria when Angie Schlegel pointed it out;  “I disclaim responsibility if Mitch Berg drops out of college shoul I happen to win”.

Angie looked at me, concerned; I shrugged my shoulders.  “I have no idea what he’s talking about”, I said, baffled.

The election happened.  Joshua – excuse me, Joshua-Micah – won.  As he gave his acceptance speech, he looked at me.  “And now, we’re going to watch Mitch Berg kill himself!”.  He reached into his pocket and handed me a “Withdraw From College” form.

“Huh?”

“You were going to drop out of college if I won!”

I threw the form back at him.  “That was a story you made up…” I started.

“Don’t change the subject!”, he bellowed.

———-

The DFL’s current “tactic” (scare quotes fully intentional) is, if anything, dumber than my fictional story above.

Let’s walk through the facts:

1. While setting up the 2010-2011 budget back in 2009, the DFL-dominated legislature, using the auto-pilot formula they use for these things, forecast a budget of almost $39 billion.  The increase – 21%, overall – was predicated on inflation (relatively low) and putative increase in demand for services.  The forecast was nothing more than the DFL’s wish list. it was focused entirely – 100% – on forecast increases in demand and price.  Nothing more.
2. The leadership of the then-DFL-controlled legislature subtracted the then-forecast revenues – around $32 billion – from the forecast, and declared that there would be a “$6.2 billion deficit”, primarily to put pressure on then-governor Tim Pawlenty.
3. The GOP – first during the Emmer campaign, and then after the November elections – declared that they could do a budget that would live within what were forecast to be government’s means; as of 2009, that was $32 billion.
4. During the 2010 Governor race, Mark Dayton made it clear that he was going to treat the $39 billion forecast as the gospel for the budget.
5. In response, Tom Emmer made it clear he and the GOP would not raise taxes, but force government to live within its means (and reform the system to help that happen.
6. Once it became clear that revenues were going to rise.  Tom Emmer made it a key part of his campaign; “living within our means” meant $33 or $34 billion.  Not $32 billion.
7. Emmer lost – but the MNGOP swept to commanding majorities in both chambers of the legislature.
8. The new GOP majorities made it clear that they were not going to raise taxes; that living within our means, and reforming our government and tax systems to make that possible were the orders of the day.
9. Time marched on.
10. Mark Dayton released his budget – which was greeted with all the enthusiasm of Vanilla Ice’s sophomore album.  Last week, Dayton had make a grand show of telling the DFL not to vote for his budget when the GOP brought it to the floor – to cover the fact that nobody was going to anyway.

At this point, the DFL knew what was coming; that the revenue forecast was going to show exactly what Emmer predicted, that government’s “means” were going to grow to $34 billion, and the GOP was going to use that fact.

And so they started perhaps the most cynical, transparently-desperate political memes I can remember – worse than my ol’ buddy Joshua-Micah’s, from so many years back:

The GOP’s all-cuts budget is late!  And if it’s not all cuts, then they’ve failed!

Put concisely, it was “the party that released all-tax-hike budgets in mid-April the past four years wants you get outraged that the GOP is releasing a balanced, no-tax-hike budget in March”.

The GOP released its budget last week – a budget that lives within government’s means – those means being $34 billion in revenue.  And the DFL’s chant-bots have been trying to cash that meme in.

House Minority leader Paul Thissen launched a broadside on the House DFL caucus Facebook page:

Apparently, “living within our means” is not as easy as the Republicans made it seem to Minnesotans on the campaign trail. Republicans promised Minnesotans that $32 billion was more than enough to balance the budget and that it could be done holding school children, seniors, and the disabled harmless.

And Thissen is lying.  The GOP never said “government’s means” was $32 billion, now and forever.

Today’s release of Republican budget targets proves that the magic act Republicans promised Minnesotans is running into hard reality. The $32 billion that was enough a week ago is now more than $34.

Thissen, and the DFL’s, plan is pretty transparent.  With a weak governor, no legislative power, and a $39 billion wish list, they are trying to convince Tea Partiers – including the moderate DFLers that deserted the party last fall – that the GOP, the party of no tax hikes and the $34 billion budget, are the spendthrifts.

This is the hallmark of a party that is desperate for a win – and fully confident that the media will not seriously question them about such a transparent bit of spin.

As a result, middle-class Minnesota taxpayers should start guarding their wallets against a Republican pick-pocket budget characterized by hidden taxes.

That’s another oldie but goodie, a very cynical bit of carefully-waterboarded context; “if the government cuts LGA, it will hike property taxes”.  That is, of course, the job of the local governments involved.  It has nothing to do with the legislature.

And hard-working Minnesotans should also guard their jobs. We know that the Republican budget will do more harm to Minnesota’s fragile economic recovery than a balanced approach. Cutting nearly 50% of Jobs and Economic Development, raising property taxes – the largest tax businesses pay already, and slashing the workforce are a recipe for job killing, not job creation.

Another bit of cynical distortion; the “Jobs and Economic Development” spending creates very few jobs and very little economic development, for the money we’ve poured into it.

Republicans heralded $300 million in new tax cuts for middle and lower income earners.

And that is a lie.  The “new taxes” will come from city councils, who can no longer camouflage their own spending by having state taxpayers subsidize it for the.  And as we showed last year, those city councils are run by DFLers.

Playing poker with a pair of deuces, Thissen is passing on the most transparently cynical set of chanting points I can recall in all my years of watching Minnessota politcs.  Thissen can get away with these statements – lies, grossly-waterboarded context – because he knows the mainstream media statewide won’t disturb his narrative.

Gary Gross at Let Freedom Ring responded as well;  you should read the whole thing.  Money quote:

I’ll just be blunt. Rep. Thissen isn’t an impressive leader. His credibility doesn’t exist because his constant sky-is-falling predictions aren’t believable. People might or might not agree with the Republicans’ plan. I suspect more do than don’t because that’s how they voted in November and because people understand that spending $34 billion is substantially more than spending $30.7 billion.

Gary’s right.

Worst case?  That’s what the DFL is counting on; the idea that there are enough Tea Partiers who will see “Two Billion more in spending”, and ignore the “that’s what we have”.

Years ago, I heard a great cliche while I was playing poker. That cliche applies to this situation. Sometimes, the best way to throw a hand is away. The DFL’s hand is awful. Their plans aren’t that appealing. It’s time for the DFL to admit that it’s time to throw this hand away and return to the proverbial drawing board. They won’t win this hand with the hand they’re playing.

I wish I could be as sanguine as Gary.  The DFL is counting on there being a majority of the population that pays no attention beyond the chanting points they and their compliant media present for them.  The last election showed he’s a little over 43% right.

The message, if it comes up at the water cooler?  The GOP budget lives within the state’s means, without needing to jack up taxes to do it.  There are hikes, there are cuts – but it’s a sane, sensible budget for tough times.

Thissen, like my old pal Joshua-Micah Belcher, thinks if he can deny it often and loudly enough, people will believe it.

NOTE: I know, I know – neither my college friends Zildjian-Grothman nor Belcher actually existed.

After weeks of endless whinging from the DFL (“where is the GOP’s budget?  Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?”), the GOP Senate Caucus released its budget targets…

…weeks and weeks earlier than the DFL majorities did in the past two biennia.

Here’s the press release:

Leaders of the Senate Republican Majority Caucus have announced their budget targets for their forthcoming proposal to solve the state’s budget deficit. The overall budget spending level is set at roughly $34 billion for the 2012-13 biennial budget.

“Our caucus is committed to living within our means and not raising taxes,” said Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch (R-Buffalo).

The targets announced by the Senate Republican Majority protect funding levels for education, health and human services and increases funding for the judiciary.

“These targets protect the core constitutional requirements of state government. However, we absolutely have to scale back in the projected growth and spending,” said Senator Claire Robling (R-Jordan).

“These are appropriate spending levels for 21st Century state government,” said Deputy Majority Leader Geoff Michel (R-Edina).

Scraaaaaaaaaatch

Wait – Geoff Michel?

I thought the GOP was ruthlessly excising dissenters?  That’s what the DFL says!

Of course, they also have spent the last two months chanting about an “all-cuts budget”.

I guess everything the DFL says is suspect, huh?

Back to the presser:

“We will be incorporating substantial, real reform measures in our budget package to meet these budget targets. It is imperative that we reform and change the way government operates in order to contain runaway, autopilot spending increases and grow the economy.”

Moving forward, Senate Committees will continue hearing bills in a timely manner in order to meet the earliest committee deadlines in recent history. March 25 is the final date for finance committees and divisions to report appropriations bills. April 29th is set as the final date for committees to act favorable on bills in their house of origin and May 6th is the final date to advance bills or companions of bills that met the first deadline in the other house.

Here’s the big chart; today’s targets are blue, Dayton’s “Dustbowl” budget is red:

You’ll note that it’s not an “all cuts” budget – the DFL meme that the compliant media has been going along and using for the past two months.   The Tea Party would have liked to have seen some cuts – but the important part is, the budget lives within the government’s forecast revenue.

The other important part?  This is just the beginning.  Our government, as Amy Koch pointed out in her statement, needs to get away from its current funding model, with its “autopilot” spending increases.

King Banaian’s bill, HF2, will be a big next step on that.  As we get into the budget brouhaha, we’ll need people to start keeping the pressure up on their Reps and Senators to push this bill along – or we’ll just be repeating this past three biennia, with automatic forecasts being turned into bloated budgets and absurd deficits.

There’s plenty of work to do, here.

In the wake of last Tuesday’s Crow Wing County Commission meeting, the Brainerd Dispatch has the latest on the story.

If you recall the video I ran yesterday, showing Monty Jensen, Ron Kaus and Al and Jim Stene speaking in front of the Commission, you’ll remember the powerful allegation that the staff at the group home (run by the Clark Lake group of group homes) had fraudulently gotten Jim Stene to vote; Stene himself – who suffered serious brain injuries in a near-drowning incident when he was 12 -alleged that the group home staff had coached his vote.

County Attorney Ryan was un-thrilled by this:

At the Tuesday meeting, Ryan took issue with Stene’s statements, saying Stene misrepresented their conversations when speaking to the board.

Ryan said when he sat down and spoke to James “he personally informed me he did want to vote not that someone made him to vote. …

Which will be an interesting he-said/he-said to work through.

But if – as the Minnesota Freedom Council has alleged – Jim Stene has been judged mentally incompetent to vote, and his name is on the absentee voter roll, then there’s a legal issue right there.

And even County Attorney Ryan agrees there’s some smoke (I’ll add emphasis):

“I think it’s a bad thing to come in and try to create an issue in an open forum setting and when it will be televised,” Ryan said. “There currently is an investigation pending into the exploitation of a vulnerable adult.”

In December, Ryan reported his office did not find evidence to substantiate a Crow Wing Township resident’s claim of voter fraud. On Nov. 1, Montgomery Jensen of Crow Wing Township filed a complaint with Ryan’s office.

I’m awaiting an update on when Fox will broadcast Eric Shawn’s report on the voter fraud allegations.

Yesterday, we noted that Governor Dayton has turned down all of the proposals from regional radio stations for what has become a Minnesota tradition, the governor’s talk radio show.

I had initially thought Dayton had a point for turning down the offer (albeit not for his petulant reaction); the audience would be smaller.

It’s not true, of course:

‘CCO says the Saturday slot has roughly the same number of listeners as Pawlenty’s time, around 50,000.

Indeed, they may be a better audience than the Friday one; weekend audiences stay tuned in longer.

But McClung points out that the Governor’s response – again, leaving out the petulance – makes no sense:

The other issue was that during the Pawlenty era, the show was on WCCO in the metro and was syndicated by Minnesota News Network and picked up by around a dozen or so Greater Minnesota stations, including stations in most of the key outstate markets. This time around MNN had teamed up with liberal stalwart Air America (owned by one-time congressional candidate Janet Roberts). Dayton had a choice between a solid metro station with a time slot he decided was an “insult” or a liberal metro station with little reach and a good Greater Minnesota network. He chose none of the above.

The KTNF/Minnesota News Network was an odd combination; MNN is a fairly sane, safe, sober operation, while KTNF is the “Ed Schultz” station.  Still, MNN has decent statewide reach.

But not only are KTNF’s ratings almost too low to measure (they’ve fallen off the cliff after the demise of Air America), but the audience is one of the least-desirable, economically, in the  metro – middle-class white people who aren’t smart enough for MPR.

And Dayton already owns that demographic.

I’ve been leaving aside Dayton’s petulant response, so far.  But let’s address it now.

McClung:

Frankly, Dayton’s attack on WCCO is embarrassing for him and makes the situation a lot worse. As usual, there was another option. Dayton and his team could’ve said that in this modern age, radio is simply outdated. They could’ve decided to do a radio show via the Internet, without commercials, that citizens could listen to live at the time of Dayton’s choosing or via recorded podcast. They could’ve even teamed up with BringMeTheNews.com, who made a bid for the show.

During my nearly six years with Governor Pawlenty I had a chance to be his sidekick for more than 250 weekly broadcasts. It was a great way to have a dialogue with the people of the state. But no radio station is under any obligation to provide a governor with any certain time slot or access to other stations. Dayton made a serious error in how he responded, but he could attempt a recovery by using new technologies. Of course, then there would be the inevitable Data Practices Act request to see exactly how many Internet users are tuning in….

My conspiracy theory: Dayton never intended to do the show in the first place.  Jesse Ventura was not a good talkradio host, but he knew how to work the medium.  Tim Pawlenty wasn’t a talk show host at all, but he was affable, unflappable,l and quick on his feet; his weekly hour was consistently good stuff, well worth a listen.

Whatever Mark Dayton’s virtues may be as a human, a citizen and a politician, his radio style isn’t high on the list.  Even in the friendliest and most controlled interviews – Keri Miller at MPR, who all but painted his toenails on the air – he sounded uncomfortable and tentative.  And  let’s not get me started on how his voice sounds on the air.

But since you did – he sounds like he’s still doing his morning gargle.  There.  I said it

So I think – sorta – that his intention was always to turn down the radio show; doing it couldn’t possibly gain him anything.

To: William Hailer

From: Mitch Berg, “uneducated racist”.

Re: Your ““NPR Exec says modern GOP party is controlled by the Tea Party whom are fairly racists and uneducated… I guess truth gets you fired” tweet

Dear Mr. Hailer,

Ryan Winker called.  He said to chill out, you’re giving “smug, elitist twerps who write rhetorical checks they don’t have the intellectual funds to cash” a bad name.

That is all.

MBerg

I’ve been pretty quiet about the Crow Wing County story that I covered last fall, around election-day.  Part of it has been that I’ve been too swamped with family and new job stuff to spend a lot of time trying to track down county officials and everyone else involved with the story. And part of it is that there have been other developments that just plain needed time to work out.

Which isn’t to say I haven’t done a little digging around.  I just haven’t written about it a lot.

In the original videos, taken the Saturday before election day, Monty Jensen – a disabled Army veteran who vigorously disclaims any history of  significant political activism – recounted his story; he and his girlfriend went to the Crow Wing County Courthouse to get absentee ballots (they both work and go to school in the Twin Cities, and wouldn’t be able to vote on election day).  They claimed to have seen a group of mentally-handicapped group home residents being herded through the Crow Wing County courthouse, and to have seen the group home’s staffers filling out the clients’ ballots for them – a clear violation of state law.

Jensen filed an affadavit on Election Day with Crow Wing County attorney Don Ryan.  The County Sheriff’s office carried out an investigation.  Ryan declined to prosecute; a source in the county courthouse speaking off the record said that Ryan acted under the discretion that Minnesota Statute 201.275 grants him.  There are questions about both the discretion – Ron Kaus is demanding a special prosecutor – and the investigation, which went as far as to interrogate Monty Jensen’s long-estranged father, but did not interview the second witness to the original incident, Jensen’s girlfriend.

When the story came out, there were three primary responses from the media and leftyblogs (other than the  usual “balderdash, our election system is the best in the nation hic best in the nation hic best in the nation…”):

1. “The Minnesota GOP is trying to disenfranchise the disabled!”:  This was an odd strawman; not only is Monty Jensen himself disabled, he’s restated endlessly that his only concern is the exploitation of the disabled; the use of the disabled as warm bodies to cast other peoples’ votes.  Which, Jensen has steadfastly claimed, was his singular concern.  Notwithstanding, Lynn Peterson – owner of the Clark Lake group of group homes, from which the residents in question allegedly came – went on a media spree, vigorously upholding the right of disabled people who have not been declared incompetent to vote, a right that nobody involved in this case has questioned in any way.
2. “Monty Jenson is a liar!“: Someone needs to tell Crow Wing County Attorney Don Ryan, who told a Crow Wing County Commission meeting in December that Jensen’s concerns were valid, and the sort of thing a good citizen should do.
3. “The times just don’t add up!“:  There’s no way that Jensen’s complaint could be legitimate, say some, because the times in the various accounts – Jensen’s and the management at Clark Lake – don’t jibe.   But all it will take to scupper that claim is one Clark Lake resident to have been registered to vote, who had been declared incompetent.

And that resident has materialized.  James Stene, a man who suffered serious brain trauma after a near-drowning incident while he was trying to rescue his sister, and who has been judged legally incompetent – claims to have been dragged through the voting process by his staff member.  And he – and his father, Al – made the claim at last night’s Crow Wing County Commission meeting:

There are, of course, lots of new developments to this story.

Eric Shawn of Fox News was in Brainerd over the weekend shooting a story about the allegations of voting fraud in Crow Wing County this past election (previous stories here; the first in the series was this post).  The piece should air sometime in the next 3-4 days.

And we’ll be having Monty Jensen, Al Stene and Ron Kaus of the Minnesota Freedom Council on the Northern Alliance Radio Network this Saturday at 2PM.  Hope you can tune in.

CORRECTIONS: Stene, not Steen.  And I had originally listed Ryan in one place as a Crow Wing County Commissioner; that’s been corrected as well.

Governor Dayton will be the first Minnesota governor since 1999 N not to have a weekly radio show.

The Governor asked for “bids”,  which involved the stations proposing which hour they’d give him – and got responses from WCCO, which carried Ventura and Pawlenty for the past 12 years – as well as KTNF  (the former Air America station), KFAI (a tiny public station on the West Bank in Minneapolis, with a range of maybe five miles) and Rick Kupchella’s “Bring Me The New”, which is largely web-based, but does supply stuff to radio stations).

Most of the stations offered time on the traditional Friday morning/midday shift; WCCO offered an hour early Saturday morning, and the proviso that Ted Mondale co-host. No joke.

Dayton – perhaps not wanting to be on the same day as the Northern Alliance – rejected ’em all:

Dayton’s spokesman, Bob Hume said none of the five offered what the governor was looking for.

“We were very clear that we were looking for a vehicle for people in every corner of the state to have access to the governor,” Hume said. “None of the proposals that we got back gave us that opportunity. So we have decided not to procede with contract negotiations.”

I’m disappointed.  A radio show with Dayton would have been a smorgasbord of material.

HutchTech is laying off a third of its workforce, and moving a chunk of what’s left to…

…newly pro-business Wisconsin.

Coincidence?  Correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation.  Technology companies – especially companies that manufacture parts for PCs, which have been cheap commodities for years.

Hutchinson Technology today announced it will shed 30-40% of its workforce in a restructuring move. Hundreds of employees will be laid off from the company’s Hutchinson operation, where many jobs will be moved to Eau Claire, WI and overseas (Star Trib story). While U.S. technology manufacturers have struggled to compete with the influx of foreign competitors, Wisconsin’s new pro-business plans certainly didn’t hurt their chances of attracting the employer across our borders.

But that whole “correlation doesn’t equal causation” bit?  As Andy Post at MDE notes, Mark Dayton could stand to remember it:

Who’s to blame for these lost jobs? You may remember last November when Mark Dayton blamed Governor Tim Pawlenty for job losses at Lockheed Martin. Dayton was quoted saying,“It seems to me this is fundamentally a responsibility of Gov. Pawlenty and his administration,” without any further logic or explanation.

Then, of course, these latest layoffs are fundamentally a responsibility of you, Governor Dayton.

Fair for TPaw, fair for Lord Fauntelroy.

And it is fair.  Because at the margins, people – and companies – expend their resources to save on taxes.

And sometimes that involves shedding jobs – whether it’s because the state is hobbled with a tax-and-spend-crazy DFL legislature, or a tax-and-spend-crazy DFL governor who is dead-set on hamstringing the grownups’ efforts to get the house in order.

According to Senator Tom Bakk, the supreme qualification for a legislator is…

…being a career politician.

Not principle.  Not being sent by the voters on a mission to change things.

“Process”.

And all those Republican freshmen in the Senate – men and women who’ve built careers and businesses and lives outside government – are just going to get shredded when Linda Berglin (who’s been in the Legislature since Nixon was president) starts niggling over the finer points of every single Health and Human Service bill.  Or so Tom Bakk thinks.

On second thought, it was as much a Nick Coleman moment as an Oberstar moment.  Bakk is saying “don’t criticize us – we know stuff“.

Amy Koch beat Bakk like a drum:

Money quote:

The freshmen aren’t the problem. They’re just the people who put their families, their jobs and their businesses on hold to come in and be the cleanup crew. If career politiclans were the answer, we wouldn’t be in this mess”

Bakk’s main point – you,  the peasant, even if you are elected to government, just aren’t competent to govern.

The DFL loves playing politics more than just about anything else. One of their favorite ploys – using their advantage with the complaint mainstream media to frame all debates in terms that favor them.  Have you  noticed the way the media has, on cue, picked up the meme of the “all cuts budget?”  No significant Republican has used the term – but the DFL and its minions and press enablers use the term every single time the topic of the GOP budget comes up.

Now, in the bad old days when the GOP  was largely RINOs, a little of this framing was enough to help enough “moderates” flake away to help the DFL get pretty much everything it wanted.

Those days are done.  If I have anything to do with it, they’re dead, cremated, and scattered at the foot of Elmer Anderson’s statue.

The DFL hates losing at it more than just about anything else.  Yesterday’s vote on Governor Dayton’s tax proposals was the sort of thing the DFL used to excel at.  Gary Gross gives us a snippet of recent history (that the media would largely prefer disappear down the memory hole:

It’s that the DFL hasn’t stopped playing political games since the session started.

They want nothing to do with Gov. Dayton’s budget. They’re treating it like toxic waste:

One exchange:

Question: “Do you support the tax increases in this bill?”

Thissen: “The governor is delivering on what he promised. We have always been in our DFL caucus in favor of a solution that is going to be fair…We need to look at the details of it. I think the most important thing now to look at is asking the Republicans, okay, what’s your answer.”

Question: “That didn’t answer the question…Do you support these tax increases?”

Bakk: “If you look at the tax incidence study, it will show you that more well to do Minnesotans, especially those over $500,000 in income pay a little bit over eight percent of their income in taxes and the rest of us, in the middle class and lower income Minnesotans, pay about 12.3 percent. And I think from a policy standpoint, the governor is right that everyone should be expect to pay about the same percentage of their income in state and local taxes.”

A third:

Question: “So yes or no. Do you two support the tax package in the governor’s proposal? Yes or no.”

Bakk: “Well, I certainly want to see the budget pages and I’m not going to tell you if they offer a vote on it I’m going to vote yes or no on it because we are actually having a hearing in the tax committee (to delve into the budget) either tomorrow or Thursday…After Thursday I can probably give you an answer.”

That exchange happened on Feb. 15. Sen. Bakk still hasn’t given a reply to Rachel Stassen-Berger. The bottom line is this: the DFL want to criticize Republicans like they do every budget year. They just don’t want their fingerprints on anything that Gov. Dayton has put together.

And the GOP knew it.  Which was the entire motivation behind yesterday’s exercise; the good guys kicked some sand in the DFL’s face.

And they’re used to being the big guys on the beach, dammit!  Not only are they not used to being in the minority – they are not used to a GOP that does politics better than they do!

Jeff Rosenberg at MNPublius – who presumably has gotten the memo that the GOP’s budget is less than two weeks away, closing in on the DFL like Eisenhower’s fleet weighing anchor and turning toward Normandy, writes:

Instead of putting together their own budget proposal [Hahahaha! – Ed.] the MNGOP has been content to simply snipe at Governor Dayton’s proposal. Today was more of the same. Instead of finally revealing their all-cuts budget, they opted for a sham vote on a portion of Dayton’s budget.

The shorter Rosenberg – “I’m going to give an incomplete-to-the-point-of-dishonesty side of the GOP’s agenda – I’ll carp over one of an entire palette of GOP budget-balancing tactics, the cut, and gabble about the fact that the GOP hasn’t submitted a budget because I can count on the media not to point out that the DFL didn’t submit one until the literal last minutes of the last session – because it’s to my and my party’s political advantage to do so.  But don’t you dare do it yourself!”

Of course, they didn’t vote on Dayton’s entire proposal. Despite Dayton’s frequent objections, the MNGOP continues to treat the budget in a piecemeal fashion. In today’s sham vote, they voted on the tax portion of Dayton’s proposal while ignoring the rest of it.

Dear DFL: we are not here to make you look smart (and either, apparnetly, are many of you).  We are here to win.  The electorate sent the DFL packing, and sent the GOP to the Legislature, with a very clear mandate; kick DFL ass.  Well, no – not “kick DFL ass”, but to get the growth in budget and government under control, which will inseparably involve kicking DFL ass.

And they are.

And yes, compromise is inevitable.  It’s politics. The GOP doesn’t have complete control.  You DFLers are used to a GOP that would get intimidated by your framing, and by your old stranglehold on the media, and essentially fold its cards right after the deal and beg for mercy.

Those days are over.  The GOP is playing to go into those negotiations from a position of strength – not the craven, panicky accomodation of the hamster-like “Republicans” of the Carlson era.  The GOP is playing like it’s holding the full house, Kings over Tens, that it actually holds.

Deal with it.

Or live in the ancient past.  Your choice.

I had no idea that when I  suggested last week that…

…a Republican from a bullet-proof rural seat should sponsor the Dayton budget [and that] the GOP-controlled committees involved should pass it right through, so it can go to the floor immediately for a binding, highly-publicized, up-or-down vote.

I think we should let the DFL show their pride in and support for Governor Dayton.   I think they should show how unified they are!

…I gotta confess, I had no idea it could actually happen.

Yesterday, Senator Michel (a Republican who has taken some flak for being a “moderate” in the past, but who earned plenty o’cred with me) introduced the Dayt0n budget into the Senate.

And the DFL whined like stuck cats.

The Republican-controlled Senate voted 63-1 [yesterday] against Gov. Dayton’s proposal to raise taxes on Minnesota’s richest residents, but Dayton and other Democrats called the debate meaningless theater.

“I’m glad people are having fun,” Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, said sarcastically. “I hope some of your relatives are watching.”

Only Sen. Dave Tomassoni, DFL-Chisholm, voted for the Dayton taxes.

Of course, the DFL has never been above staging up-or-down votes for political purposes – to get Legislators’ votes on  controversial issues on the record for political effect.

They’re just not used to being on the business end of the process.

Don Davis noted:

Dayton sent a letter to Bakk [yesterday] morning urging that all legislators vote against the proposal “as a way to reject this charade.”

Something the media has studiously avoided pointing out; Dayton did this purely to provide political cover for the fact that, had he not excused the DFL caucuses from supporting him, hardly any of them would have.  The DFL’s silence in the Dayton Dustbowl budget plan has been complete; asked if they support it, most prominent DFLers – Thissen and Bakk, among others – have squiggled smartly away.

There is no significant support in the DFL caucus for the Dayton budget.  That’s because in this economic climate, Minnesotans outside the bobbleheaded DFL base know that hiking taxes on the class that creates the jobs, or makes the investments that creates the jobs, is just plain stupid.

The DFL’s response?  Whimpering that “it’s just childish theatre”, and demanding to know when the GOP is going to come out with its budget…

…which was interrupted in mid-whimper with the news that the GOP will have its budget out in two weeks.

All in all, it was a masterful day of politics for the MN GOP.

I haven’t had occasion to say that much in the past 25 years.

It feels good.

More, please.

Brian McLung:

Also on Thursday, expect Dayton’s tax increases to get an airing in the Senate (11:00 a.m.) and House (3:00 p.m.) during their floor sessions. This will give DFLers a chance to put their mouth where the money is – by casting a vote for multi-billion tax increases proposed in Dayton’s budget. What’s the over/under on the number of DFLers willing to stand with the Governor?

We’ll be watching.

Count on it.

Now that Mark Dayton has proposed to jack the taxes of Minnesotans making over about $150,000 up to 10.95%, and those who earn over $500,000 to an unprecedented 13.95% – one dollar out of every seven they earn – it seems there’s a little ambiguity on who “the rich” are.

Who are “The Rich?”

Let’s break it down for you.

The Rich Are Not…: DFL uber-donor Vance Opperman, who donates millions to the DFL’s pet causes, and whose income comes largely from dividends and investments.  He’s not rich.

The Rich Are…: The guy who runs the small consulting shop that landed you the IT gig with the company that was hiring.  He and his wife – who does the accounting – might break $200K for the year.  They are “the rich”, in Mark Dayton’s world.  Not Vance Opperman, silly reader.

The Rich Are Not…:  John Cowles, who donated $2.4 million to help start the Guthrie – in 1960, when that was serious money.  Who used to publish the left-leaning Star Tribune, and who ponied up to help found the center-left MinnPost a few years back.  He’s also given tens of thousands of dollars to the various groups that funded the epic, toxic sleaze campaign that helped squeedge Mark Dayton into office.  Cowles, with his money coming from dividends and trusts and all the usual shelters that the super-wealthy can afford?  What, you thought he was “the rich?”  Of course not!

The Rich Are…:  Grandma’s oncologist.  The guy or gal who spent eight years working his or her ass off taking the hard courses in high school and college to get into med school, then more of the same to survive the weeding-out process during four years of education, an internship and three years of brutal residency designed to test his/her mettle for the field, leading to post-doctoral training leading to a board-certification and then a few decades of experience that make him able to  help Grandma to turn her cancer into a harrowing cautionary story rather than an early good-bye to the grandkids.  After all that, the doctor and his/her spouse – a hospital administrator, as luck would have it – earn a little over $500K, of which about $40,000 currently goes to the state of Minnesota.  Since they – not John Cowles – are “rich”, that tab is going to go up to almost $70,000.  Doc and spouse, of course, still have options; that place in Prescott is looking mighty nice right now.   Which Prescott – Wisconsin or Arizona?  I think they’d both love to have an Oncologist for a neighbor, especially since they’re “rich” – don’t you?

The Rich Are Not…:  Mark Dayton, whose net worth is somewhere between $3,000,000 and $12,000,000 (or was, back in 2006, the last time he deigned to report his net worth according to the Minnesota Birkeydependant.  It’s mostly tax-sheltered, of course, off in tax havens like South Dakota or all those other states where people aren’t so Happy To Pay For more government.  Which makes them ideal for trusts, where trust fund babies like The Governor can keep his money!  So even though Governor Dayton has Renoirs to sell to finance his gubernatorial campaign, he’s not The Rich.  Nosirreebob.

The Rich Are…:  You, if you are (to pick an example from my own social circle) a programming consultant who started working as a code jockey right out of college, and spent a decade or so honing your skills as a software enginer.  You write good, tight code; you’ve stayed up on all the advances, and are fluent in not only several programming languages but in many of the arcane architectural environments that seem to so completely tribalize software these days.  You’ve moved on up; from your first job, making $24K a  year as a COBOL programmer for, say, Best Buy back in 1989, you’ve worked your way up to being a pretty indispensible part of some big, business-mission-critical projects.  You’re a hired gun, and a good one, and you get paid pretty well for it;  you bill $85 an hour or so, and work for six-month stretches on high-profile projects.  Tack on the salary from your spouse – a corporate HR benefits administrator who makes about $55K – and that means you make about $$225K on a good year; more during up years, less when the market’s off.  Not enough to have Renoirs to sell, but plenty comfortable.  Good thing, too – you pay for your own retirement, and write your own checks to Medicare and Social Security.  You know better than to complain – but you’re both one layoff or cut contract or downturn away from living on savings until the market turns up again.  Oh, yeah – your state tax bill is going to rise from $17K and change to almost $25,000.  Because you, you greedy bastard?  You are rich!

Unlike Vance Opperman, John Cowles or Mark Dayton.

Hang your head in shame, plutocrat.

CORRECTION – MAYBE: I’ m told that the 13.95% rate only applies to income over $500,000.  It changes the math…

…but not the principle.  “The Rich”, according to Daytons’ budget proposal, are people who earn income, as opposed to the rich, who make their money from capital gains and dividends and can afford to shelter their income in ways “The Rich” usually can’t.

Budgets.

Mark Dayton has one.  It involves scraping money out of “the rich”  (more this noon) and a lot of fiction about money the state can save on contractors and what it can squeeze out of “snowbirds” (which will cost the state more in legal fees than it will ever take in), but it’s a “budget”.

The GOP will release a budget.  The DFL, per its usual mode, is yapping and cavorting around demanding the budget now.  There’s no reason for that, of course – the GOP can afford to let Dayton take a few punches (from everyone, apparently, but the media) and come out with a budget in plenty of time for the statutory end of the session.  It’ll be mostly cuts; it could include some allowances for new revenue (hint to the GOP; think “hold the line”), but it’ll be a responsble, sane, sober budget.

The DFL in the Legislature?

Oh, what do you think?

The car is rolling, but nobody is at the wheel. These people truly have no concept of what being the minority is.

It’s been two weeks, almost, since Governor Dayton submitted his budget proposal.

The proposal, which jacks up taxes on “the rich”  by adding the highest state income tax in the nation on people who make over half a million a year, stil has no DFL sponsor in the legislature.

None.

Let’s make sure we’re clear on this:  in the wake of the Tea Party and the most glorious drubbing the DFL has ever sustained in its entire history, not a single DFL Rep or Senator has so far affixed their name to a bill that would jack up taxes on “the rich” (and, eventually, everyone – since “the rich” that don’t leave the state will pass on the tax burden to their customers, since most of them are small businesspeople).

Not a single DFLer, so far, seems to be enthusiastic to have their name tied to a vote on this job-killing, tax-jacking, inflation-pumping, tax-base-sapping budget (which would, by the way, leave the real rich, like Mark Dayton and his plutocrat supporters, untouched;their income is from dividends and capitol gains on their portfolios. Mark Dayton will never pay 13.95% on his income; the oncologist taking care of Grandma will, though).

I think a Republican – one from a very, very safe seat – should do the job for them.

I think a Republican from a bullet-proof rural seat should sponsor the Dayton budget (and spend the next year explaining why – and yes, I will drive to wherever he or she serves and go door to door to help, if need be – just to help avoid any complications).

And I think the GOP-controlled committees involved should pass it right through, so it can go to the floor immediately for a binding, highly-publicized, up-or-down vote.

I think we should let the DFL show their pride in and support for Governor Dayton.   I think they should show how unified they are!

I think we should let the DFL walk the walk.  I think we should let them all, every one of them, show how happy they are to make you pay for A Better Minnesota.

I think we should give DFLer the chance – indeed, the imperative – to explain why they voted to make their constituents work ’til they’re 70 so that government employees can retire at 55.

Whaddya say, MNGOP?  Anyone wanna make the DFL put all that HopeyChangey BetterMinnesota talk where their votes are?

The revenue forecast is in.

State tax revenues jumped by over a billion dollars.

Just like Tom Emmer said, over and over, on nearly every stop on the campaign trail.

Just like the DFL sneered at him, and every Republican, for pointing out.

The economy – notwithstanding the DFL/media (pardon the redundancy’s) long-running meme that “Tim Pawlenty was a disaster” – generated about 3% more tax revenue than was expected last year.

State budget officials announced the new deficit number Monday as part of a larger revenue and economic forecast. Minnesota’s deficit for the next two year now stands at $5 billion, according to those who were breifed on the economic forecast. The old projection placed the deficit at $6.2 billion.

While the new deficit figure shows a marked improvement, it still means, as expected, state lawmakers and the governor have a massive deficit to fill this year.

And, as always, that’s buncombe; there is no “deficit”; merely a “budget forecast”, essentially the budget wish list from the last, DFL-controlled session.  Dayton – and his enablers in the media – have focused on this number, since it allows an over-20%-hike in spending, accomplishing their primary mission, keeping government fat and happy at any cost.

Dayton’s budget proposal calls for more than $3.3 billion in tax hikes on high earners, a plan Republicans reject. Republican leaders have pledged to balance the budget solely through cuts, which if it holds, would be a depth of reductions never seen before in the state.

The article – by the Strib’s Rachel  Stassen-Berger – parrots a DFL meme, knowingly or not.  “Cuts Only” is a DFL chanting point, used to try to frame the MNGOP’s approach to this session in the most pejorative terms.  It’s a budget that seeks to promote growth and reform our state’s budget system, which is built to foster inflation.

The session got off to a testy start when the newly-elected governor vetoed nearly $900 million in cuts proposed by Republicans, saying the reductions would have indirectly raised property taxes.

And I’ve spent the last week looking for any part of the GOP’s bill that forced cities and counties to raise property taxes.

The governor has said he would consider curtailing some of his proposed spending cuts — particularly to programs for the elderly — or stocking up cash in the state’s reserve fund if the new deficit forecast showed improvement.

As opposed to, y’know, slowing down the spending.

And did you notice the reference to the “state’s reserve fund?”  That’s a favorite of the DFL; “Let’s tax you, the private citizen, a little more, so that the next time times get tough, the government can get through with less muss and fuss, even if it makes it harder for you and your family to ride it out”.

His budget plan, released earlier this month, closed a $6.2 billion deficit.

As we’ve shown in the past, that’ s nonsense as well; jacking up taxes on “the rich” never brings in the revenue it’s supposed to, and at least one of Dayton’s purported “saving” – cutting state contracting in  half – is pure voodoo budgeting.

Republicans, who have yet to design a complete deficit fix, have said they will not consider tax increases.

Not sure if Stassen-Berger is just writing sloppily, or actively carrying water for the DFL here; the GOP has not released a complete budget yet.  Stassen-Berger has no idea if there is or is not a plan waiting in the wings; if there is, it’s certainly  not in the MNGOP’s best political interest to release it yet.

It’s in the DFL’s interest to portray it as “the GOP doesn’t know what it’s doing” – just as they did with Tom Emmer’s lack of a budget (until he released one, on Labor Day).  If it were Stassen-Berger’s intention to help the DFL further the meme, she did a fine job.

But maybe it was just sloppy writing.

Via David Brauer, I see former governor Arne Carlson has a blog.

Well, don’t get too excited; he’s done four posts so far.  But the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, as they say.

Carlson dislikes being called a “backstabber” in “Politico” for his tireless work against Tim Pawlenty (and of course Tom Emmer) over the past nine years.  Carlson doesn’t like being criticized, naturally; he tells us so.

Now, the Minnesota GOP tossed Carlson, and a bunch of other former GOP officeholders who actively campaigned against Tom Emmer and, by extension, the party’s nascent conservatism, this past election.

Now, Carlson has the right to his opinion.  And he knows it, naturally: he makes no bones about his not liking the current crop of conservative Republicans, including Pawlenty:

It is no secret that I have serious qualms about the candidacy of Governor Pawlenty and do not believe his claims of prudent financial management come anywhere close to the truth. Hence, the scrutiny will continue……….

He even told Politico that he’d go on the road, pay any price and bear any burden to try to keep Pawlenty out of the White House (emphasis added):

“I will go to Iowa and New Hampshire and have press conferences, if it comes to that,” he told POLITICO in an interview. “With Tim Pawlenty, I’m outraged that his record is one of the worst in Minnesota history, and he refuses to answer any relevant question.”

Now, Carlson is entitled to his opinion.  Of course, his own record is one of a governor who ruled in generally good times; 1990-1998 was a pretty cha-cha time in Minnesota, barring a brief recession early on as the Defense industry retrenched and the Iron Range went through its usual, eternal spasms.  The booming economy gave Carlson repeated budget surpluses – which he promptly turned into permanent entitlement spending, which promptly turned into deficit-fodder when times turned tough in 2000 and again in 2008.   State government zoomed in size.   His own record is that of someone who spent money like a crack whore with a stolen gold card.  We, The People of Minnesota, financed his spending spree with a healthy cut off of our take from the good times in this state.  Had he governed in tough times – as Pawlenty did, through two recessions – he’d have presided over a California-like collapse, in all likelihood.

That’s fine.  Again, he can have his opinion.

But the regional media would have you believe that we, the current MNGOP, have to continue paying obeisance and honor to someone who not only spits on what we believe, but actively tries to use his old (ancient!) party credentials against us, and our candidates, and our most successful alumnus so far!

What would the DFL do to someone like that?  Ask Randy Kelly!

Forget about calling Arne Carlson a “Quisling”, as Tony Sutton did – accurately, if a bit hyperbolically.

We’re not supposed to criticize him in any way – as if having been a spendthrift governor in cha-cha times gives him papal-esque infallibility.

Nothing in state government is so sacred that you can’t link it to a drinking game.

Although we urge our actual state legislators not to be doing the game-drinking while working.

At any rate – since the DFL has a legislative minority and an incredibly weak governor, their best shot at eking a victory out of this session is to convince The People that 2+2=”Blue”.  And so the DFL has unleashed a wave of DFL propagandabots in the media, the alt-media, the press and in government itself, repeating the same series of lines, and lies, over and over and over – not so much repeating the Godwin-fodder “Big Lie” often enough as repeating a wide swathe of little lies – along the lines of “Tom Emmer tried to lower penalties for drunk drivers” – until the dim-witted and not-very-savvy (aka “The DFL’s swing voters”) start to think they’re true.

And we might as well have fun with ’em!

So it’s time to turn all the bile, the ire, the vitrol and the waterboarded context into…

The Chanting Points Drinking Game!

You need the following to play:

• Three or more people – the more, the merrier!
• Alcohol
• One drinking glass for each contestant, suitable for the alcohol (beer glasses for beer, shot glasses for booze, wine glasses for whine).  Alternate: empty jars will suffice.
• A Mark Dayton bobblehead doll.
• A TV or computer  tuned to any political discussion – the session, TPT Almanac, “At Issue”, Esme Murphy’s show, whatever.  If no suitable TV program is on, someone can read from MNPublius, Minnesota “Progressive” Project, mnpACT!, MN2020, Alliance For A Better Minnesota, Bluestem Prairie or any other combination of Twin Cities leftyblogs.

Here’s how you play:

1. Before viewing, give the bobblehead to a random particpant.
2. Turn on the TV.
3. Whenever anyone says any variation of the following, everyone take a hit from your glass…

• “We have a $6.2 Billion deficit!”
• “The only choices we have are tax hikes or layoffs!”‘
• “The GOP wants to force cities to raise property taxes!”
• “Minnesotans won’t stand for this departure from our government tradition”
• “The GOP needs to reach across the aisle” / “Mark Dayton has done an admirable job of reaching across the aisle”
• Any reference to Orville Freeman, Arne Carlson, or any former governnor named Anderson
• Any use of the term “tipping point”
• “Where is the GOP’s no-cuts plan?” (If accompanied by a knowing smirk, make that two hits)
• “Government spending is essential for a healthy economy!”
• “We inherited this from Tim Pawlenty” (Take an extra sip if the word “disastrous” is used)
• “If the GOP says they want jobs, then why are they laying off state workers?”
• “The [GOP/Tea Party/any opponent of the DFL]’s plan is ‘extreme’ and/or ‘wrong for Minnesota'”

4. After each drink line, the holder of the Dayton Bobblehead passes it to the next person in the circle.

5. If anyone says “The GOP plan will [throw Grandma into the street/freeze the children/etc]”, the holder of the Dayton Bobblehead must drain his/her glass immediately before passing it on to the next person.

Feel free to add “house rules” for other Chanting Points – mentions of “Wall Street”, “Koch Brothers”,  variations on the term “Neocon” or “Mubarak”, or whatever works for you!

Your entire party will be passed out in puddles of vomit within the hour.

Just like the Senate DFL caucus on the last night of the session, come to think of it.

Courtesy of XKCD, here‘s one of my favorite comic strips ever:

I think about it every time a DFL chantingpointbot starts talking about things like “proof” and “evidence”.

Which brings us to this piece in MNPublius, which gurgitates one of the most alarmingly cynical memes the DFL and media (pardon the redundancy) are trying to foist on the less-literate:

It’s been well-documented that cuts to local government aid cause property taxes to rise.

Now, I spent the weekend going through the text of every piece of legislation that led to a freeze, reallocation or cut in Local Government Aid in the past ten years [1], looking for a passage that read like “Local Governments are required to raise taxes to make up for the change in the aid formula”.

Because there is none.

Local Government Aid, for the umpteenth time, was originally intended to redistribute money state tax money to poor outstate school districts and cities, so that towns like Hibbing could rebuild old schools, or Thief River Falls could have a waste-water treatment plant, or Osage could get a new police car.

It’s become a vehicle for the state’s largest (and most DFL-addled) cities, Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Duluth, to launder their own rapacious spending throug the state budget without having to account to city and county taxpayers.

My own analysis ([in the original MNPublius posting – Ed]) shows that property taxes have steadily risen as state aid has dropped.

But Jeff’s piece doesn’t show where the causation, the coercion, the cause is.  Because yes – as Local Government Aid has slowed, cities have had to decide whether to make their own tax base cover the difference, or to do without.  Some cities, like west-metro Mound (which hasn’t gotten LGA in years) made the tough choices, cut the budgets, and learned to make do.

Others, like Minneapolis and Saint Paul and Brainerd – addled by DFL mayors and/or city councils – raised property taxes by far more than the cuts to LGA.

At any rate – Rosenberg’s premise , that “cuts to LGA force property tax hikes”, is a canard, a shrill chanting point that is based in no fact whatsoever.

A local government can opt to keep taxes rock-steady no matter what happens to LGA, and trim what’s needed; they can also make the case to their citizens and taxpayers to keep paying the bills that were formerly paid by taxpayers around the rest of the state, and let the chips fall come election time; in cities like Mound, it’s a dodgy proposition; in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, the DFL will keep getting elected no matter what.

There’s a simple reason for that: Cities provide essential services that residents don’t want cut. So instead of cutting back on public safety or filling potholes, local governments are forced to make up for lost revenues by increasing property taxes.

There’s a non-sequitur there – one the DFL is counting on The People not to notice; cities do provide essential services.  They also provide plenty of non-essentials.  In Saint Paul, I pay for the best urban fire department in the US; I’m happy to do it.  We have a decent police department; there’s room for improvement, but they’d OK.

We have a lot of libraries. I love libraries – I practically grew up in one.  But as libraries become home to fewer and fewer books, it pains me to say we could perhaps do with just a tad fewer of them and not make them any less available.

We have a public works department.  I pay them to fill in potholes.  They get to it – eventually.  Clearly there is fat to be cut here. They also plow the streets.  They do an adequate job – one that could easily be privatized, along with many other city-paid services.

We have a park and rec department. I love parks. I love recreation.  The city has dozens of “Community Centers” which serve as public service catchalls for every variety of recreation and social program imaginable.  There would seem to be room for some consolidation.  And frankly, mowing the grass in the parks could be cut waaaay back.

I also pay for a city Human Rights office that fully duplicates the functions of the Ramsey County and State human rights offices, all located within a few blocks of each other in downtown Saint Paul. I pay for a mayoral staff with nineteen along with a phalanx of assistants and other hangers-on.

Could any of these be trimmed before we start laying off cops and firemen?  I think so.

Will it happen?  In Saint Paul, probably not. For all the Mayor’s whinging, the city’s government-dependence-addled electorate will likely increase property taxes to cover whatever they lose from LGA.  Most of the people who care about tax rates have already fled the cities to places with more responsible, responsive governments.

Now – if you live in a city with a more responsible government, the answer may be different.  The mayor may not be able to justify the expense.

But it’s a matter of choice.  Not “force”, as Jeff, the media and the DFL (pardon the redundancy) would like you to think.

Fortunately, the MNGOP has a “solution” for that: take away the right of local governments to make their own decisions and force them to cut essential services. That’s the impact of HF481, a bill by House Republicans that would make local governments’ budget decisions for them by outlawing any property tax increases in the 2012 fiscal year.

That sounds nice, except for one thing — if property taxes are frozen, that means services must be cut. Apparently, an all-cuts budget that slashes $6.2 billion in state funding for things like education isn’t good enough for the MNGOP. They want to force your city government to cut even more services.

The merits of HF481 notwithstanding – it’s worth a discussion – Rosenberg’s wrong.  Not all “services” are essential.  We, the taxpayers of our DFL=-addled cities, can do without $50,000 drinking fountains and misappropriation of city staff to political ends and all the other worthless patronage our cities pay for.

The point is, cuts in LGA do not lead inexorably to property tax hikes.  It is entirely voluntary – dependent entirely on the addiction of local government to spending, their success in selling those compensatory hikes to their voters, and how fed-up the voters are.

Why should voters in Bemidji pay for Saint Paul’s human rights office?

(more…)

Nancy LaRoche had a conversation with a MN State Senator – and was amazed at what she heard:

One of the most remarkable comments the Senator made was how Governor Mark Dayton has transformed his office.

He installed cubicles into his office space for staff, and moved his office into… a closet. My first reaction was, “that sounds like a panic room.” The Senator replied that some Democrat legislators are struggling with how to work with him. This office space raised my concerns for his handling of leadership, and the location sounds like a physical way to insulate himself. The State Senator is also wondering about the state of Dayton’s mental state.

True North is going to be looking for more on this.

In the meantime, some more meaningful shrinkage, if you’re a Minnesota taxpayer; not a single DFL legislator, as of yesterday, had sponsored the Dayton budget in the Legislature.

That could change at any  moment, of course.

But this budget has been on the record for nearly a week, now.

UPDATE:  Dayton’s office was noted in a Strib piece a month back.  According to the story, he prefers a small, spartan office.

No word yet on whether he prefers small, spartan support for his budget among the DFL caucus.

In the comment section of yesterday’s post about the Wisconsin Public Employees’ Unions protests against Govenor Walker’s bill to elminate collective bargaining, regular commenter “Terry” wrote something I think every Conservative group in American that faces a similar fight should put on T-shirts and picket signs:

I, for one, will not work until I am 70 so public employees can retire at 55.

Not that Governor Dayton wants to give lil’ ol’ me any choice in the matter.

Groups?  Start printing.

So the GOP, as we’ve noted, is underwhelmed with Dayton’s budget; since they control both chambers of the legislature, it’s pretty much toast.

But the DFL is right behind the governor – yeah?

Well, maybe not. Rachel Stassen-Berger did something more capitol reporters should oughtta do; asked some questions (emphasis added):

DFL leaders of the House and Senate Tuesday would not say whether they support the tax increases in DFL Gov. Mark Dayton’s budget.

House Minority Leader Paul Thissen and Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk, both of whom ran for governor last year, were asked multiple times, in various ways, whether they would back, vote for or want to run on the proposed $4 billion in tax increases and they refused to give a yes or no.

They said it was an honest budget that was better than what Republicans could offer but, despite repeated chances, did not say they supported it.

Now, this can mean anything – or nothing.

Still, you’d think the DFL would want a little more love for the gov, right?

One exchange:

Question: “Do you support the tax increases in this bill?”

Thissen: “The governor is delivering on what he promised. We have always been in our DFL caucus in favor of a solution that is going to be fair…We need to look at the details of it. I think the most important thing now to look at is asking the Republicans, okay, what’s your answer.”

Another exchange:

Stassen-Berger – whom I’ve certainly criticized in this space before, and will no doubt criticize again – runs through two more such exchanges; go read ’em.

I’ve been calling Dayton a very, very weak governor.  It could very well be I’m right…

You’re a guy who’s been working in Human Resources sales – basically selling labor – for your whole career.  You match up companies that are looking for contract labor – everything from office temps to database analysts – and you’ve been doing it your entire career.

You just got a bigger, better idea; start your own business.  So you took your life’s savings, and a book full of contacts, and hung out your own shingle as a software staff augmentation vendor – basically a temp service for software engineers.

You worked 12 hour days, and weekends, working your book of contacts, in a competitive market full of some very big players (including the tech services branches of some national players, like Robert Half and Manpower).  Each of those people takes work,  – HR paperwork, keeping up contact with them and their hiring managers – on top of your sales efforts which, in this economy, are a lot of work.

But your efforts, after several years of building a name and a rolodex, are paying off.  Your company has a solid name and reputation, , and have managed to have an average of 10-15 of “your” people working at companies around the area.   And this yields, after years of working very hard, about $250,000 a year for your efforts.  Figure that translates into an Adjusted Gross Income of $220,000 – you rack up a lot of business expenses.

And because you have managed to pull that off – especially in this economy – the Minnesota DFL and Mark Dayton believe that rather than the roughly  $17,600 of your income the state currently appropriates, they should take $24090.   That’s an extra $6,490 that the state believes would be better spent on its’ clerks’ defined-benefit pensions (you pay for your own IRA), and on light rail trains you’ll never ride (because your customers aren’t on Hiawatha or University, or even largely in Minneapolis or Saint Paul, for some reason), or on the pages and pages of other things…

…that are more important than whatever you planned, above and beyond what they already spend.

Which you clearly didn’t begrudge when you were paying $17,600 in state taxes – after all, you’re still here, right?

But another $6K?  On top of the federal tax hikes soon to come on people like you, “the rich”?

The Dallas market’s looking pretty good, isn’t it?