With All Due Speed
By Mitch Berg
The Minnesota state budget is a good 50% higher than it was when Jesse Ventura took office – when things were not half bad in Minnesota. Yet if you believe the DFL and the Media (pardon the redundancy) things are falling apart from lack of money. And, they say, if Tom Emmer is elected (via the “tomemmersminnesota” website) things’ll get much much worse with a governor who actually wants to hold government accountable for its spending.
Speed Gibson To asks the question that nobody in the Twin Cities media can ask:
We obviously just aren’t making the necessary investments in transportation, education, and health care. But that begs a rather obvious question in a state with an unquestionably above average tax burden: where then IS all that money going?
That’s what we’re going to find out in Tom Emmer’s Minnesota. I, for one, can’t wait.
Me either.
May 20th, 2010 at 7:47 am
If MN is like my state, the money is going to pay inflated retirement pay and health benefits for ex government employees.
You didn’t really think that money was going to be paid by “the rich”, did you? Working class people will be on the job until they are 70, paying taxes to support AFSCME members who made more money than they did before and after retirement.
From the Afscme website (http://www.afscme.org/publications/14732.cfm):
May 20th, 2010 at 9:03 am
“That’s what we’re going to find out in Tom Emmer’s Minnesota. I, for one, can’t wait.”
I, for one, look foward to living in a colder flatter Colorado.
May 20th, 2010 at 9:55 am
Well, yeah; the specifics matter, both where the money is going and how he’s going to move spending, or even cut it.
And while I like Tom Emmer and can’t imagine preferring him to any of the DFL contenders, I really want to hear more specifics. I heard him interviewed on NPR yesterday, and the only specific he pointed to was combining the Department of Corrections and the DPS — which, at first blush, seems to make sense in terms of avoiding some duplicative systems — and that’s, at most, just a start.
May 20th, 2010 at 10:11 am
The state budgets are out there. Might as well look. My take would be that a great place to cut things would be to end light rail, MPR funding, and funding for remedial classes at four year state colleges. (let those who have slept through high school prove they can cut the mustard at community college instead of the U)
May 20th, 2010 at 10:33 am
I think if you’re serious about reigning in spending, you’re going to have to deal with K-12 and health care spending at the State level. Much as I appreciated Pawlenty’s resolve against tax increases (except for tobacco tax increases), we were done a disservice when no one was willing to challenge the notion that with declining enrollments, K-12 automatically should be increased at the levels it’s gone up. I don’t fault Pawlenty alone for this as I can’t think of any serious candidates who have been willing to take on the 800 pound gorilla but it’s something that needs to be done.
May 20th, 2010 at 10:50 am
What about any program that ends in “….studies” at the UofM? Do you think there are a lot of businessmen/women out there who say “gee, I really want to expand my operations here, but I need to go elsewhere because the Minnesota workforce doesn’t have enough people who are trained in GLBT studies.”
May 20th, 2010 at 11:42 am
“Wherever our members’ benefits are threatened, AFSCME will be ready.”
A good place to start would be to change the NLRB rules so the de-certification of AFSCME (as well as other government and teachers unions) could be done!!
May 20th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
The Debtocratic Party: It’s Mourning in America Again
May 20th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
[…] Minnesota DFLers are doing facked up bang up jobs! […]
May 20th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
The only way the AFSCME list could be more comical would be if they added Monty Python’s line about “taxing all foreigners living abroad”.
May 20th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
If GASB set standards for including the value of roads, stadiums and buildings on government balance sheets, those assets would offset long-range obligations for retiree health care.
Think about that for a moment. What is the value of those? Or, more accurately, what are they worth? Can you imagine the uproar in the statist, “invest in Minnesota” DFL crowd if the state decided to start selling those roads to pay for retiree second homes in Florida? Or even if they proposed turning them into toll roads? An asset you’re not willing or unable to part with is worth nothing and its value should be counted as a liability, not an asset since it would have to be replaced if damaged.
This AFSCME logic shows exactly why we have the government rules and wonderful decision processes we have; the idiots rule the nest. They need to import someone with brains, it seems that the organized zombies have eaten all the brains in the union…
May 20th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Nerdbert-
I think you are underestimating the deviousness of AFSCME. These infrastructure “assets” would be used as collateral to secure financing for AFSCME’s ruinous retirement & health benefits. That way they could distance themselves from the tax increases that would be needed to service the debt. It wouldn’t be “Sell the roads and bridges to pay for public employees golden retirements”, it would be “we need to raise your taxes or we will default and the highways & bridges you paid to build will become toll roads”.
May 21st, 2010 at 5:39 am
I recommend the discussion be guided by the Conservative political principle of Subsidiarity, which provides that decisions should be made, and problems solved, at the lowest level of society capable of handling the problem: the family, the local city or township, and the county should be the first instinct; the state should be the last resort. Starting from that concept:
End LGA. Let local voters decide how much local government they wish to afford. St. Paul shouldn’t be subsizided by St. Stephen, or vice versa.
Eliminate the State Highway Patrol. It’s a relic from the days when Bo and Luke outran the law because sheriffs couldn’t cross the county line to arrest them. Let local voters decide how much law enforcement they wish to afford on their local highways. Reassign the Governor’s Protection Detail budget to Capitol Security.
The average cost of providing basic education is known – it’s what the private market is charging. Eliminate state funding so all local school boards are forced to charge fair market value – puts them on an even footing with private and charter schools. Give vouchers for that average price to K-12 parents and let them keep the difference between the voucher price and what their school of choice charges: public, private or religious. That would give parents an incentive to monitor school budgets!
The average cost of providing post-high school education is known – it’s what private schools are charging. Fold the University, state college, community college and technical school bureaucracies into one system, end state funding and raise the price to the market price. This levels the playing field, makes public school compete with private, forces students to consider the real value in spending four years and $100,000 to get that Womyns Studies degree.
In every state budget decision, ask “Can this be done at a lower level?” and if the answer is affirmative, then it’s not properly part of the state’s job so it should not be included in the state budget. Highway Patrol – let the local Sheriff do that job, not part of the state budget; Department of Transportation – we need a coordinated network of roadways statewide, yes, it’s part of the state budget; MPR – let the viewers decide how much culture they will pay to watch, not part of the state budget.
Successful businesses learn to delegate. Do we need to take on the extra responsibility of manufacturing the soap for the restrooms? Or can we push off that responsbility on a vendor and trust that it’ll still get done – maybe not as perfectly as we could do it, but well enough to meet our customer’s needs? The state government should adopt the same principle.
A Conservative candidate for Governor should explain his budget goals and priorities within that logical framework. It provides a reasonable basis to say “I have nothing against the arts, but that funding could be raised at the private level or the local level, it doesn’t have to be done at the state level. So I’m in favor of ending state funding for the arts – not because I’m a Philistine, but because I’m for Freedom. If you want to subsidize the arts, feel free. But I won’t force your neighbor to subsidize your art. She should be free to make her own decisions on what’s valuable in her life. It’s not essential that this be handled at the state level so it’s none of the state’s business and it doesn’t belong in the state budget.”
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May 25th, 2010 at 8:04 am
Whatever specifics Emmer brings up during the campaign will be twisted into DFL ads by most of the media. Emmer must talk about PROCESS – how he’ll review and prioritize the budget with the Legislature – if they wish, only they won’t of course. That is in fact the pushback: if the Legislature won’t set priorities. I will. If the Legislature won’t make the tough choices, I will.
“And if you elect xyz as your new State rep/sen, that’s one less DFL vote to get in the way…”