So You Wanted Specifics?

As this is rolling out, Tom Emmer is releasing the long-awaited Part 3 of the plan for his Administration – the re-engineering of how Minnesota government works.

It’s called “Living Within Our Means”, and it’s a tall order.

Here are the basics:

Minnesota Government Needs Fundamental Reform: Government must start to live within its means, rather than claiming a share of all income as an entitlement.

Economic Vitality And Fiscal Sustainability: Keeping government fat and happy at the expense of the entrepreneurs, the business community and the state’s hardest workers is no way to keep an economy running.  This needs to be a multipartisan effort.

Emmer Will Balance The Budget: Unlike Dayton, who swings and misses by over half a billion dollars (or maybe much, much more), Emmer’s budget is balanced and, as noted in Part 1 of The Plan, cuts taxes.

From the press release, here’s the plan:

Budget Plan Details:

1. Hold state spending in FY2012-13 to projected revenues minus job-creation tax relief.

I. Current state general fund spending (FY2010-11) is $30.7 billion

II. State revenue projections expect revenue to grow to $32.9 billion in FY2012-13

III. State government can perform its necessary functions within $33 billion over the next two years.

2. Reprioritize unsustainable, run-away human services spending to focus on the most vulnerable.

i. Refocus spending on programs for children and seniors which have been historically underfunded.

ii. Work with the legislature to reform programs for adults.

iii. Health and Human Services will total $9.6 billion; a $500 million increase in state funding.

3. Reform the relationship between state and local governments.

i. Reform Local Government Aid to focus solely on public safety and critical infrastructure needs.

ii. Give local governments relief from state mandates.

Put state government bureaucracies on a diet.

I. Cut bureaucracies and programs which are not fundamental to state government’s mission.

II. Reduce the government workforce through attrition and early-retirement.

III. Merge agencies to streamline decision making and reduce costs.

More – very, very much more – coming tomorrow.

But the important part is this;  the Emmer Budget does what Mark Dayton doesn’t have the guts or institutional wisdom to do; it cuts spending.  It pushes government to do better with what it can afford – meaning “what we the people can afford in these miserable economic times”.

Emmer attacks the disease.  Dayton merely throws other peoples’ money at the symptoms.

This is a game-changer.

Tomorrow in Shot In The Dark: The Emmer Budget Plan in detail, suitable for passing on to your friends, family and co-workers.

15 thoughts on “So You Wanted Specifics?

  1. I’m afraid Emmer is going to give us more of that ‘Republican math’ that got us into the deficits in the first place.

    Whereas the first year of the Obama administration dropped the national deficit by 8%, which is substantial for one year.

    And, perhaps more than that, I’m concerned that the tragically flawed right’s notions of trickle down economics and worse tax policies – like those expressed by John Boehner on Sunday’s Face the Nation will make the decline in most American’s wealth deeper, while advancing the very few to even greater, largely unearned wealth.

    I think this graph says it all – brilliant – on how those differences translahttp://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/09/why_elections_matter_in_one_gr.html

    I found the analysis of who is – and is not – a small business made by NYTimes columnist David Cay Johnston as to where and how growth takes place in jobs and the economy fascinating. It isn’t from that upper couple of percent when they get more money from tax breaks.

    It is predicated on demand – and consumer demand comes from the middle and lower classes who make up most of the population. No demand – no investment. The demand drives it. Republican theory has it ass backwards.

  2. Dog Gone said:

    “Whereas the first year of the Obama administration dropped the national deficit by 8%, which is substantial for one year”

    Wait, was that, or was that not, the fault of the “previous administration”? 😉

  3. Dog Gone said:

    “Republican math”

    Looking at the Dayton “plan”, someone needs to save us all from “Democrat math”.

  4. Dog Gone said:

    “I think this graph says it all”

    I think it says, at very least, “Bill Clinton can take credit for the 90s Tech Boom”, which is stupid.

    It probably says a million other stupid things, but what do you expect from something made of 57 years of data, sourced from wherever, with cherry picked end points, compressed into a single graph? So, where I see something obviously meaningless, you see something “brilliant” from which you can draw conclusions. You’ll have to excuse me if I think your conclusions are “pre-drawn”.

  5. Republican math sounds like what the average working family does when they can’t increase their incoming revenue at gunpoint like the government does.

  6. Oh, and DG:

    Whereas the first year of the Obama administration dropped the national deficit by 8%, which is substantial for one year.

    Source please. Everything I’ve read states that the deficit went from $450B in 2008 to $1.4T in 2009.

  7. Bill C

    Don’t hold your breath waiting for DG’s source.

    She has continually proven that unless the left wing media gives her posting material, she reverts to coward status and stays away. This is clearly illustrated by her proof, links, etc. – all from left wing propaganda machines.

    Still, I can’t believe that even she was dumb enough to post that already debunked stat. Of course, there are those millions of jobs created or saved by her messiah…Oh, wait! That’s BS, too.

  8. Dog Gone, Klein is 26 years old. He is not remarkably intelligent nor is he wise. What expertise do you believe that he brings to the topic?
    His graph is malarkey. Only an intellectually immature person could imagine that it shows what Klein thinks that it does.

  9. Heh, just heard a very good Sioux Falls commercial on the Twins pre-game show on KSTP 1500. These guys are not only promoting South Dakota, but I think they are rubbing Minnesota’s anti-business climate in both Republican and Democrats noses. I should see if this ad is online.

  10. Chuck;

    Yea, South Dakota has been running “our business climate is better here” ads on KTLK since late last year. Several cities are highlighted.

    I worked at a company while I was in high school over in Bloomington, Lyle Signs. Most of the traffic signs across the country are manufactured by them. When I was there, they employed about 150 people, running three shifts. They moved to DeSmet, SD in 1971. They moved their HQ office back here a few years later, but the manufacturing is still done there.

    Even back then, the business climate in MN was toxic.

  11. South Dakota has been running “our business climate is better here” ads on KTLK since late last year.

    And on KSTP-AM since the Ventura years.

  12. Pingback: The Greenroom » Minnesota: Not As Rich As They Thought

  13. Pingback: Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » I Heard It On The Flag

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