Remember the movie Monty Python And The Holy Grail? The part where King Arthur (Graham Chapman) battles the Black Knight (the voice of John Cleese) for the right to pass through the Knight’s land?
The solemn lesson; taunting is no substitute for action.
The DFL is hoping Minnesota’s voters haven’t learned that lesson. On three issues this past week, the DFL has donned a red shirt to cover the bleeding and asked the GOP why they’re such a bunch of pansies about completely re-engineering government and turning the dominant taxpayer/government paradigm upside down.
Jobs: One reads more than a few leftybloggers who are chanting “The GOP said they were going to create jobs! And yet it’s four weeks into the session, and they haven’t had a jobs bill yet! Why’s that? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?”
Being DFLers, they may not be clear on the concept that the GOP is not going to write a bill – call it “House File 666”, just for our purposes here – saying “Employers must create jobs and hire people, or the State Patrol will arrest them and a judge will give them an eleventy-billion dollar fine and take their business away from them”.
Silly? Sure – but no dumber than what the Dems really think a job bill is: government construction or entitlement projects hiring lots of (union) labor (to pay off the markers the DFL owes them).
The GOP will cut spending and its attendant taxe and, as Tom Emmer proposed during his campaign, greatly streamline regulations. The market will respond by starting new projects, hiring new labor. That’s how it works in the real world.
The DFL is betting the typical voter doesn’t know that.
The Budget: Representative Ryan “Eddie” Winkler tweeted:
GOP so far has not passed a job bill, and are wimping out on their big budget cuts bill. But, they’ll deliver voter ID, guns and abortion.
Jeff Rosenberg of MNPublius – which is basically the same as Ryan Winkler, without the snazzy office – writes:
…this bill doesn’t solve our budget deficit. In fact, it barely even makes a dent, despite committing us to painful cuts.
Winkler’s idea of “wimping out” is tackling the behemoth $32 Billion budget, and its potemkin “$6.2 Billion deficit”, is filing one big honkin’ bill that does everything, in one, huge, conveniently veto-able package.
The Democrats are given to these sorts of things, of course – 2,300 page health care bills that nobody can possibly read in time and the like. And such an omnibus spending-cut proposal would make things really easy for the Governor and the DFL, which means it’d be pretty stupid.
Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, speaking at a blogger conference call last night, said “that’s just absurd”.
The GOP majority (aaaaah) is doing this the right way; exposing every single piece of budgetary lard; making the DFL work to justify it in the harsh glare of public scrutiny.
It may make the DFL’s kept talking heads, Winkler and the various bloggers, itchy and nervous at the death of a thousand cuts t hey’re suffereing. But that’s their problem. Their only priority is to keep government fat and happy, on the backs of the taxpayer.
Koch notes the madness of the approach: “If we hold taxes harmless, we become less competitive. Other states – like Wisconsin- are working to be more competitive – cutting spending”, she said.
Exactly how we get more competitive – one huge unwieldy bill, or many smaller ones – is irrelevant, as long as we actually do.
Voter ID: It’s pretty much been reduced to a chant; “Republicans want to keep people from the polls”.
The response, of course, is rubbish; the GOP wants to provide our dismal election system the tools it needs to ensure people only vote once, where they’re supposed to. The GOP slso wants to provide voters the ID they need to be able to vote. For free. On us. Gratis.
The DFL’s response is “It’s more complicated than that – what about the homeless?” To which the GOP responds “we’ll have to figure something out; in the meantime, for the other 99.99% of the voting population, let us press ahead”.
To which the DFL’s chanting heads respond…well, who knows? The bottom line is, the DFL is fighting to keep voting anonymous and un-controlled, to their benefit. They are not fighting to ensure the right of every Minnesotan to vote; they are fighting to keep the rules opaque enough to hide more abuses that benefit the DFL. They should be ashamed.
But that’s never been their long suit, now, has it?
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