Governor Dayton tells the legislature to “suck it”:
Gov. Mark Dayton says Republican legislative leaders are underestimating his resolve if they think he’ll back off his plan to raise taxes on Minnesota’s top earners.
Fewer than three weeks remain in the legislative session, and Dayton and legislative leaders aren’t close to reaching agreement on a plan to erase a $5 billion budget deficit.
Dayton seems to be counting on the GOP reverting to its traditional behavior – bowing to media pressure and DFL browbeating. Their most recent model – the “Gang of Six”, the GOP “moderates” two years ago who caved in on a DFL tax and spend bill.
And we know what happened there, don’t we?
It’s not the same GOP as it was two and four years ago.
Dayton said the Republican budget is more than $1 billion out of balance, and that they should agree on spending cuts instead of relying on budget savings that will never materialize…
…according to a Management and Budget director that serves at his discretion, using formulas that are not designed to account in any way for savings.
“This is real to so many thousands of Minnesotans and they won’t now, two months away from the beginning of the next biennium, even tell the people of Minnesota what it is they’re willing to do to them. And that I do not respect,” Dayton said.
Dayton is, of course, unwillling to point out that down his path lies madness; 20% spending hikes in this biennium will be followed by 20% more in 2013, and more after that. And if the economy improves, and tax receipts climb with it? All of that will be spent too.
Dayton doesn’t want to talk about that.
Dayton said there’s enough time to reach a deal but worries that Republicans aren’t going to budge on their opposition to tax increases. He said Minnesotans want them to compromise.
“They want us to work out our differences. So it seems to me that they have that responsibility. I have that responsibility,” he said.
57% of Minnesotans voted against Dayton. He’s the one that needs to compromise.
The GOP? No way. They got sent there with a mandate. They had best follow it.
“This is real to so many thousands of Minnesotans and they won’t now, two months away from the beginning of the next biennium, even tell the people of Minnesota what it is they’re willing to do to them. And that I do not respect,”
Is there some missing context here? This is gibberish.
And, for the record, I “do not respect” a governor that sends up a budget plan to the House and Senate, lobbing it like a live hand grenade and calling on HIS OWN PARTY to vote against it when it came up on the floor.
And, for the record, I “do not respect” a governor that sends up a budget plan to the House and Senate, lobbing it like a live hand grenade and calling on HIS OWN PARTY to vote against it when it came up on the floor.
A not terribly idle thought: what would things be like if people who thought Dayton would be a horrible governor [raises hand] has worked just a little harder for Tom Emmer, and what was a close race had flipped the other way? For those folks who think that compromise on principle is unacceptable (no matter what principle Dayton is violating at the moment), what would be going on right now was legislation becoming law, and not the present fandango. Plural. (Is that “fandangos” or “fandangoes”?)
I think there’s a lesson there for three and a half years (more or less) from now.
Well Joel, just more reason to work hard for a veto-proof majority in 2012.
yeah, also thank Litte Jack “F’ing” Horner – i’m not over that yet
Unfortunately for Dayton (from his viewpoint), he has no power to raise taxes. If the leg holds firm and presents a balanced budget without tax increases, he can either sign it, cut more spending from it, or shut the state’s non-essential government activities down.
We win all three ways.
Kermit: absolutely that’s a reason to work hard, but there’s no reason that I can see to be unrealistic — the Republicans will do well, in 2012, to maintain majorities in both houses. (Remember the DFL, back in 2008, talking about how they’d get the trifecta in 2010? They, well, didn’t.)
In order to get good self-defense/gun bills through, what’s needed is one of the following:
1. A pro-self-defense majority in both houses, along with a Majority Leader and Speaker who are willing to put the bill on the floor, and a governor who will sign it.
2. A pro-self-defense majority in both houses, along with a Majority Leader and Speaker who are willing to put the bill on the floor, and a large enough one in both houses to override a veto.
3. A pro-self-defense majority in both houses, large enough to use whatever the special rule is (I forget the names, and they’re different in the House and Senate) to override the decision of a Majority Leader or Speaker who are willing to put the bill on the floor, and a governor who will sign it.
Note: not necessarily a Republican majority. Do remember that both times that the MCPPA passed there was a DFL majority in the Senate, and as some of us never tire of repeating (not me; I’m tired of repeating it) the MCPPA would not have passed without the votes of DFL senators.
The enemy of commonsense, self-defense reform is not the DFL as a whole; it’s the DFL Metrocrats, who can vote against the MCPPA or Senate File 1357 with impunity — in fact, it protects them against attacks from the leftmost of the DFL.
Now, take a look at the committee that will be voting today, and take your pick of DFL members. Is there any one of them who you think will be in trouble in his or her district for voting against it next year? The DFLers are Latz, Marty, Goodwin, Harrington and McGuire; the final vote will be 8-5, on party lines.
Now, the good news: all of them are up for election in 2012; the bad news is that all five of them are in solidly DFL districts . . . solid enough to have withstood the Republican onslaught in 2008. Take a look at the districts; if I’m wrong, I’d love to know.
So: to pass this over a veto now, or in 2012, there’s going to have to be a flip (assuming, for the sake of argument, that the floor vote that passes it this year and the veto override that fails go on straight party lines) of eight votes in the Senate (it takes 45 votes in the Senate and 89 votes in the House to get to that magical 2/3 majority).
Of the DFLers in the Senate who voted for the MCPPA in 2005, there’s Bakk, Dean Johnson, Kubly, Langseth, Lourey, Metzen, Neuville, Sams, Sauxhaug, Scheid, Skoe, Sparks, Tomassoni, Vickerman, Weiger. That’s nine — assuming the Republicans can hold their party together (which seems likely), and enough to overturn the veto.
Which means that not only do the proponents have to get Tom Bakk and/or Terry Bonoff to flip at least three senators (including themselves) — DFLers aren’t fond of overturning a DFL governor’s veto — but they’ve got to do that over the (metaphorical) dead body of Ken Martin.
I’d love to be wrong — I think the bill would be good law — but I’m skeptical. Rightly or wrongly (which is a nice way of saying “wrongly”) this bill is controversial in a way in which the MCPPA passed, barely, with a bipartisan majority in the Senate in 2003 . . .
Oops. Forgot to put in the to close the html tag. If this doesn’t do it, Mitch, could you fix it for me?
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Governor Prettnor-Solon will be sworn in August 8th and the earliest, November 15th at the latest. Governor Moonshine will be relapsing into alcoholism in no time.
I am in agreement with you joel. However, there is one point that you have overlooked. The inner cities are going to be hit with redistricting so quite possibly one of the committee members you cited won’t be there two years from now.
As far as Republicans gaining more seats in the coming elections, Governor Moonshine ( I like that Ben) will have to run this State even worse than Republicans think he is capable of and get the blame for it.
There’s probably a lot of points I overlooked, but I don’t think that’s a relevant one — the next election isn’t, alas, likely to be about Dayton, but about Obama and his competitor, and it’s likely to be a repeat of the disaster of 2006 and 2008 . . . but, if it is, the upcoming compromise on the budget is going to be very bad, electorally, for Republicans. (Short form: “you said you were going to balance the budget without raising taxes, but you didn’t do that, and you cut out [something important to me] while leaving in [something I don’t care about and/or oppose].”