I hereby announce the formation of a budget resolution commission. We shall present recommendations to Governor Dayton and the Legislature to help resolve the budget crisis.
I’d like to note that this commission is better than bi-partisan – it’s tri-partisan! Beyond that, it actually contains a majority of DFLers.
It includes representatives from the world of alt-media, academia, and politics.
From politics:
- Phil Krinkie, former Republican legislator and current head of the Taxpayers League.
- Vin Weber, former GOP 2nd District US Congressman.
- Randy Kelly, former DFL mayor of Saint Paul.
- Norm Coleman, former DFL mayor of Saint Paul.
From academia,
- King Banaian, former Libertarian Party member, noted economist.
- David Strom, former MNSCU instructor, former liberal Democrat.
From the Alternative Media:
- John Hinderaker, blogger for Powerline, former liberal, and noted lawyer.
- Jeff Rosenberg – liberal blogger from some blog or another.
This commision should be immune from criticism on the grounds of being “extremist conservative”; as noted, most of the members are liberals!
And the commission has issued its report a day ahead of the Carlson/Mondale commission! The report calls for…:
- A $27 Billion budget that trims spending back to pre-recession levels.
- Abolition of several state bureaucracies – the Departments of Education, Development and Economic Development, Human Rights, Housing Finance, Iron Range Resources and Development, the Met Council and the Metro Sports Facilities Commission will be abolished forthwith. Also, the Sunset Bill (HF2 in the previous legislature) will be adopted in toto, but with all time-times cut in half.
- Immediate State Hiring Freeze – the state has plenty of workers.
- Working toward privatizing public schools by 2015.
- Immediate radical cuts in business taxes, including an immediate two week sales tax holiday and a Business Tax Lottery granting one lucky Minnesota business a complete one-quarter exemption from business income taxes every month.
These recommendations – which, we hasted to remind you, were developed by a commission made up mostly of liberals – are of such obvious common sense that we recommend Governor Dayton adopt them immediately, in the interest of bipartisanship.
Because we’re bipartisan!
You form the commission. I shall bring you …. A SHRUBBERY!
It will be one that looks nice.
And unlike the government Arne wants to give us it will not be too expensive.
And you will like the laurels particularly. There will be plenty since the DFL isn’t winning any in this standoff.
Take a lesson from the stylebooks of MPR, the Strib and the PiPress…
Call all of them DFL and skip the “former” part. As in:
Former St Paul Mayor Randy Kelly (DFL).
Former Minnesota Senator and St Paul Mayor Norm Coleman (DFL).
Former DFL Indoctrinator/Professor David Strom.
I mean, if they can (try to) pass Arne Carlson off as a GOP big dog when he is now not much more than a flea on the tail of said dog, I think you are safe in assuming that they would except Coleman and Strom as DFL leaders.
Minor correction:
At the end there you mean: in the interest of tripartisanship.
Because we’re tripartisan!
I’m sorry, but I cannot support a commission that I am not a member of. And as Groucho Marx famously said “I would never belong to a club that would ha ME as a member”.
By the way, we already have a commission. It’s called the State Legislature. Just another inconvenient truth.
Given that all of this makes perfect sense, there is not the scintilla of an iota of a possibility that any of it will be adopted. But you knew that.
It will be a cold day in hell before anything like this happens. We can dream though
The commission sounds strongly influenced by the leadership of former Democrat, Ronald Reagan.
How about a do over on the early retirement that was previously offered to eligible state employees? The DOt opened it to all of its employees and over 400 retired. The DHS cherry picked who could go; it was based on whether or not your position was scheduled for elimination. If your position was not on that schedule you could not go. Many, many people, at the top of their pay grades, were unable to retire.
Open it to all eligible employees, once that is done, see what positions need to be filled and hire our recent college and technical graduates (some of the best and brightest in the nation thank you) would jump at these positions and would come in at starting salaries, thereby saving millions in payroll immediately.
Then eliminate all of the contractors who are being paid $150.00 to $250.00 per hour (talk about obscene). I sent this exact information to Governor Imanidiot over a month ago and, surprise, surprise, nary a peep. Now who doesn’t want the state shut down? Hmmm? Probably the same guy whose family wouldn’t let him work in their family owned business. Just sayin’.