As little as governmetn at any level does that’s of any worth, there is a certain amount of responsibility involved.
When it became apparent that there’s a chance the Fed might shut down (or at least cut back its non-debt spending), both Denise Cardinal “Governor Dayton” and Rep. Keith Downey made moves, via their various means (executive and legislative), to start planning how to manage the state without some or all of the billions of dollars in federal money that Minnesota gets. It only made sense.
Then intellectual giants in the legislative DFL caucus got their two cents in:
The bill passed committee on April 28, but not before being mocked as a “doomsday scenario” by Representative Ryan Winkler (DFL – Golden Valley), who offered an amendment to also ask the state to plan for “asteroid collisions, nuclear war, extraterrestrial invasions, coup d’tat and natural disasters caused by global warming.” Winkler withdrew the amendment after being mocked by Republicans for not taking the issue seriously.
Winkler may or may not be much of a legislator – he’s the Eddie Haskell of the House – but he certainly has a flair for the dramatic (emphasis added, but only to mock the little fella):
“I think you know that this bill doesn’t address a situation that’s anywhere close to reality. It’s fantasy. I’m afraid it might be a partisan fantasy to see failure on this colossal of a scale. Frankly if the federal government became insolvent I‘m not so concerned about the effect on state programs; I would be concerned about the looters who are gonna be running through our neighborhoods. You are talking about almost an Armageddon kind of situation happening in the country where the United States basically falls apart…”
In Ryan Winkler’s special little world, government makes life itself possible.
I’d love to watch a solid, sharp, conservative debating Winkler. It would look like a butcher pounding veal with a big hammer.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.