The Strib Editorial Board has declared itself in the bag for Mark Dayton and the DFL.
Not a huge surprise, if you follow these things.
More importantly, and much worse, it expresses the Minnesota Left’s real priorities. Although it does it in a slippery, weaselly way designed to actively disinform voters – which, of course, is another way of supporting the DFL.
The state budget is set and in the black, if only temporarily.
But that hasn’t stopped DFL Gov. Mark Dayton from expounding on the virtues of the budget proposal he touted and the GOP-controlled Legislature spurned last May.
Those virtues include a bottom line that would remain in positive territory in 2014-15, according to a new “what if” analysis by the state Revenue Department.
Wow. Positive territory! That sounds good – right?
Let’s read on:
It applied the Dayton offer of last May 16, which included $1.8 billion in new tax revenue in 2012-13, to the latest forecast for 2014-15. Do that, and the $1.3 billion deficit that’s been forecasted for 2014-15 disappears, leaving a $35 million surplus.
Let’s be clear on a couple of things – since the Strib and the DFL (pardon the redundancy) desperately want the reader and voter not to be clear on them:
- The “bottom line” they’re talking about is the state budget.
- The “deficit” is the gap between what the bureaucracy wants and is demanding, and the revenue expected at current levels. It is not a budget passed by a legislature.
- We, the people, elected a legislature that promised to take a different approach to how this state handles budgeting; to give this state an intervention, and wean it from its addiction to limitless spending and the assumption that we’re just going to like it or lump it during a recession.
- This charade has nothing to do with “bottom lines” in any sense that a business owner (or family budgeteer, for that matter) would recognize. It’s about making sure that government’s various stakeholders – who are suffering from a few mild diet pangs after the last session – needn’t want for their least desire any more.
As long as we’re clear on that, we can move on:
Dayton was seeking an increase in taxes on the wealthy plus an equivalent sum in spending cuts back in May. (The Editorial Board agreed with that split between tax increases and spending cuts, but disagreed with Dayton about which taxes should be raised.)
And, as we showed back then, the “tax on the wealthy”, in addition to being callow, DFL style (again, pardon the redundancy) class-baiting, was BS. It would not raise the revenue it claimed, even before “the wealthy” used their wealth to shield their income.
Like Dayton does.
Instead, the final budget deal rejected tax increases and employed two one-time measures, borrowing against expected future revenues and delaying payments to schools, totaling nearly $1.4 billion. When those two measures expire in June 2013, voila! The deficit returns.
Which goes to show you the GOP bent too far in the 2011 session; we should have cut the crap and held to the $32 billion budget.
Why reprise this argument now, when the 2012-13 budget is showing an $876 million balance?
Call it Dayton’s midterm election year kickoff. He evidently wants to remind Minnesotans that there was a better way to balance the state budget in 2011 than the one divided government delivered.
“Divided Government” – AKA “democracy”.
The Strib, Dayton and the DFL (ptr) case is this: the state’s budget is more important than yours. It is more important to keep government satiated than to give you, the overburdened taxpayer (and the state’s economy) a break.
The DFL/Strib/Dayton want to take food away from the horse – you, the taxpayer – and feed it to our rider.
And yet again, we’re going to have to tell them “no”.
And so it begins.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.