The Strib sets the stage for the usual, closing-rush budget battle in the Legislature:
So far, Pawlenty’s attitude has amounted to “fat chance.” Secure in the knowledge that DFLers need Republican votes to thwart his will, the governor instead has threatened to veto every spending bill in sight.
Who wins the staredown in the final three weeks of the legislative session could determine whether schools get their biggest funding increase in years, who gets health care and whether Minnesota’s rich will pay the highest state income tax rate in the nation.
That may sound like all the ingredients necessary for a stalemate similar to the deadlock in 2005, which led to a partial government shutdown and a special legislative session. But DFLers and Pawlenty sound acutely aware that there are few special session scenarios in which either side emerges a winner.
Let’s take our bets for the stock characters we’ll see in the Strib over the next three weeks:
- Republicans who criticize the Governor and side with the DFL being portrayed as “courageous”, “mavericks” and “a nod to the good old days when the GOP and DFL got along”; 2000-1 in favor.
- The Taxpayers’ League portrayed as the villains: 22000-1 in favor.
- Schools being depicted as cash-starved underdogs: 300-1 in favor.
- Peevish huffing from Nick Coleman to the GOP to act the way the GOP did back in the seventies, when the GOP acted like beaten dogs who only wanted the DFL to love them: 5-1 in favor.
- Arrogant snarking from Doug Grow to the GOP to act the way the GOP did back in the seventies, when the GOP acted like beaten dogs who only wanted the DFL to love them: 12-1 in favor.
- Anguished plea from Lori Sturdevant to the GOP to act the way the GOP did back in the seventies, when the GOP acted like beaten dogs who only wanted the DFL to love them: 500,000-1 in favor.
The floor is open.
“Schools being depicted as cash-starved underdogs: 300-1 in favor. ”
Also, that no where will you read how much public education spending has increased since Bush has taken office. Both federal money and state. It’s huge, yet it’s never enough. Where does all that money go?
Odds that, after the veto and the special session and the endless posturing is over, taxes will increase:
(how do you make an “infinity” sign on this machine?) to 1, in favor.
They may not call it a “tax rate increase” but at the end of the day, your pocket will be lighter. Depend on it.
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Pretty sure you were not cognizant in the 70s, and must be taking your “beaten dogs’ analogy from your little red book. Read up on MN political history from a legit historical source – you will retract that put down (not publically of course!).
Look at Harold Levander: if you can muster as much rationality and dignity in your entire life as he had in any 2 years in public service, you will be a lucky man (and reformed).
Hope using words like rational and dignity to describe Republican Governors don’t get me labeled moonbat – there is always hope!
Hi coldeye!
I read about Harold Levander from a few different sources and thought “it says he was a Republican, but much of what he did screams DFL”. I guess that is why he seems to have so much “rationality and dignity” from your perspective, even though he had an ‘R’ next to his name.
Unfortunately for you, that really just underscores the point Mitch made above.
Calling former Republican Governors nice names should not get you labeled anything, but projecting the need for a “little red book” may do it. *shrug*
Hi Troy!
I experienced Harold Levander, lived under his policies and watched him govern. Discussed politics during and after his tenure. Studied some of them in college.
You read about him “from a few different sources” that state… “much of what he did screams DFL”. Hmmmm, with that type of wording, I wonder what kind of sources those are (objective, historical, rational?) Of course, if you have all you need to know as soon as it fits your pre-conceived interpretation and it “just underscores the point Mitch made above” hey, you’re done – might as well make it easy on yourself.
Of course, what I’m talking about is whether the GOP in the 1970s is accurately described as beaten dogs craving DFL approval. I think people with little knowledge of a subject should be cautious in painting a whole big group of people in such a simple-minded and insulting way. The best example I know, pre-blogosphere, of how people get indoctrinated to where they are so fast to judge whole groups of their fellow citizens was the little red book (now being short-hand for those who saw its effect). Maybe you read a few sources on that phenomenom too?
Hi coldeye!
I did not “experience” Harold Levander or “watch” him govern, but I did live under his policies.
If you have any sources you would like me to consider, please do mention them, not just criteria you have in your head that describe “good” resources. This is the Internet and you can provide some links. Perhaps you can make me a big fan of Harold Levander too? Please try!
Perhaps they were not “beaten dogs”, but what do you think they were? Given your purported deep knowledge of the subject, you surely can do better than Mitch, correct?
On the other hand, I do think the Harold Levander endorsement you gave was not really on topic: he was an individual, and Mitch made a generalization. Can you prove the generalization is not true? You seem to think you can, so go to it! How about more examples of really rational and really dignified 70s Republicans, perhaps some that did not work to grow state government?
I think my projection comment was not too far off the mark, but you can prove me wrong. Please do!
No action on any of those bets.
Troy:
My point was to Mitch and his “beaten dogs” crack.
Want to learn about Republicans in the 70s – do some simple research outside the fever swamp. I am not making it a project to educate or convince you. Besides, what are the chances that anything you get from me will be taken objectively and not as a challenge to argue against? You who can’t let go of his rhetorical trick without a point, and who thinks an opponent is obligated to disprove a generalization.
coldeye:
Still no sources? No sources, no argument. I won’t take your word, and you won’t support what you say. I won’t make a project of making your argument for you, or disproving it. You want to refute the “beaten dogs” crack, then do it. You have not even started, in my opinion. *shrug*
do some simple research outside the fever swamp.
Your “fever swamp” crack is kind of interesting; since you apparently equate “conservative partisan” with this derogatory swipe.
Since my statement is based on the notion that the GOP, after thirty years of being outnumbered at the national level, was not what we’d consider “conservative” today – a fundamentally partisan observation – it’s really impossible to satisfy your question.
I am not making it a project to educate or convince you.
“Things are how I say they are, and you’re just too dumb to figure it out”?
Hm.
Besides, what are the chances that anything you get from me will be taken objectively and not as a challenge to argue against?
There is nothing contradictory about reading objectively and then disputing your point, since it is disuptable.
You who can’t let go of his rhetorical trick without a point, and who thinks an opponent is obligated to disprove a generalization.
My generalization? There’s nothing to disprove. It’s something many conservatives have observed about GOPS at state and the national level from the forties through the seventies – or, in MN, the nineties.