Vanity starts with an ‘M’ in Alaska’s senate contest.

Like a horror movie villain, the candidacy of Sen. Lisa Murkowski keeps returning from the dead.  Despite losing on election night, losing the absentee ballot fracus, and even conceding the GOP primary, Murkowski’s political ego has shown staying power the envy of Jason Voorhees.  Even the failure of Murkowski’s latest attempt to woo Alaska’s Libertarian Party apparently hasn’t dampered her efforts to return to D.C. short of buying her own ticket.  Instead, Murkowski’s newest bid is to prove the pen is mighter than the ballot with a longshot write-in candidacy:

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is expected to mount an independent campaign for senator after losing her primary, much to the dismay of her Republican colleagues, who won’t back her, according to a senior GOP leadership aide. 

“The entire Republican leadership has endorsed and would continue to support Joe Miller,” a the aide told Fox News on Wednesday…

A National Republican Senatorial Committee official made it clear that more money would be on the way to Miller, and suggested that Murkowski might be going through “the seven stages of grief.” 

“You know, first they concede … then there are the rumors of a write-in candidacy … then you get the acknowledgment that they’re done,” the official said.

If Murkowski does go through with a write-in effort, than she truly is “done”; which may suggest that she’s not Freddy Krueger, she’s Bruce Willis in the “Sixth Sense.”

Murkowski doesn’t appear to be gaining any options as the window for her to make a decision narrows.  The Libertarian option isn’t offically closed as long as endorsee Brian Haase continues to entain the notion of removing himself from the ballot.  But the LP’s executive committee has already voted against nominating Murkowski short of Haase presenting them with a fait accompli with his withdrawal.  And given some of the statements by the LP’s committee, even that scenario might not produce a Libertarian-endorsed Lisa Murkowski.

Only Strom Thurmond has ever won a general election write-in candidacy for the U.S. Senate.  Thurmond’s 1954 candidacy was far stranger than Alaska’s current senate tift.  The death of the Democratic incumbent, the Democrat Party’s decision to not hold a primary election, and former Governor Thurmond’s backing by the major players in the party were the only reasons why the endless South Carolina Senator prevailed.  Considering only one candidate was on the ballot – St. Sen. Edgar A. Brown for you political junkies out there – Thurmond’s candidacy was unique in the extreme.  Nothing approaching it awaits Murkowski on the frozen electoral tundra.

No pollster has yet demonstrated the effect of a Murkowski write-in campaign in Joe Miller and Scott McAdams minor league showdown.  While others polls show Murkowski with a narrow lead over Joe Miller (and Scott McAdams trailing badly), all were done with the assumption that Murkowski would actually be on the ballot.  A Murkowski coalition of moderate Republicans, independents and assorted anti-Palin voters could have propelled her to victory in a three-way race.

But a strategy that relies on such deep candidate committment to write-in her name – regardless of the hundreds of thousands of dollars Murkowski still has available to encourage voters to do so – is bound to attract only the hardest of hardcore Murkowski supporters.  It’s also one of the few strategies that could provide a victory to Democrat Scott McAdams.  While Murkowski’s holdouts certainly won’t be the 50% of the Republican electorate that voted for her on primary day, any votes for her will almost certainly be coming out of Miller’s side.  Couple that with even one poll showing Murkowski pulling low double-digit write-in support and the DNC might change it’s mind about bypassing the 49th State.

Murkowski could still be a viable force in Alaska politics – possibly even challenging first-term Senator Mark Begich in another four years.  But the longer Murkowski openly flirts with continuing a candidacy out of a cocktail of ego and spite, the less likely she’ll successfully seek office again.  Much like Charlie Crist, Murkowski’s unwillingness to suffer a present political setback has endangered (or in Crist’s case, likely ruined) her political past and future.

Why Congress should be non-plussed about China’s trade surplus.

One of the oldest trade disputes of this very new century has been the seismic imbalance in U.S./Chinese trade relations.  American lawmakers have repeatedly beg/threated/legislated to try and get China to appreciate their currency, believing that the U.S. trade deficit might get reduced if the Chinese took the yuan on a romantic dinner date…or something to that effect.  U.S. legislators have even attempted to essentially fine the Chinese into currency compliance – trying to hike tariffs on Chinese goods as high as 27.5%.

Considering China’s latest trade surplus may exceed $20 billion, Congress may be closer to the mood of reviving Smoot Hawley:

The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee will discuss next week China’s currency policy after Premier Wen Jiabao’s government limited the yuan’s gain to less than 1 percent versus the dollar since a June pledge for greater flexibility. With November elections looming, legislators may push a bill letting companies seek tariffs for compensation for an undervalued yuan…

U.S. lawmakers including Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, have pressed the Obama administration to demand a speedier appreciation of the yuan. The house committee will discuss whether China has made “material progress” on the issue and what action Congress and the administration may need to take to address the nation’s exchange-rate policy.

While the Adminstration is unlikely to approve any Congressional legislation to gode the Chinese into reassessing their currency – especially after already agreeing to do so this summer - bills threatening a tariff war seems almost certain to be introduced.  Similar measures were taken in 2005 and, like in the summer of 2010, resulted in the Chinese acquising to some American demands for appreciation. 

Legislators might as well rub a lucky rabbit’s foot to ward away the U.S. trade deficit if they believe currency appreciation will significantly impact the situation.  The last time the Chinese appreciated their currency, the U.S. trade deficit…wait for it…grew:

Recent evidence suggests that RMB appreciation will not reduce the U.S. trade deficit and undermines the common political argument for compelling China to revalue. Between July 2005 and July 2008, the RMB appreciated by 21 percent against the dollar-from a value of $.1208 to $.1464.⁴ During that same period (between the full year 2005 and the full year 2008), the U.S. trade deficit with China increased from $202 to $268 billion.

In addition to the fact that increasing the currency value won’t have any major impact on the U.S. trade deficit, and will only fray trade relations with America’s second largest trading partner (you might be surprised to know Canada is #1), is the reality that China gains nothing by doing so.  With their economy slowing, in part as China encounters the same real estate nightmare the rest of the world has experienced, the Chinese are unlikely to want to also reduce the value of their U.S. debt holdings.  The Chinese are already reducing stimulus efforts and trying to avoid pumping more money into what is potentially becoming the international economy’s next major bubble to burst – China itself.

They never learn.

It’s been a little over two years since Andy Birkey of the Minnesota “Independent” first sniffed that Rep. Michele Bachmann “only does sympathetic media”.

Of course, it makes perfect sense for Bachmann; she represents a conservative district; talking with hostile media (and when it comes to the Twin Cities media, “hostile” is not just a rhetorical term) makes as much sense as a frontrunner looking at a comfortable 30-40 point margin agreeing to debate a non-entity opponent.

Still, let’s accept at face value the proposition that candidates talking with media that oppose them is a good thing.

Two years ago, after Birkey wrote his grand attack on Bachmann, I figured I’d see if the pancake was brown on both sides.  I contacted RT Rybak, Chris Coleman, Dave Thune, Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, and asked them to come on the Northern Alliance with Ed and I – and wrote about the experience.

Summary:  Except for Rybak – with whom Ed and I had an excellent, civil, respectful, serious-yet-fun discussion focusing on actual issues rather than the “ambush the bad guy” crap that Bachmann can usually expect – none of them did us the courtesy of so much as a brusque brush-off.

The Clark campaign must be getting desperate to make something stick, or at least to get donors in the Twin Cities to pony up; the story’s baaaaaack.  According to Paul Schmelzer at the Mindy, Bachmann snubbed CNN:

“She says God called her to run for Congress, so rushing to the media outlets that transmit her views without question is a priority, but for members of the press who might have some harder questions? Different treatment — because Bachmann thinks some in the media are out to get her,” says Tuchman.

“Speed-walking in heels through political mud,” Bachmann is shown rushing between interviews with conservative media including KTLK’s Jason Lewis, Christian radio station KKMS and The Patriot.

So they got completely shunned?

CNN is shooed away by Bachmann’s handlers, but later she agrees to an interview, but only two questions.

Ah.  So Bachmann, who leads Taxin’ Tarryl Clark by nine points and will likely win by at least ten, didn’t shut CNN out; she merely didn’t treat them with the deference to which they’re accustomed.

But in the interest of getting the whole story out there: during the run-up to the Minnesota State Fair and our long string of extra weekday broadcasts, I contacted the DFL about getting Mike Hatch Mark Dayton, Yvette Prettner-Solon, Mark Ritchie, Mike Hatch Lorie Swanson, Rebecca Otto, Keith Ellison and Betty McCollum on the show, for the same, exact, respectful-but-pointed interview we gave RT Rybak.

The DFL roundly turned us down at every turn.

So let me get this straight; the GOP is wrong for not facing hostile media, but Democrats are…

…well, still universally just as gutless as the Mindy and CNN want people to think Bachmann is.

Ever since May, the DFL – via their closely-knit band of media and “alternative” media mouthpieces – have been spending time and money trying to paint Tom Horner as “the reasonable Republican”, to try to soak votes away from Tom Emmer.  The conventional wisdom is that, in this year of revulsion with government spending and overreach, there is a huge reservoir of seventies-vintage “Independent Republican” liberal Republican fossils out there pining for the days of Arne Carlson and Dave Durenberger.

Of course, the last few polls have shown that Horner is drawing more DFL votes than MNGOP votes.  Considerably more.

So suddenly it’s OK for leftybloggers to bag on Horner.

Couldn’t see that coming.

Perhaps it’s a good thing that David “The Spam Meister” Plouffe is one of the “geniuses” behind the Obama campaign two years ago.

His tactic this year?  Put the bar down on the ground, walk over it, and spin it as a successful high-jump:

President Obama’s top political guru said Tuesday that he believes 70 House races and 15 Senate races are in play this fall.

White House senior adviser David Plouffe — Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign manager — said that a bevy of races were in play, from the national to local level.

Next stop: say the GOP should pick up 140 seats; spin a 60 seat pickup as a crushing disappointment.

Reality is this; if the GOP picks up 20 seats in the House, and any in the Senate, the DFL should commit seppuku.

There.

The GOP is having a press conference at 10AM:

Republican Party of Minnesota leaders Garofalo, Sutton, and Brodkorb to call on Mark Dayton to come clean on all financial holdings outside of the state of Minnesota.

Hm.

Wonder if the GOP is just a “lazy-ass activist?”

If there’s one thing that America could do for its own long-term betterment over the next few years (that doesn’t involve big electoral victories for the GOP), it’s sending Paul Krugman to work at McDonalds or in a nursing home, or something else productive.

This past week, he said the US needed another World War II – at least, in terms of Keynesian government intervention in the market – to revive the economy.

Victor Davis Hanson  points out that the US economy recovered in spite of the government involvement, largely because the war left us as the last market standing:

As WWII ended and the clean-up began, there was an enormous amount of pent-up global demand for goods. Given the wreckage in Europe, Japan, and Russia and the underdevelopment of India, Asia, and South America, we were about the only ones with the industrial and commercial wherewithal to supply the world rebound — often receiving cheap oil, gas, minerals, and interest in exchange, which supplemented our own vast supplies of comparatively cheap and easily recoverable resources. Nor should we forget the psychological element: Americans, after winning two wars, were enormously confident about their newfound international stature and influence.

At home, four years of consumer deprivation during the war and the weak demography of the 1930s had combined to create huge demand, all while society was increasingly leaving the farm for good and becoming suburbanized. The result was that in the late 1940s and 1950s, the birth rate soared and consumers enthusiastically made first-time purchases of washers, dryers, fridges, cars, etc. Thus, the American economy grew by leaps and bounds.

Any similarities between 1948-1958 and today are purely coincidental:

Today’s situation is not comparable: We are in hock to foreign creditors for trillions and have not been a net creditor since the 1980s. A China, Brazil, South Korea, Taiwan, or India is as or more likely to supply recovering demand for food, steel, or electronics.

Massive spending will only revive the economy if it involves destroying the rest of the world economy, in other words.

Joe Doakes from Como writes:

John Kerry graduated from Yale in 1966 and served in Vietnam. It was one of his major qualifications for office.

George Bush the Younger graduated from Yale in 1968. He caught a lot of flack because his National Guard time wasn’t “real” military experience. Democrats commonly accused him of shirking his duty to serve his country – a draft dodger – implying he was unqualified for office.

Mark Dayton graduated from Yale in 1969. He then . . . what? Taught school in New York? What happened to that duty to serve the country? Was he deferred? 4-F? Is he unqualified for lack of military service?

That’s a good question.  With most people who were of draft age back then, there’s some kind of story; one relative of mine who graduated earlier than Dayton described getting several deferrals because he was a teacher in a place that was drastically short of ‘em.

Is that what Dayton did?

Just curious.

I grant that Tom Emmer’s closest brush with military service was going to St. Thomas Academy. But Emmer did his college and law school in the 1980’s when there was no huge military push. Dayton graduated six months after the Tet Offensive, at the height of the Vietnam War, when every gentleman’s son knew where his duty laid.

Look – other than Jesse Ventura, I’m at a loss to remember a recent Minnesota governor who did serve in the military.

But how did Dayton get out of the draft?

We do know how the Dems mocked Dick Cheney for getting five deferments; how they discredited Dan Quayle’s time in the National Guard, and tried to do the same with President Bush’s in the Air Guard.

It’s an appropriate question.

Does that ‘military service’ requirement only apply to the Presidency because he serves as Commander in Chief? Governors command their own National Guards – are overnors exempt from any duty to serve their country?

Or does it only apply to Republicans?

As far as the media is concerned…

The SEIU, in endorsing Mark Dayton, writes:

I can’t donate millions of dollars like corporate CEOs,

The SEIU has donated at least as much as Target so far, and that was as of five weeks ago.

I called this series “The Dayton Dustbowl for couple of reasons.  One of them is fairly obvious; raising taxes in a recession is just plain stupid.

The other is a little more subtle; the original Dust Bowl on the great plains was a combination of circumstances; some of them out of human control,  and well within; a drought combined with a depression exacerbated by government reaction to an economic downturn.

The victims?  For all the publicity about stock barons diving off window ledges (mostly apocryphal), the people who suffered the most were the people who had the skin in the game; the farmers and people of the rural midwest.

And as I noted in the first part of this series, the Dayton Dust Bowl – a combination of a deep recession Minnesota didn’t cause, which would be exacerbated and institutionalized by Dayton’s proposed tax policy and spending proposals – would have the same affect; it’d make being a hard-working, middle-class Minnesotan a much more difficult thing.  The “cop and nurse” that the Emmer campaign refers to – the hard-working husband and wife who put in extra hours and scrape and scramble to make over $150K between ‘em – will get hammered by new taxes just as they are reeling from the Obama tax hikes next year.

The tax hikes – and their revenue sources – will erase hard-won advances in school choice (charter schools), and make entrepreneurship, especially for the Subchapter S corporations that drive so much job creation, deeply unattractive in Minnesota.

And for what?  A fatter, happier government employee base?

A Teachers Union that can work without fear of competition?

Who else wins?

There was never a chance I was going to vote for Mark Dayton.  After reading this four-page “plan”, I have to wonder – why would anyone with half a brain?

Who’s not a government union employee, anyway?

Last but not least, if you are Dayton’s choice for Budget Commissioner, good luck solving the deficit with this plan, especially when the last line in the document is: “That leaves me $635.4 million to go.”

Now, bear in mind that 635 million is roughly 1.5 times larger than the immense tax hike the Dems were able to pass in the 2008 session, when they controlled both houses, in a year when the Dems had a huuuuge tailwind, with immense political cost to themselves.

And they want to enact this after passing a tax hike that was ten times as large as the one that they managed in 2008.

With a huge tailwind.

And control of both houses.

Against minimal organized opposition, other than the against-the-ropes GOP.

Simple fact:  Mark Dayton’s entire “plan” is based on the vacuous, vaporous idea that “taxing the rich” – who are largely not “rich” – can by itself balance the budget.  Even under ideal circumstances – meaning “Dayton gets exactly what he proposes” – it can not work.

Dayton will not get exactly what he wants.  Even if the DFL retains control of both chambers – and it likely will not – they can not pass a budget ten times as large as the divisive, controversial budget they passed in 2008; there will still be a huge deficit, while will require an expansion of the defnition of “the rich”.  Which will, in turn, kill more jobs and drive more layoffs and lead to less revenue…

…and it’s a moot point.  Dayton is likely going to lose the House this year; if (heaven forfend) he’s elected, he will face fierce GOP opposition in both chambers, and a populace that’s doesn’t even know how shell-shocked the Obama Tax Hikes are going to gut-shoot it.

So if Dayton is (heaven forfend) elected, the best he can hope for is complete, utter gridlock that will leave the deficit to be dealt with by more fee-juggling and accounting jiggery-pokery, even as Dayton is forced to pay off his chits to his constituents; jacking up union hiring, pouring more money we don’t have into our education system.

Even under the “best” circumstances, the Dayton budget is a complete waste of time.

At worst, it’ll multiply the very problem it’s supposed to “fix”.

This is the Dayton “Plan”.

In a state with a functioning news media, it would be the subject of acerbic fact-checking and  muted ridicule.

Since the only real functional news media in this state is the conservative alternative media, allow me to begin the ridicule right here.

Coming up at 3PM:  That Big Brown Cloud Coming In From The West.

Check out the Dayton Budget “Plan” for yourself!  Find another howler?  Leave it in the comments!

The paragraph in Dayton’s budget plan is a subtle one:

3. Eliminate tax loopholes, such as the one allowing “Snowbirds” to live outside Minnesota for six months and one day of the year, and pay no personal income taxes in this state. I would ensure that anyone who spends a significant amount of time in Minnesota pays taxes in Minnesota.

So the State of Minnesota is going to define what a “significant” period of time is. and stake a claim to income, property and other non-user fees during that (undefined) time?

The state treasury should not line up to cash that check just yet.  It’s going to be in court for a while, duking it out over interpretations of the Commerce Clause; let’s not forget the suit over Equal Protection clause issues.

It’s going to be a full-employment program for tax lawyers, and that’s after all the ConLaw people get their cut.

Coming up at 2PM:  What happens when a “plan” is really just a mish-mash of ideas that at best will never be adopted, and at worst will make a bad situation worse?

Check out the Dayton Budget “Plan” for yourself!  Find another howler?  Leave it in the comments!

Did you pull your kids out of the public school system and put ‘em in a charter program?  Like I did?

Start looking for a new school.  If Mark Dayton gets elected and pushes his “budget plan” through, you’ll need to start looking for a new program for your kids.

That’s right – Dayton plans to kill off charter schools.

Oh, he can plausibly claim he’s not “killing” them; merely cutting a piece of their funding that the Star Tribune says is “prone to abuse”.

No, seriously; item 16 in the Dayton Budget proposal says “Reform Charter School Lease Aid Program to eliminate Star Tribune documented abuses. Est. Savings $20 million (out of biennial cost of $85 million).”

Of course, we talked about the validity of the Star Tribune’s “investigation” – Part 1 and Part 2 - and let’s just say it’s thin gruel on which to base policy.

Still, it’s a tiny amount of money in the great scheme of things – but it will pay off a big chit to the Teachers Union.

I wonder if Dayton’s focus-group testing bothered to ask all the African-American, Native American, Somali and Hispanic parents  - who’ve pulled their kids out of their failed public schools to give them a shred of hope, and are charter schools’ biggest proponents – what they think about this?  Not to mention parents like me…

Oh yeah – cuts in lease aid will affect the charters serving poor kids, with not-that-well-to-do parents, the most.  Charters in Stillwater and Eden Prairie with backers with more financial clout will figure out a way – bake sales or construction bonds or something.  But all you Afro-American parents who pulled your kids out of Central High to go to Skills for Tomorrow?

Get back in line and speak only when spoken to!

And I do most sincerely hope the Emmer Campaign is going to do a get-together with charter parents in the inner city before the election.  Have you looked at the percent of students at inner-city charters that are kids of color who are fleeing our wretched failure of a city public school system?

Without lease aid, charter schools will not be able to generate the revenue they need to survive.

Coming up at 1PM:  The Law is what Mark Dayton says it is!

Check out the Dayton Budget “Plan” for yourself!  Find another howler?  Leave it in the comments!

If you own or are employed by one of the 305 small businesses being helped by the JOBZ program right now, you’ll be out of luck.

Dayton’s plan reneges on your agreement and eliminates funding for JOBZ.

Of course, during the Almanac debate a few weeks back, Dayton agreed with… Tom Emmer that it’d be wrong for the state to pull the rug out from under the current JOBZ projects.

Check it out yourself!

Didn’t we have a large institution, with printing presses and transmitters, once upon a time to help us keep track of debate inconsistencies?

So let’s try to keep track here; Dayton wants to propose billions in tax hikes that will gut small business and stymie job creation (in the private market), but he wants to gut a program that actually tries to create (private) jobs?

Why, it’s almost as if “private jobs” aren’t an issue at all for Mark Dayton!

Coming up at Noon:  Why does Mark Dayton hate minority families?

Check out the Dayton Budget “Plan” for yourself!  Find another howler?  Leave it in the comments!

If you are benefitting from a professional or technical contract with the state, your funding could be cut. Dayton says we can cut half of the $850 million we spend every two years on state contracts.

He may or may not have a point.  But you’ll never know it from his budget plan.

State contracts are used for a variety of things including road and bridge design, computer consulting and even arts instruction at the Perpich Center for the Arts – basically, any skill that the state doesn’t usually keep on its inventory of elite uniononized employees.

Of course, Dayton doesn’t specify which half of state contractors we can live without.  Because most of the contracting is for work that actually needs to get done, by a person who is qualified to do the job.

Need a big, high-traffic bridge built?  The MNDOT doesn’t keep a big bridge design department on staff – because it’s not like the Dept. of Transportation is constantly building new bridges.  You need a bridge designed and built?  Hire a temp – or a “contractor”, as they’re called.

If the state needs to build a new website for vehicle tab info and renewals (hint hint), and they need to make it usable by a multiethnic, polylingual population?  The State of Minnesota doesn’t employ User Experience Architects (that’s what I do), because they don’t need ‘em every day; they contract ‘em out.

Building a road?  Remodeling a state building?  Transferring data from an old database to a new one? Analyzing the market for a government service? Anything the state doesn’t normally do, day in, day out? They hire “temps”, contractors – construction workers, dry-wall contractors, database analysts, researchers – to do the job.

Democrats endorsed by government employee unions typically go after state contracts because they take jobs away from union members, not because we’re spending too much. Is Dayton planning to actually cut these contracts or does he want government employees to do the work instead?

The simple fact is, shifting contract work to state employees may very well cost more, not less.  At the very least, it’s not a cut, merely a shift (unless Dayton, AFSCME, MAPE and the SEIU really think there are that many underutilized state employees out there…) blowing a $425 million hole in Dayton’s budget plan.

Coming up at 11AM:  Dayton kills tax cuts for (private) job creation!

Check out the Dayton Budget “Plan” for yourself!  Find another howler?  Leave it in the comments!

If you are a potential commissioner in the Dayton administration, prepare to do a lot of work by yourself.

Dayton proposes to adopt the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees(MAPE) proposal to eliminate what they call political patronage jobs in the Pawlenty Administration.

The MAPE proposal targets Metropolitan Council appointments (does Dayton want them elected?), Deputy Commissioners and Directors of Communications and Government Relations. So if Dayton gets elected, presumably these state agencies will operate without these important positions.

Commissioners in the Dayton Administration will handle their own communications, take all phone calls from legislators and legislative staff, and run their agencies.

This was a nonsensical proposal from MAPE and should not be taken seriously by a gubernatorial candidate. If Mark Dayton wins, he will fill his new administration with political appointees because that’s what the people expect. They expect his government will be run by people who think like him.

Coming up at 10AM:  Dayton makes more room for his union cronies – on your dime!

Check out the Dayton Budget “Plan” for yourself!  Find another howler?  Leave it in the comments!

If you are a K-12 student, you will see a $230 million cut in funding for your schools because Dayton plans to eliminate testing.

Now, I personally am ambivalent about testing as a goal, an end in and of itself, as happens all too often in our current educational system.

But like it or not, the Fed requires this testing to make sure students are actually learning things at school – a putative goal of education, somewhere down there under ” prevent union teacher layoffs” even in the Minnesota Federation of Teachers’ canon of goals.

A state that doesn’t have an accountability system in place will not receive federal funding.

Now, debate if you will the wisdom of focusing on testing.  I certainly do.

But remember – in the last week in August, the DFL was spitting tacks because Tim Pawlenty “left federal money on the table” for various “health aid” programs.

Now, they’re proposing leaving more federal money on the table – and not a word.

Why?

Other than the fact that that money would hold Education Minnesota accountable for its ongoing failure, I mean?

Coming up at 9AM:  The Incredible Do-It-All Commissioners!

Check out the Dayton Budget “Plan” for yourself!  Find another howler?  Leave it in the comments!

If you are one of the 200,000 Minnesotans with a license from the Minnesota Department of Commerce, prepare for a huge fee increase.

Dayton proposes funding the Commerce Department entirely by fees exacted from those “industries.”

Are you a real estate agent? Reeling from the collapse of the houseing market are you?  Tough rocks, Audrey; your license to do business is going up.

Are you an Appraiser?  Your kids are wearing last years’ shoes, and you’re trying to figure out your umpteenth way to fix spaghetti so the kids don’t twig to the fact you’ve been stretching a two-pound box of noodles, since nobody’s buying houses since the Obama Stimulus ceased stimulating?  Pony up, cowboy.

Youre an Insurance agent? Well, your customers may be in good hands – but unless you cough up a pile of extra money, they’ll be someone else’s hands.

Stock broker?  Notary?  Barber? The list goes on and on.  Basically, if you’re any kind of professional whose franchise to do business depends on a state license, you’re going to be paying more – even if you’re making less.

Coming up at 8AM:  No Child Left Paid-For!

Check out the Dayton Budget “Plan” for yourself!  Find another howler?  Leave it in the comments!

I’ll be on Rob Port’s “Say Anything Morning Show” at 6:35, on AM1100 The Flag.

We’ll be talking Minnesota politics, naturally – and there’s a lot to talk about!http://wzfg-am.fimc.net/goout.asp?u=http://www.sayanythingblog.com

If you’re a teacher who happens to get sick in the first year of the Dayton/ Education Minnesota Health Insurance Pool, good luck making a claim.

The new Health Insurance Pool that Dayton wants to start for Education Minnesota’s health insurance is, curiously, exempt from the startup balance requirements that affect every other insurance plan that operates in Minnesota.  The plan could literally go bankrupt in the first year.

In the private market, this would be…well, illegal, since regular insurance plans need to have startup reserves.  Since this is a Teachers Union things, it’d basically give Dayton the grounds for another deficit-boosting state bailout.

Meaning more spending.

Meaning more taxes.

Assuming the legislature in a post-Tea-Party, mid-Obamadescenscion era would pony up.

Sound good, teachers?

Coming up at 7AM:  Why Does Dayton Hate Small Business People?

Check out the Dayton Budget “Plan” for yourself!  Find another howler?  Leave it in the comments!

As Tom Emmer was setting up at Permac Industries in Burnsville to announce the first part of its budget plan, the Minnesota DFL party’s Twitter account announced…:

Spoiler Alert: Tom Emmer to Hold Press Conference at Company Saved by the Recovery Act Funding He Opposes http://ht.ly/2A8QT #goDFL

This prompted other DFLers to crow that Permac had been “saved” by the stimulus, or “expanded” because of it.  They harped, naturally, on the irony; Emmer opposes the measures that, they said, kept Permac in business.

Wow.  That woulda been a fumble.

Except it’s not true.

Permac has received not one nickel of cash from the stimulus.

Two sources with knowledge of the situation confirmed that Permac hired a worker who’d gone through a Dakota County training program that had received stimulus money to help train the unempoyed.  The hiree was an unemployed worker.

Permac also got a tax break from the Bush Administration stimulus.  Which, if you’ve been paying attention, is exactly the sort of “stimulus” Emmer proposed at the press conference fifteen minutes later.

Why is the DFL lying to the people?

UPDATE:  It wasn’t just leftyblogger Sally Jo Sorenson who claimed the tax break and the county-trained worker “saved” Permac.  The DFL’s press release said so.

I’m working on contacting a Permac source to address this gross DFL distortion.

As this is written, Tom Emmer has just finished announcing Part One of his budget plan – the one that the DFL and the Chanting Class has been wondering about for the past two months.

To paraphrase James Carville, Part One is about the jobs, stupid.

Emmer is going to…:

1. Lower The Corporate Income Tax. This will enable new businesses to get profitable faster, and allow large companies to stay that way – forestalling layoffs, enabling job additions, and addressing business’ #1 complaint about doing business in Minnesota, our top-in-the-nation business and corporate tax rates.
2. Increase The “Angel” Investor Credit. “Angel” investors - people who are willing to take long shots on new companies that don’t yet have established sales, assets or revenues.  They are what get new companies off the ground, and allow them to survive and make payroll until they turn a profit – are in many ways the lynchpin of the new economy.  Of all “new economies”, really.  Angel Investors were the underpinning of much of the high-tech revolution that transformed our economy, and our lives really, for the past fifty years.  Currently, investors can deduct 25% of their investment (up to $125,000 from a $500,000 investment); Tom Emmer will increase that credit.
3. Accelerate The Refunds From The Sales Tax Exemption On Capital Purchases.  Minnesota allows a refund of sales taxes on capital equipment –  in the tax cycle after the equipment is purchased.  Emmer will front-load that – essentially lopping sales taxes off of capital equipment, making it easier – 7% easier – for companies to buy the equipment they need, when they need it to be easiser, when they buy the equipment; freeing up 7-and-change-percent of the company’s revenue to do more important things – like hire people.

By the way – as noted above, Minnesota currently has a Sales Tax exemption for capital purchases. Someone tell alleged “smart guy” and “political expert” Tom Horner, who seems to believe that’s not the case.

From the Emmer press release:

The GOP candidate noted that all of the tax relief measures in his plan have received bipartisan support in the legislature and were endorsed by the 21st Century Tax Reform Commission in its 2009 report. Also, small and large companies alike will benefit from two of the three tax cuts in the Emmer Jobs Agenda, ensuring benefits to the broadest range of Minnesota employers, including those which make little or no profits.

More on this as the week progresses.

Over the next two weeks, we’ll see Emmer’s plan for reforming education and state regulatory processes.

Today is Labor Day – the day when Union members pat themselves on the back for another year of doing their jobs and getting paid for it, and when the rest of us hit the picnic grounds and ponder buying weatherstripping.

And this year, the time when the political season starts to reach out to people who aren’t wonks, party hacks and political junkies.

Tomorrow on Shot In The Dark, I plan on spending pretty much the entire day focusing on the Dayton Dustbowl.

How badly are Dayton’s budget cuts going to hamper business?

How many (private sector) jobs are they going to destroy?

How much otherwise-useful money are they going to take out of the economy?

How short will they fall at the goal of “closing the deficit?”

How far down will Dayton have to push the definition of “the rich” to actually accomplish his putative goal of “closing the deficit?”

What kind of a Hungarian Clusterhug is Dayton going to present to our next Legislature, if – heaven forfend – he’s elected to office?

Coming tomorrow on Shot In The Dark.

All.  Day.  Long.

Charting and predicting the continuum of DFL chanting points.

Last Week: “Where is Emmer’s plan?”

This Afternoon: “OK, where is the rest of Emmer’s plan?”

A Few Weeks From Now: “Where is the last little bit of Emmer’s plan?”

Novenber 3: “Where’s Mark Dayton?”

It’s been about two months since the DFL started chanting “Where’s Emmer’s Plan?”

As I quite correctly pointed out in June, it’d have been stupid of Tom Emmer to release a plan at a point in the campaign when only wonks, journos and political junkies care about it.  The average, non-aligned voter doesn’t care about politics before mid-September; Emmer has been completely right to keep his powder dry.

But the first part of Emmer’s plan comes out at 12:30 today, at Permac Industries in Burnsville.

Emmer’s long-awaited offensive begins.  And smear as the DFL and “Alliance for a Better Minnesota” may, they might just have to focus on issues now.

More after the conference.