As this is rolling out, Tom Emmer is releasing the long-awaited Part 3 of the plan for his Administration – the re-engineering of how Minnesota government works.<\/p>\n
It’s called “Living Within Our Means”, and it’s a tall order.<\/p>\n
Here are the basics:<\/p>\n
Minnesota Government Needs Fundamental Reform<\/strong>: Government must start to live within its means, rather than claiming a share of all income as an entitlement.<\/p>\n Economic Vitality And Fiscal Sustainability<\/strong>: Keeping government fat and happy at the expense of the entrepreneurs, the business community and the state’s hardest workers is no way to keep an economy running. \u00a0This needs to be a multipartisan effort.<\/p>\n Emmer Will Balance The Budget<\/strong>: Unlike Dayton, who swings and misses by over half a billion dollars (or maybe much, much more), Emmer’s budget is balanced and, as noted in Part 1 of The Plan, cuts taxes.<\/p>\n From the press release, here’s the plan:<\/p>\n Budget Plan Details:<\/p>\n 1. Hold state spending in FY2012-13 to projected revenues minus job-creation tax relief.<\/p>\n I. Current state general fund spending (FY2010-11) is $30.7 billion<\/p>\n II. State revenue projections expect revenue to grow to $32.9 billion in FY2012-13<\/p>\n III. State government can perform its necessary functions within $33 billion over the next two years.<\/p>\n 2. Reprioritize unsustainable, run-away human services spending to focus on the most vulnerable.<\/p>\n i. Refocus spending on programs for children and seniors which have been historically underfunded.<\/p>\n ii. Work with the legislature to reform programs for adults.<\/p>\n iii. Health and Human Services will total $9.6 billion; a $500 million increase in state funding.<\/p>\n 3. Reform the relationship between state and local governments.<\/p>\n i. Reform Local Government Aid to focus solely on public safety and critical infrastructure needs.<\/p>\n ii. Give local governments relief from state mandates.<\/p>\n Put state government bureaucracies on a diet.<\/p>\n I. Cut bureaucracies and programs which are not fundamental to state government\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n II. Reduce the government workforce through attrition and early-retirement.<\/p>\n III. Merge agencies to streamline decision making and reduce costs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n More – very, very much more – coming tomorrow.<\/p>\n But the important part is this; \u00a0the Emmer Budget does what Mark Dayton doesn’t have the guts or institutional wisdom to do; it cuts spending. \u00a0It pushes government to do better with what it can afford – meaning “what we the people can afford in these miserable economic times”.<\/p>\n Emmer attacks the disease. \u00a0Dayton merely throws other peoples’ money at the symptoms.<\/p>\n This is a game-changer.<\/p>\n Tomorrow in Shot In The Dark: <\/strong>The Emmer Budget Plan in detail, suitable for passing on to your friends, family and co-workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As this is rolling out, Tom Emmer is releasing the long-awaited Part 3 of the plan for his Administration – the re-engineering of how Minnesota government works. It’s called “Living Within Our Means”, and it’s a tall order. Here are the basics: Minnesota Government Needs Fundamental Reform: Government must start to live within its means, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[312],"class_list":["post-13488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-10","tag-mngov-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13488"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13491,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13488\/revisions\/13491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}