{"id":15361,"date":"2010-11-14T10:33:29","date_gmt":"2010-11-14T15:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=15361"},"modified":"2010-11-14T10:33:29","modified_gmt":"2010-11-14T15:33:29","slug":"thems-fightin-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=15361","title":{"rendered":"Them’s fightin’ words"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reading the Sunday Strib online (I buy a paper copy every once in a while for kindling)\u00a0 I find it amusing how the Strib words the following passages…emphasis mine…<\/p>\n

Minneapolis and St. Paul will face major budget deficits<\/a> if the state reneges<\/span><\/strong> on its local government aid (LGA), a program that helps pay for services in hundreds of Minnesota cities.<\/p>\n

Cities have to lock next year’s budgets into place in less than a month. Yet the governor’s race remains undecided, while Republicans have wrestled<\/strong><\/span> control of the Legislature from DFLers, and an estimated $6 billion state budget shortfall clouds the picture.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I might offer a revision for the former: if state legislators are forced to cut subsidies to cities not able to live within their means as the state itself now must?<\/p>\n

…and for the latter: as voters<\/em> wrestled control of a state legislature dominated by the DFL for decades and handed it to Republicans, ostensibly sending a message of confidence lost in the former and gained in the latter.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Nick Coleman (I am still surprised to see him gainfully employed) suffers from the same malady as President Obama: if only we had communicated our plans better, the American people would have voted differently.<\/em><\/p>\n

DFL legislators who never put up an effective fight against<\/a> the No New Tax mantra of Gov. Tim Pawlenty and never had a comprehensive strategy for communicating the goals of all their legislative maneuverings should share the credit for the GOP takeover.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or, they were actually, absurdly proposing resolving our employment and economic maladies by raising taxes and increasing spending and for the first time in decades, Minnesota said “Nyet!”<\/p>\n

It will be months before we know the full scope of the corporate politics behind the legislative takeover. We may never know the sources of much of the money, since anonymous contributions are permitted in the anything-goes political climate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Careful there Nick, remember if you point one there’s four pointing back at you.<\/p>\n

But one Democrat who felt the sting of the corporate lash was David Bly, a state representative from the cow-and-college precincts of Northfield who was seeking a third term. Bly, a high school English teacher, has been a leader in the fight for a universal health care plan for Minnesotans and other progressive causes. He was told by DFL Party leaders that his seat was safe, then stood by helplessly as business interests paid for an endless blizzard of attack ads — a dozen or more — that were mailed to voters in District 25B. Bly abided by spending limits for lawmakers — spending about $31,000 on his campaign — while the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce Leadership Fund, the Minnesota Coalition of Businesses, and something called NFIB, the National Federation of Independent Business, may, when final reports are in, turn out to have spent far larger amounts on behalf of his opponent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nick, don’t confuse the DFL’s inability to hear the train coming down the tracks with treachery on the part of their opponents.<\/p>\n

For the record, Bly has supported a balanced approach to state budgeting, including cuts and tax increases where necessary.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…and to a liberal legislator they’re always<\/em> necessary. Minnesotans seem to have rejected the notion that yet another tax hike is a “balanced” approach.<\/p>\n

So relax, everyone. Business is picking up. And business just picked up a new Legislature coming into office in January.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s right Nick, business – you know, the sector that actually creates jobs and pays taxes.<\/p>\n

Many of the new lawmakers probably don’t even know where the Capitol is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…only Nick Coleman and his ilk would think that’s a bad <\/em>thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading the Sunday Strib online (I buy a paper copy every once in a while for kindling)\u00a0 I find it amusing how the Strib words the following passages…emphasis mine… Minneapolis and St. Paul will face major budget deficits if the state reneges on its local government aid (LGA), a program that helps pay for services […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,20,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-10","category-democrats","category-minnesota-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15361","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\/228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15361"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15379,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15361\/revisions\/15379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}