{"id":19349,"date":"2011-04-13T11:00:53","date_gmt":"2011-04-13T16:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=19349"},"modified":"2011-10-12T13:04:48","modified_gmt":"2011-10-12T18:04:48","slug":"chanting-points-memo-how-are-they-bogus-let-us-count-the-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=19349","title":{"rendered":"Chanting Points Memo: How Are They Bogus? Let Us Count The Ways"},"content":{"rendered":"

You remember the old lawyer’s bromide; “if the facts are against you, argue law; if the law is against you, argue facts; if both are against you, argue like hell”.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The DFL is arguing like hell.<\/p>\n

The Dayton Administration and the various DFL cauci\u00a0 have been claiming that the GOP’s budget proposal is a billion dollars short – based on numbers from Minnesota Management and Budget.\u00a0 As we pointed out the other day<\/a>, MMB is run by Commissioner Schowalter, who was appointed by Governor Dayton and serves at his discretion.\u00a0 And its forecasting methods, according to a legislator closely involved in the process, are highly sclerotic, well-calibrated to ring up costs but not to account for savings.<\/p>\n

And now – not only is MMB’s leadership not “non-partisan” (as the DFL and its minions continually claim), but either is its data<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Dayton administration engaged in a new level of hypocrisy today in the ongoing dispute over fiscal notes used to back up spending bills. Today\u2019s example: a fiscal note from Governor Dayton\u2019s Department of Administration regarding the photo ID bill which cited information from Common Cause Minnesota, an overtly partisan liberal group.<\/p>\n

The Department of Administration used numbers from a Common Cause Minnesota report to back up its contention that a multi-million dollar ad campaign is necessary to inform the public about a new photo ID requirement at the polls. They also used information from two other outside groups cited in the Common Cause report, the Brennan Center for Justice and the Pew Center on the States.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which is a little like declaring the National Ketchup Board a “non-partisan” source in a bill aimed at making ketchup a mandatory part of school lunches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You remember the old lawyer’s bromide; “if the facts are against you, argue law; if the law is against you, argue facts; if both are against you, argue like hell”. The DFL is arguing like hell. The Dayton Administration and the various DFL cauci\u00a0 have been claiming that the GOP’s budget proposal is a billion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,117,144,132],"tags":[143],"class_list":["post-19349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chanting-points-memo","category-dayton-dustbowl","category-governor","category-mn-legislature","tag-common-cause"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19349","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=19349"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23496,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19349\/revisions\/23496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}