{"id":20103,"date":"2011-05-20T11:05:20","date_gmt":"2011-05-20T17:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=20103"},"modified":"2012-04-08T11:02:35","modified_gmt":"2012-04-08T16:02:35","slug":"chanting-points-memo-targeting-the-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=20103","title":{"rendered":"Chanting Points Memo: Targeting The Cities"},"content":{"rendered":"

The “first class” cities – Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth – are, predictably,\u00a0howlin’ mad<\/a> over the proposal to return Local Government Aid (LGA) to its original purpose – help out poor communities.<\/p>\n

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Both the GOP-controlled House and Senate this week passed a tax plan that would cut the amount of local government aid that cities across the state are certified to receive this year by 26 percent or $137 million.<\/p>\n

Republicans say the effort is needed to balance the state’s budget deficit. But critics say it’s a politically charged move aimed at crippling urban centers — which are largely governed by Democrats.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s buncombe, of course. \u00a0The cities crippled themselves.<\/p>\n

The linked piece – by MPR’s Laura Yuen – is balanced enough, but it’s clearly cribbed this next bit from a DFL or League of Minnesota Cities (pardon the redundancy) handout:<\/p>\n

LGA was part of a series of tax reforms in the ’70s known as the “Minnesota Miracle.” It was designed to pay for basic services — from parks to public safety — that cities with greater needs couldn’t cover through property taxes alone. The idea was no matter where you lived in Minnesota, your quality of life would be consistent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The key part Yuen left out – it was initially aimed at small, poor outstate cities <\/em>with smaller, aging tax bases. \u00a0At the time, the Twin Cities were wealthy – booming, even.<\/p>\n

And that’s where things start to break down.<\/p>\n

Here’s the quote that set me off. \u00a0Saint Paul mayor Chris Coleman said:<\/p>\n

“If the leadership of the Republican Party wants to come and look through my budget, tell me how many cops they want me to lay off, tell me how many fire stations they want me to close, tell me how many libraries I’m supposed to close. The fact of the matter is they’re governing in ignorance. They don’t know what we do. They have a mythology of what cities do. They have a mythology of where we spend our money.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I think Coleman is being tongue in cheek – there are most certainly Republicans in Saint Paul who’d be happy to take him up on that very offer, and none of us have heard from him yet.<\/p>\n

But let’s say he has a point; let’s say the Saint Paul budget – notwithstanding its electric cars<\/a> and loafing employees<\/a> and brand-new indoor ice rinks in a city that is below freezing seven montsh a year \u00a0– really is <\/em>cut to the bone. \u00a0 Maybe, in that case, it’s not a spending problem.<\/p>\n

Maybe the problem is that Saint Paul – and Minneapolis and Duluth – once prosperous cities, don’t have enough tax base to support the spending they want.<\/p>\n

And there’s the problem; the governments of the Big Three cities – Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Duluth – have been doing their best to become poor cities.<\/p>\n

Not, perhaps, in the sense that they actually sat down and tried to dive into a vortex of crime and poverty; that’d be a silly claim. \u00a0Probably.<\/p>\n

But looking at the history of the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota from the 1960’s through today, it’d be hard to say how the DFL majorities would have governed differently if they had <\/em>been trying to flense their cities of prosperity and gut them of vitality:<\/p>\n