{"id":25679,"date":"2012-01-18T12:10:42","date_gmt":"2012-01-18T18:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=25679"},"modified":"2012-01-18T06:47:21","modified_gmt":"2012-01-18T12:47:21","slug":"kombucha-out-koolaid-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=25679","title":{"rendered":"Kombucha Out; Koolaid In"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Strib<\/em>, mirabile dictu<\/em>, reaches the same conclusion I did<\/a> about Dayton’s “Jerbs Bill”, although a good deal more gently in this editorial<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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

Last week, Dayton dressed up his biennial bonding request as a “jobs bill,” and linked it with another short-term stimulus idea: a proposed one-time tax credit for employers who hire a new veteran or recently graduated or unemployed Minnesotan before June 30, 2013.<\/p>\n

That credit — $3,000 this year, $1,500 the first half of next year — is probably too small to convince employers to shoulder the long-term commitment that hiring entails. Dayton would do better to focus on building long-term prosperity, and to cast his bonding bill in that light.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which is exactly what I wrote on Friday. \u00a0 The tax credit – as Ed pointed out on the show on Saturday – might reinforce some larger companies’ decisions to make hires they were going to make anyway, but it’s not going to affect small-business hiring in any substantial way.<\/p>\n

The Strib<\/em>; last week’s criticism of Dayton, next week.<\/p>\n

But they’re all aboard with the $775,000,000 bonding bill – which is actually on top of the $500,000,000 in bonds floated in the last session. \u00a0They just think it’s the wrong argument:<\/p>\n

But the argument Dayton made Tuesday as he unveiled his wish list was backwards.<\/p>\n

“This bonding proposal is about putting thousands of unemployed Minnesotans back to work,” the DFL governor said at the top of his media briefing.<\/p>\n

Only after touting the short-term gain for the construction industry that comes from state building projects did Dayton add: “The bill is also about investing in the future of our state.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s not often I shrug my shoulders and say the Strib <\/em>got something right. \u00a0But they are; Dayton’s “Jerbs Bill” at best <\/em>creates a few thousand temp jobs (almost entirely to benefit his construction union benefactors) that we’ll be paying for for the next three decades.<\/p>\n

But the Republicans make a good point: Short-term construction job gains — even the 21,700 jobs Dayton says his proposal would create — aren’t sufficient reason for the state to shoulder 30 years of debt service.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, bonding is a perfectly legitimate activity for state government; we’ve always paid for our major projects with the even-year-session bonding. \u00a0If we’re smart, that bonding pays for long-term capital expenses we actually need.<\/p>\n

So what’s the shopping list of things that’ll foster all this long-term happiness?<\/p>\n

For example, $42 million is devoted to clean-water infrastructure projects requisite to industrial expansion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s worth looking at.<\/p>\n

Higher-education buildings, many of them sites for science and technology education, comprise 22 percent of Dayton’s recommended total.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When the Strib<\/em>\u00a0throws in the “…many of them…” qualifier, it means it’s time to look the bill over; I suspect there’s a “Many more of them are site for administrative deadwood and PC fripperies”.<\/p>\n

Investing $25 million to repair local bridges draws down $50 million in federal funds while keeping goods moving to markets.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Remember when the 35W Bridge collapsed? \u00a0All the caterwauling the Dems did about the need to update the state’s most critical infrastructure?<\/p>\n

That’s about 3.3% of the bonding bill.<\/p>\n

And guess what is going to get exactly the same amount of money<\/em>?<\/p>\n

The biggest lever for federal and local funds is the $25 million Dayton asks the Legislature to authorize for the next leg of the Twin Cities’ light-rail network, running southwest from downtown Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

That’s a sufficient match to net $225 million in local and federal funds, a major down payment on a 15-mile rail link between Minneapolis and Eden Prairie.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And so there’s your DFL priorities; as much money spent on a nearly-useless train (albeit marginally \u00a0more useful than the two we’re already stuck with) that will shackle Minnesotans to generations of long-term spending<\/a> (expense and capital) for virtually no benefit is exactly on par <\/em>with repairing the bridges that the vast majority of us use daily, and that all of our commerce depends on.<\/p>\n

Dayton’s package is unabashedly pro-downtown — not just downtown Minneapolis, but also St. Paul, Rochester, Mankato and St. Cloud. He’s backing Nicollet Mall’s renovation, a new baseball “regional sports facility” in St. Paul, and long-postponed business-backed civic center projects in Rochester, Mankato and St. Cloud.<\/p>\n

History teaches the value of keeping downtowns strong, Dayton said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

History may show it, but it probably won’t show it for very long<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There’s a place for bonding bills; building the infrastructure this state needs.<\/p>\n

The Strib <\/em>editorial board points out several times that Dayton’s emphasis on the plan’s dubious job benefits is a “mistake”. \u00a0Their intent is right, but their description is wrong.<\/p>\n

The SEIU, AFSCME, Teamsters, MFT, IFO, MAPE, IBEW and the various trade unions all paid lots <\/em>of good money to get Dayton into office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Strib, mirabile dictu, reaches the same conclusion I did about Dayton’s “Jerbs Bill”, although a good deal more gently in this editorial: Last week, Dayton dressed up his biennial bonding request as a “jobs bill,” and linked it with another short-term stimulus idea: a proposed one-time tax credit for employers who hire a new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[117,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dayton-dustbowl","category-the-incredible-shrinking-governor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25679","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=25679"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25687,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25679\/revisions\/25687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}