{"id":4827,"date":"2009-05-23T07:26:18","date_gmt":"2009-05-23T12:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4827"},"modified":"2011-09-01T08:00:43","modified_gmt":"2011-09-01T13:00:43","slug":"the-pen-of-pawlenty-a-beacon-for-conservatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4827","title":{"rendered":"The Pen of Pawlenty: A Beacon for Conservatives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Governor Pawlenty&#8217;s discipline is tutelage for Republicans everywhere.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB124295250785545573.html#mod=djemEditorialPage\">Congressional Republicans<\/a> &#8212; the ones who got tossed because of their embrace of spending and earmarks &#8212; might start looking for a message up north. Fiscal responsibility? &#8220;It is the fundamental tenet of our party, and the conservative coalition more broadly,&#8221; says Mr. Pawlenty, nicely. &#8220;If we don&#8217;t have that, we are nothing.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>If Republicans are looking to get back their conservative groove, they could do worse than study Minnesota&#8217;s budget brawl. Mr. Pawlenty deftly (and amusingly) outmaneuvered his Democratic opposition, not only saving his state from huge tax increases but clearing the way to cut government spending. Call it a refreshing break from the financial-crisis norm.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>While liberal TV ads equate fairness with sticking it to the &#8220;rich&#8221;&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;Mr. Pawlenty kept voicing three simple principles. &#8220;Number one, we must have [because of the constitution] and should have a balanced budget,&#8221; he told me. &#8220;Number two, the state government needs to live within its means, just like everybody else. Number three, we shouldn&#8217;t raise taxes in the worst recession in 60 years.&#8221; Minnesota already has one of the highest tax burdens in the nation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>While in Washington, Comrade Obama increases the Federal Government and National Debt at unprecedented speed&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>this will be one of the first times in modern Minnesota history that the state will reduce the size of government in real terms, not just slow its rate of growth. &#8220;The correlation in recent history has been between job growth and states that have reasonable government cost structures,&#8221; he says. These cuts, he says, will position Minnesota to take advantage of the recovery when it comes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A Crisis Not Wasted<sup>\u2122<\/sup>\u00a0indeed, Governor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Governor Pawlenty&#8217;s discipline is tutelage for Republicans everywhere. Congressional Republicans &#8212; the ones who got tossed because of their embrace of spending and earmarks &#8212; might start looking for a message up north. Fiscal responsibility? &#8220;It is the fundamental tenet of our party, and the conservative coalition more broadly,&#8221; says Mr. Pawlenty, nicely. &#8220;If we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,144,2,13,74],"tags":[154],"class_list":["post-4827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatism","category-governor","category-minnesota-politics","category-republicans","category-the-great-recession","tag-pawlenty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4827","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=4827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22579,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4827\/revisions\/22579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}