Remember the last Metro Transit strike?

The left and media (pardon the redundancy) predicted Armageddon. The poor, deprived of buses and – so the DFL and media (ptr) seemed to believe) – too stupid to adapt, would starve in their public housing.

“If you don’t get Happy To Pay For A Bigger MCTC Contract, the blood of the innocents will be on you!”

Now, in the first line of this piece, I ask if you “remember the transit strike”; it occurs to me that while it’s a rhetorical question, there might be a literal answer. The strike went (I had to look it up)  six weeks, and by about week three it was pretty clear that Metro Transit really didn’t command either the love or the market share that their press told them they did; people adapted, congestion lessened, and petty crime actually dropped.

The Teamsters wound up settling for less of a contract than they’d asked for – largely because far from the predicted Armageddon, the strike showed how generally superfluous they were in most peoples’ lives.

———-

I’m not the first to make the observation; a conservative sees government as a means to an end.  To have a free market, we need government to enforce the rule of law; to enforce contracts, to protect private property from the depredations of criminals (unofficial and otherwise), and to provide those precious few services that the private sector can not (defense, law enforcement) or, through decades or centuries of possibly-misguided tradition, just doesn’t (roads, schools) do.

Liberals see government as the end; the One Big Eternal that makes all subsidiary things possible.  Over the years, I’ve seen liberals characterize government as everything from a parent presiding over its’ children, society (that’d be us), or as the beating heart and ticking brain of society’s body.

And exactly where, in theory, these two currents collide and interact is, in normal times, the sort of thing Craig Westover and Dave Schultz can debate about in front of a packed room full of wonks, with a cash bar and hors d’oeuvres to make the whole thing more palatable.

But these aren’t normal times.  Perhaps you’ve heard – not only is our national economy a mess (our state economy a little less so, thanks to eight years of Tim  Pawlenty – not that the DFL didn’t try their darnedest), but we have a sharply split government – all the sharper because the two sides, the GOP legislative majority and Governor Dayton, were sent to Saint Paul with clear mandates from their constituencies; “tame government” and “make people give us stuff for free”, respectively.

And the two sides, platitudes about “reaching across the aisle” notwithstanding, are showing no interest in compromise; Mark Dayton vetoed cutting money from the current budget to help deal with the current crisis, for crying out loud.

So there is a chance that, if the two can’t reach a compromise – and it’ll be difficult – tbe government may shut down.

If you’re a conservative, you probably suspect that’ll end up more or less like the transnit strike.

If you’re a liberal – well, you probably already read Jeff Rosenberg at MNPublius.  Jeff is, naturally, less sanguine about the whole “Shutdown” thing– and he thinks we conservatives should be, too:

Less then two weeks into the legislative session, the MNGOP held a hearing about a possible government shutdown, a clear sign of how they see this legislative session ending.

Well, it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to see that a strike is possible, given the circumstances.  I’d be mildly surprised if Dayton hasn’t done some contingency planning himself (although as out-of-his-depth as he seems, it’d only be a mild surprise).  The GOP contingent is drawn from people – businessmen, cops and the like – who actually have to plan for contingencies.  Cut ’em a break.

Governor Dayton, in a clear sign of his priorities, used his State of the State speech to ask that legislators pledge not to shut down the government:

I ask you, legislators; I invite you; I implore you — to join with me now, right here in our Capitol and pledge to the people of Minnesota that we will NOT shut down their government, our government — not next July 1st, not any July 1st, not any day ever.

Let’s let that one sink in a bit; the governor, “as a clear sign of his priorities” (Jeff’s phrase, not mine) asked the GOP to pledge…

…to blink.

In other words, when push comes to shove – and it likely will – to shut up and give the Governor his way.

Not a word on his own commitment to compromise.  Not a word on deferring to the wisdom of the legislature, directly elected by the people, over that of the union bosses and special interests.

As their hearing early in the session shows, Republican lawmakers don’t seem at all interested in making that pledge. In fact, they seem to be looking forward to the shutdown. Why? Conservative blogger Mitch Berg expressed their thoughts succinctly:

Long story short, DFL: We don’t NEED to compromise; if gov’t shuts down, *you* lose. Not us.

Jeff is nothing if not reliably imprecise; not “Jeff Fecke”-style “comically wrong”, but just not quite right.

The GOP majority was sent to Saint Paul on a mission; tame government.   Taking the governor’s “pledge” – saying “forget about our voters!  Forget our constituents! We’re her for you, Lord Fauntelroy!” before the Governor had released a single (workable) budget! – would be a deeply stupid thing to do under normal circumstances.

And the circumstances are not normal.  The GOP majority is faced by a very weak governor – whose strings are being pulled by a very powerful clacque of sponsors; the teachers’, government and service unions, the media, the state’s academic establishment from K through PhD, the whole phalanx of non-profits.  The weak governor is being inveigled to boost state spending by a solid 25%, and balance the spending orgy on the backs of the state’s most productive citizens.

And they’re supposed to take “the pledge” – and give up their ultimate bargaining chip, and basically tell their voters “sorry about all that “taming government” rhetoric, we didn’t really mean it that much!”?

But is he right? I think he’s miscalculating the potential impact of a shutdown.

Of course, to some extent, it depends on how Berg defines “lose.” Does he mean politically, or ideologically?

I mean, of course, both.

In terms of policy and the impact on the state, the DFL would lose. We believe the government is a force for good in many people’s lives [!!! – Ed]. So we would certainly see it as a loss if road maintenance stopped, if aid to the poor dried up, if thousands of people were denied healthcare, and so on. Today’s Republican party, on the other hand, would welcome that.

But that’s not what I think he means.

Well, not in the sense Jeff seems to intend – “Today’s GOP hates the poor and wants to destroy infrastructure and kill grandma while they’re at it!”.  Of course not.

But Jeff’s case  – and it is that of the DFL and its minions – is based on a couple of fundamental bits of rhetoric that are utterly illogical, but are being spun to try to inflame the maximum possible emotional response from voters.   They want the GOP to fold its hand now, before the budget is released (actually, it will have been released a few hours before this post appears – it is currently 5:30AM), and at all costs avoid all mention that the real choice – the choice that the Governor and his minions, Jeff included, are trying so hard to keep the voter from comprehending – is not between a 25% tax and spending hike and complete desolation, but between a 25% hike and a 6% hike – the $32 billion 2010-2011 budget that we’re living under, plus the forecast $2 billion in new revenue coming in from the Minnesota economy – combined with a fundamental realignment of how Minnesota government does its budgeting, so that we stop pretending that we, the taxpayers, were put on this earth to be the DFL’s ATM machine.

The Governor, the DFL, and all of their minions and stakeholders and hangers-on and Jeff Rosenberg too, want to make damn sure you, the voter, don’t see it that way.

I think he’s talking about the political fallout of a shutdown. And it’s not at all clear to me that the MNGOP would win that battle. The people of Minnesota have shown time and time again that they believe government has a vital role to play. Not only do they support that, they’re willing to pay for it.

Willing to pay?  Perhaps – to a point.

Willing to have that bill jacked up by 20+% per biennium? By 2-10x as fast as the economy grows?

Does Jeff think the people are that willing to pay?

You do remember how many DFLers got sent home last November, don’t you?

Actually, they already do pay for it. It’s the rich in Minnesota that still aren’t paying their fair share. Will Minnesotans support the Republican party going to the mat to keep the rich from having to pay the same percentage of their income in taxes as the rest of us do?

That paragraph is the consummate chanting point (“Chanting Point:  (Noun)  Similar to a “talking point”, but intended to be recited by rote (often as part of large real or virtual crowds) rather than critically analyzed”).   What it’s saying is “you people – the “rich” who make over $130K a year – have something we want; we want your hard work to benefit us – never mind that you already pay most of the cost of government at all levels from local through federal, while over a third of us pay nothing but sales taxes; you should feel shame, and donate your hard work to filling our needs”.

Do “the people” get that?  See last November 2 again.

Remember, although Americans often express our desire to cut government spending, there’s very little we actually support cutting when it comes to specifics. That’s why a shutdown is so overwhelmingly unpopular: everybody has programs they support, none of which are spared.

Leaving aside that it’s not true – the last “shutdown” actually only shut down around a third of state government operations – I think that’s one of the lessons of this past election; people, especially the ones that pay attention, are willing to do with less government, including “their” programs – and especially “their” programs staffed by people who get paid more than they do, and with gold-plated pensions who bitch to high heaven about being asked to pay a $5 copay to visit a doctor.

(“But wait – the people also elected Dayton!  They must like paying more taxes!” Well, some of them do – maybe the 20-25% that are genuine hard-core DFLers.  Dayton won on name ID, and as an uninformed response to the DFL’s toxic, sleazy anti-Emmer campaign, and most likely by not a few fraudulent votes; the voters “voted for taxes” with Dayton as much as they “voted for crazy and petulant” with Jesse Ventura).

Add to that a side of incompetence for allowing the government to shut down, and it’s a recipe for unpleasantness.

Just like the transit strike was.

So there certainly will be consequences. But on whom will they fall? They’ll fall on the party that refuses to budge, that protects the rich at the expense of the rest of us, and that chortles in glee as the government shuts down.

Nobody’s “chortling with glee”.

Just refusing to blink.

Yesterday in the blog, while discussing the holes I suspect we’ll see in Governor Dayton’s budget to be released this morning, commenter “MyGovIsNuts” proposed a bit of a game to figure out what the Governor will do in his budget:

#1: Blame Pawlenty

#2: NOT blame the previous House and Senate (in DFL control)

#3: Protect LGA for his buddies in Minneapols, St. Paul, and Duluth

#4: Raise income taxes on at least one bracket

#5: Open sales taxes to other items

#6: Blame Pawlenty again

#7: Refuse to defund or reduce one labor position in state government

To that, I’ll add:

• Propose the new 10-11% bracket for “the rich” – couples making over $130K
• “Cut contractors” – which will, inevitably, mean more union government permanent
• All day kindergarten, more “early childhood ed”…
• Lots of talk about “jobs” – for AFSCME, SEIU, MFT and Teamsters workers.

Your predictions?

The region’s DFL, media (pardon the redundancy) and the leftyblogs that fill in the very, very few gaps between them have been spending the past few weeks grousing impotently about the Legislature’s GOP majorities’ “piecemeal” approach to tackling the budget, including the $6.2 billion deficit that is not.

The chanting point campaign reached its peak last week, with Governor  Dayton demanding in his State of the State that the GOP majority send him a unified budget proposal.

The DFL/media/leftyblog (ptr) chanting has coalesced been commissioned along three lines:

1. Let’s just tackle the budget in one fell swoop!
2. The GOP needs to get their budget in front of the governor now (in the aforementioned fell swoop)
3. Governor Pawlenty didn’t let the DFL submit a piecemeal budget!

All three lines are, of course, absurd – the sort of thing you expect from a group fighting a rear-guard battle against logic itself.

Let’s break it down:

The Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins With A Single Step:  If you hear a rattling under your car’s hood, what do you do?  Hoist the engine out of the frame and start whacking it with a sledgehammer?  Or start taking it apart, piece by piece, until you find what’s broken?

If you’re a DFLer, apparently, “A”.

The “one big budget” approach is of a piece with the Democrat strategy from DC all the way down to your local city council; submit spending bills that are so unimaginably huge that, to closely paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, “you have to pass them to know what’s in them”.

We don’t have to do that.  The MNGOP caucuses could do it, but they do not have to.   There is no legal, ethical, moral or traditional requirement that the GOP submit a budget in one big, ready-to-veto blob.

Indeed, since the GOP was sent to Saint Paul to kick ass and take names, it makes perfect sense for them to tear the budget, and its reforms, down into its component parts.  We’ve discussed this, and we will no doubt discuss it again.

Long story short; it makes zero difference if the GOP puts forth a bill with a $34 billion budget, or (hypothetically) 34 billion $1 bills.  Or something in between.

Zero.

And if your co-workers or relatives say that there is, please ask them why.  And watch them melt down.

Patience: The DFL is trying to pull the same infantile trick on the GOP majority (and, more germane, on The People) that they tried to pull on the Emmer campaign (and The People); trying to browbeat the GOP into putting its budget proposal (in the form of one and only one bill, thankewverymuch) in front of the governor now.

There is no statutory reason for this.  There is no reason at all – save a political one.  The DFL knows that they are over a barrel.  They are facing an energized majority operating with a crystal clear mandate; cut taxes and spending.  And that majority has come out of the gate this past five weeks like the Green Bay Packers’ pass rush, and focused on the goal – balancing the budget through cuts and revenue growth.

Against that, what do they have?  Browbeating and playing the spin game via their friends (and, often as not, future employees) in the media.

The only requirement?  That the budget be in place this summer.

And, caterwauling aside, the GOP was tackling budget issues the moment the first gavel dropped; King Banaian’s HF2 – the second bill on the agenda – will be, if not a revolutionary change in the way our government works, at least a walloping kick in the evolutionary pants.  It will set the status quo on its ear.  More on that in a separate post.

The DFL’s bellyaching about the GOP’s timing is nothing but a diversion for the not-very-well-informed – and they already vote DFL.

Get The Waaaaaahmbulance: “Governor Pawlenty didn’t allow a piecemeal budget – why should Governor Dayton?” is the other line of “reasoning”.

The situations could hardly be different, of course.

The DFL majorities in the last two sessions didn’t really try to submit “piecemeal” plans, as such; there were really two pieces.  The first, the DFL’s budgetary wish list.  They wanted to get that wish list passed first, to get it written into law bright and early.

Then, later in the session, they wanted to actually come up with the money to pay for it all.

Sort of like trying to buy a house first, and submitting your income documentation later.  We tried that in this country.  Notice how well it worked?  Governor Pawlenty sure did.  That’s why he sent the DFL majority back to the woodshed.

The GOP is doing the exact opposite.  The majority is figuring out the money first, and winnowing down the “wish list” to fit inside it – trying to start, indeed, with money from the current budget that hasn’t even been spent yet (a proposal that the Governor vetoed last week, citing his disdain for “piecemeal” budgeting, and showing his fundamental unseriousness when it comes to really controlling the deficit as opposed to trying to buy time for the DFL).

The rhetoric of the governor and the DFL minority is not the rhetoric of people who are interested in getting serious about this state’s economy.  Your job, and your childrens’ economic future in this state, comes in well behind making sure government wants for not the slightest thing.

If we’d played a drinking game during Dayton’s State of the State message that involved taking a hit every time the Governor mentioned education, and killing the container whenever he mentioned Early Childhood Ed, then none of us would have made it back to work.

Matt Abe at North Star Liberty noticed this too (albeit maybe not in exactly the same terms).

The governor’s seven-point education plan is not content with dedicating one or two of these points to early childhood education, he embeds “ready for K” goals into five of them:

• Invest in Early Childhood and All-Day Kindergarten
• Target All-Day Kindergarten
• Expand existing K-12 system into a comprehensive pre-K-12 system
• Adopt pre-K – 3 reading standards
• Support early childhood teacher observation and development
• Reauthorize Statewide Early Childhood Advisory Council and reestablish Children’s Cabinet
• Charge Commissioner of Education with leadership of early childhood initiatives

Considering the state’s barely ten-month old kindergarten-readiness study, this obsession with pre-K seems odd.

The Minnesota School Readiness Study found that between 91 percent and 97 percent of Minnesota five-year-olds were In Process or Proficient in five developmental areas necessary for school success: physical development, the arts, personal and social development, language and literacy, and mathematical thinking. This compares to last year’s study with numbers between 87 percent and 96 percent. The increases are within the margin of error between the two years.

When you couple these findings with national empirical studies on Head Start and other preschool programs that show little if any benefit to pre-K programs, you may wonder why Governor Dayton is so bent on a significant expansion of government pre-K and all-day kindergarten.

But that “wonder” is purely rhetorical…:

Dayton’s myopic focus on pre-K and kindergarten to the exclusion of other education reforms such as streamlining the process for sponsors of successful charter schools to open new sites, and education tax credits is a missed opportunity for much-needed education reform for Minnesota students and families. Dayton’s omissions provide an excellent opportunity for the Republican majorities in the Legislature to display some leadership in state education policy initiatives.

The big worry:  If there’s an area where Republicans, especially some of the longer-serving ones, are vulnerable to getting browbeaten, it’s the broad subject of education.

And this is an area where the GOP’s strategy of handling the budget in many small component pieces is going to be important.  Telling a wobbly legislator “why do you hate children” is one thing; trying to browbeat a legislator into supporting, say, a specific program with real-life empirical consequences is a whole ‘nother thing.

Early Childhood Education is a particularly, cynically noxious fixation.  It just doesn’t work; we knew it twenty years ago, and we know it even more today.  The only thing is succeeds at…

…is putting new Education Minnesota members to work, with lifetime pensions.

Which is what it’s all about.

I’m reviewing Governor Dayton’s first “State of the State” address.

Failure To Meet Me Halfway Is Like The Taliban Attacking Us, Or Something: Dayton kicked off with an invocation of 9/11 , and Bush’s invocation that “we are all united, and the nation has never been stronger”.

Curiously, he jumped from there to scolding the assembled Republicans; “The challenges we face threaten to overwhelm us”.  He scolded us on even thinking about shutting down government, demanding a pledge not to shut down the state government. As if keeping government going at all costs is the sole goal.  “It should not happen, and it need not happen”, as long as we “compromise our wills for the common good”.   And if we do so, we can tell the people “we succeeded”.   “If we succeed, the people will win.  If we fail, they will lose.  It’s that simple”.

Tax Cuts Equal Stagnation: Dayton noted that Minnesota’s per-capita income dropped, after the Ventura and Pawlenty tax cuts.  (Pay no attention the 2001 and 2008 recessions – or the fact that Minnesota started high up the list, and remains there.  Thanks, Governor Pawlenty!)

Give The Teachers Union What They Want, Or The Kids Get It!: Dayton next turned to the need to “invest” in education, bemoaning the cutbacks in Lakeville and the ten districts that have had to put children to work in the coal mines.  Er, wait – have had to cut back to four day weeks.  My bad.

He then went on to introduce the Teacher of the Year, and about 2/3 of Minnesota’s Superintendents, who seemed to be gathered in the gallery.  Interesting to note that the Teacher of the Year teaches at Maxfield, a school that has flunked its “No Child Left Behind” numbers for recent memory.

He then reiterated his promise to “increase K12 every year, no excuses, no exceptions”.

The Dayton Jobs Program: At this point in the speech, it seems to  largely involve schools; all-day kindergarten, early childhood education, and more.  He indulges in his regional snobbery – “how can Alabama have all day kindergarten, and we don’t?”  Should that be telling us something?

“Don’t You Dare Criticize My Owners!”: “For too long, teachers have been battered by criticisms of their service”.   Battered?  By your leave, your highness, may I, a mere taxpayer, speak?

Job Program Redux:  “We are falling behind in every key measure…” of transit construction.

“Roads and public transit are to the state what arteries are to the body”.   Naturally, we should spend 40% of our medical bill on expensive but low-capacity “arteries”…

Dayton is proposing bringing together more blue-chip panels of “experts” to come up with the real answer to fixing infrastructure.

Kissing Babies, Recognizing Soldiers: The ovations – apparently bipartisan – for SSGT Wenzel, his PFC son, and Red Bulls commander Col. Krska (sp?), and Police Officer of the Year Adam Bailey were by far the longest of the day.

I can go along with that.

MPR’s Mike Mulcahy: “the governor is certainly taking advantage of his prerogative to invite guests; he has about a dozen in the gallery”.

And…huh?:  Next came a screeching turn from defense and law enforcement to…health care?

Dayton asks rhetorical question: “the most daunting challege: how do we improve services without spending more?”   He wants to “provide the best private sector practices with public sector expertise” to make Minnesota the best in the world.   That should be interesting.  “It’ll succeed best if we cooperate with our state employees…treating them with the dignity and respect they deserve will be essential to our success”.  I read that as “hands off all government employment, bennies and pensions”.

And Now, More Job Program Talk!: “We need business to create more jobs…partner with education and government”.  “We are determined to streamlining permitting…while protecting the environment”.   Unfortunately, he notes, he was MPCA Commissioner Aussen on the case.  I call it a potemkin effort.

We Need To Spend Money To Save Money:  Dayton plugged his billion dollar bonding bill.  “A key factor in holding back recovery is the lack of construction jobs”.  In other words, let’s get those Teamsters paying their dues again!

We Want Business To Feel Appreciated: He notes that he’s asked the Depts of Ag, Tourism and, I dunno, Happy Thoughts to reach out to business.  I have a hunch it’ll be Dept. of Revenue that’ll be doing the reaching out…

“I stand ready to go anyplace in the state, nation or world…” to bring jobs to MN.

Want to emulate “Lean” business practices.

The Chase:  Dayton asks for “forbearance” from business, while he deals with the financial crisis, “which we inherited” from President Bush Governor Pawlenty.  He basically apologizes in advance for the budget he’s going to be submitted next week.

Because God Wants You To: Dayton cites bible verse, “to whom much has been given, much will be expected”, in leading up to his “tax the rich” proposal.  Mulcahy points out for the tenth time “more DFLes than Republicans” applauding…

And In Closing: “We were lefty a horrendous fiscal mess, a declining economy, and badly-managed state agencies”.  But if we do things his way, “we’ll retain our former greatness”.

Good thing that DFL legislature did such a spectacular job from 2009-2010!

Let’s Condense The Speech:  “I‘m going to raise taxes, and keep spending just like the times are good.  If you disagree, you are spitting on Tim Burnett’s grave.  We inherited the problem, so don’t blame me; just pony up“.

Response: Tim Pugmire interviewed Amy Koch afterward.  “When the governor called for tax increases, the response was nonexistent on the GOP side, and “tepid” even on the DFL side.  I think that tells us something about the reception he’ll get”.

Speaker Zellers: “The governor is looking backward for his solutions…from California to New York, governors are not raising taxes.  We need to adopt this in Minnesota, and not keep going back to get more from society”.

Pugmire talking with Paul Thissen: “I thought it was hopeful – that we can turn this state around again”.  Wow – we’re in the top of this nation on most rational measures; how much better do we need to be?

“I think the majority is pushing through some extreme bills that are not where Minnesotans are”.  The polls on November 2 might suggest differently, Rep. Thissen.

Times the word “Bipartisanship” (or similar) used: 5

Times the word “Compromise” (or similar) used: 3

Times the phrase “A Better Minnesota” – the PAC that his family, ex-wife and union masters – used: 6

Times the word “Invest”/”Investment” used: 12

Gary Gross liveblogged the SOTS here.

Dave Mindeman at mnpACT has his eyes on the GOP’s priorities:

Remember the good old days when the House and Senate GOP were going to make the budget and JOBS issue number one?

Actually you should remember….it was three weeks ago. But that was then, this is now….priorities seem to have changed:

Well, no.  And of course, HF1, the very first bill introduced in the session, which would reform the permitting process in Minnesota (and which Mindeman curiously ignores) does directly address those priorities.

And perhaps, being a DFLer, Mindeman thinks that the GOP should push a bill, perhaps one requiring companies to create jobs.  But debate over most of the real job-killers – regulation and taxes, especially corporate taxes – happens when we get into the budget process.  The GOP has a proposal out there.  Governor Dayton is waiting until February 15 – presumably because, as we discovered during the campaign, he hasn’t the foggiest idea what to do, other than “Tax the Rich”.

Still, leaving aside Mindeman’s selective choice of bills, the fact is the word “priorities” implies that there is more than one thing to be accomplished.  The MNGOP was sent to Saint Paul to do a whole bunch of things; jobs are the top priority; if it were the only objective, then there’d be no need to prioritize at all.

Mindeman cherry-picks some initiatives:

SRepublicans push photo I.D. bill

Republican legislators are using their new-found majorities in both chambers to push a bill to require photo identification at the polls.

Estimated Job generation: 0

Imagine how many jobs we’d create if we legalized fraud!

Union options could wind up on 2012 ballot

The proposed legislation would ask residents to vote on a constitutional amendment on whether workers should have the “freedom to decide to join or not join a labor union; to remain with or leave a labor union; and to pay or not pay dues” to a union, without the choice affecting their employment status.

Estimated Job generation: 0 (but you might get to work for less)

Well, maybe and maybe not.  One of unions’ key purposes is to restrict the supply of labor available in a given trade and area, to help keep prices high.

One of the DFL’s other memes on this issue is “now you can work for less”.  Well, that depends on how effective your union is, now, doesn’t it?

Partial smoking ban repeal introduced in House

A bill that would partially repeal Minnesota’s smoking ban has been introduced in the House. The legislation would allow smoking in bars provided they meet certain requirements.

Estimated Job generation: Possibly a few minimum wage jobs but probably offset by more health care costs

I’m going to guess that Mindeman has never worked as a server, and doesn’t know anyone who does.   Waiting can be minimum wage; it can pay six figures; most of all, it is a job with no entry requirements that, with effort and application, can pay just fine – just like any other trade.

But Mindeman seems not to care for the jobs that the smoking ban destroyed; the waitstaff laid off, the bars and restaurants closed.  Those jobs may or may not come back – but I’ll take my chances.  Real estimate of jobs created: hundreds and hundreds.

Hackbarth backing amendment protecting right to bear arms

Rep. Tom Hackbarth is proposing an amendment to the state’s constitution that would explicitly guarantee the right to bear arms. The proposal would essentially mimic the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in ensuring gun rights.

Estimated Job generation: 0

Civil rights are every bit as important as jobs.

Abortion emerging as major issue, lawsuit at Minnesota Capitol

Today, a bill restricting funding for abortion was submitted to the Minnesota Senate, co-sponsored by Koch. The bill, Senate File 103, is the first anti-abortion bill of the session.

Estimated Job generation: 0

Except that some of the babies saved will be the entrepreneurs that start the companies that’ll create the jobs that’ll generate the wealth that’ll be sapped by government to pay for Mindeman’s retirement.

Jobs generated: Countless.

After the election Senator Koch and Speaker Zellers were telling us how “focused” they would be. It wasn’t that long ago that these words were uttered…..

“If it doesn’t have anything to do with business and jobs, it shouldn’t be our first priority.” Rep. Kurt Zellers, the speaker of the Minnesota House

“There’s a lot of important issues and we will get to them. But the priority now is the budget, jobs, and the economy,” Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch

That was then….this is now… (and the way they were going to do it all along).

Dave Mindeman: Cross “clairvoyant” off of your future career options list.

And hang on.  February is going to rock.

Yesterday, after asking the House to hold off on holding hearings on HF1 (Rep. Dan Fabian’s bill to reform state permitting), Governor Dayton released an executive order that will do the same thing.

Well, that’s what the DFL and media (pardon the redundancy) will want you to think.

Dayton’s order will do a bunch of the streamlining that HF1 would do…

…with one absolutely key exception. Via Gary Gross at LFR, House Majority Leader Matt Dean said in a statement:

“Today’s executive order is concerning. Just a week ago, Governor Dayton was asking us to slow down and allow more time for public hearings and input.

In other words, the MNGOP reached across the aisle.  They gave a little procedural ground, and worked with the Governor.

And that’s always a mistake.

The Minnesota House has held two public hearings on HF1 and are planning a third hearing on this important legislation. We are concerned that Governor Dayton selected components of HF1 for his Executive Order, watered down some provisions and ignored key areas of reform.

We find his actions today to be counterproductive to the legislative process and his stated commitment to work together on these common ground issues. House Republicans will continue with our previously-announced public process for HF1 and other initiatives designed to make Minnesota’s business climate competitive. We hope Governor Dayton will join us in that endeavor.”

So compare HF1 and the statement.  What’s missing?

Any reference to reforming litigation.

It’s the litigation that not only kills projects, but blows up the price of  private-sector and state projects.

Now – given that Governor Dayton has stacked his administrative appointments with people whose entire public resume involves litigating development to death, what do you suppose his “executive order” is going to be worth?

Oh, yeah – and “executive orders” exist, and are enforced, at the pleasure of the governor.  What the governor orders with a swipe of his pen, he can un-order the same way.

The GOP needs to continue and pass HF1, and tell the Governor “thanks, but no thanks; we’ll stick with the brand name”.

The DFL’s “Forecast” for this biennium calls for a 37% increase in Health and Human Services (HHS) spending.

And the DFL is portraying any spending proposal less than a 37% increase as a “cut”.

And the media is, for the most part, carrying that meme without question.

Bob Collins at MPR does, in fact, question it, although his piece’s headline, “Despite warnings of cuts to child protection, House committee passes cuts in human services”, manages to hit the “decreasing the increase is a cut” and “the GOP is balancing the budget on the backs of womynandchyldryn and the poor” memes with admirable economy.

Jessica Webster, a staff attorney for Legal Aid, said the bill will hurt more than just children. “One of the things that’s frustrating, when we get these pieces of legislation, there’s nothing here that shows the people who receive these services,” she said. “Low-income people who are sick, who have serious injuries, poor people who have ill or injured children, battered women in battered women’s shelters, people living in homeless shelters, homeless youth, displaced homemakers, the developmentally disabled, people with low IQ, people who are mentally ill. All of these people are unable to work.”

The thing is, the GOP’s bill doesn’t “cut” anything from the previous budget.

But Republicans said they were not cutting the programs, since the programs had already been cut by lawmakers in their last-minute deal with then Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

“These folks having genuine needs, but over the last year or so, what this bill does just maintains… so what was done in the last year would be continuing,” Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer said. “You hear some of these phrases …. what we do is we make spending permanent.”

The bill continues the cuts to which Governor Pawlenty and the DFL-dominated legislature agreed in the last budget.

And it sends the message that HHS spending will not be going up by a over a third.

Health and Human Services are going to have to stretch their dollars further, just like the rest of us.

The Minnesota GOP yesterday put the Minnesota budget – for the current bienniium  – up on the hoist and start working:

Minnesota House and Senate Republicans today introduced an early action budget bill that takes immediate steps to reduce the budget deficit by $1 billion. The bill reduces spending for state agencies by $200 million in the current budget while making other one-time spending cuts permanent, reducing the long-term deficit by another $840 million. The early budget bill represents the first phase of the Minnesota Legislature’s budget balancing plan for the next two years.

The bulk of the changes involve making Governor Pawlenty’s unallotments permanent, and starting to tackle the issue of the absurd “autopilot” increases that have the less-curious in the media and most of the leftysphere chattering about “$6.2 billion deficits”:

“We need to prevent automatic spending increases that are included in the state government budget, and passing this budget bill will keep some of state government’s expenditures at current levels,” said House Ways and Means Committee Chair Mary Liz Holberg, R-Lakeville. “For the most part, the budget bill includes spending levels that were approved by the DFL-controlled Legislature and Republicans at the end of the 2010 legislative session,” said Holberg.

More on this budget – and the response from the DFL and media (pardon the redundncy) – tomorrow.

As I pointed out this morning, the notion of the “Budget Deficit” is at best a bit of manipulative spin; at worst, it’s an outright fraud on Minnesota voters and taxpayers.  Especially taxpayers.

We walked back a couple of the more toxic myths about the Minnesota budget this morning, including the thing all Real Minnesota Taxpayers have to keep trying to hammer home with your friends, relatives and neighbors; the “deficit” is a fraud.

And yet that’s only scratching the surface of the myths in this deeply abusive media meme.

“Were Balancing The Budget On The Backs Of The Poor”: On the one hand, Minnesota pays among the most-generous welfare benefits in the country – “good” enough to draw people to Minnesota to cash in. It’s seem we have some room to pare things back without really hurting anyone. But the statement itself is yet another fraud.

And on the other hand, if hard times call for shared sacrifice, then why are “the poor” exempt from…keeping their funding the same, or at the very most to an inflation-adjusted increase, as well as a trimming of the most gratuitous fat?

And by that, I mean as opposed to having “Health And Human Services funding  jacked up by, ahem, 37% – which is what the DFL-dominated Legislature “forecast” for the 2012-2013 biennium two years ago (see page 4 of this PDF file).

Is the DFL planning for 37% more poor  people?  Or are we going to subsidize the poverty we have 37% more?

“Holding The K-12 Budget SteadyWill Gut Education”:  Except that the DFL’s budget “forecast” planned to increase K-12 funding by 7.6% – with almost all of it going to increasing Teachers’ Union salaries and headcount.  It’s yet another case of the DFL trying not only to insulate its biggest constituency – government and its employees – from  the economy the rest of us have to live with.

Budget cuts will “force” property tax hikes: Yet another bit of fraud. Cuts to “Local Government Aid” will make local governments responsible for (more of) their own spending, which is currently taken care of by state taxpayers.  Local Government Aid was intended to help smaller, poorer cities afford some of the amenities they couldn’t afford – luxuries like water treatment, sewers, actual roads and the like.  It has become a subsidy of DFL-controlled city governments.

Indeed, the budget is chock-full of little deficit-building subsidies for one DFL favored class or another.  The legislature is going to be addressing quite a number of them – in the interest of controlling the deficit – soon.

Stay tuned.

I’ve been fiddling about with trying to find more oblique, writer-y ways to say it – but sometimes the direct approach is best.

Talk of a $6.2 Billion deficit is a fraud.  People who refer to is are mistaken at best, lying at worst.

What we have is not a $6.2 billion deficit.  It’s a little more like this:

Imagine you take your kids to McDonald’s once a week.  Your son, a budding DFLer, demands that you add a weekly trip to Murray’s for the family once a week.  You refuse.   Your idiot child goes to the media and tells them that you are “cutting the budget by $300 a week“.

What do you do?

Give the kids the trip to Murray’s and quit complaining?

You must be a DFLer.

The Budget Deficit Is Based On A Wish List: The “deficit” that the DFL and media – and even a few Republicans – are talking about is exactly the same thing. It’s assessed against the “2012-2013   Budget Forecast“.

Which, you may note, is a forecast.  Not a “budget”; a forecast.  The “budget” is something the legislature hashes out on odd-numbered years for the following even-and-odd-numbered pair of years (called a “biennium”); in 2009, the Legislature passted the budget for 2010 and 2011.

That, and only that, is the “budget”.

The “forecast”, on the other hand, is what the budget will be in the following biennium, assuming that the budget increases according to current assumptions, legal mandates, and legislative wishes.

So the forecast comes partly from “baseline budgeting” – starting with the current budget for a deparment and guesstimating how much more of that department’s “services” will be “needed”.  In some cases, there are legal mandates involved, And in most of them, there’s the DFL’s urge to leave  a huge budgetary turd the GOP’ doorstep.  Because whatever the cause, the DFL legislature that just got sent packing “forecast” the budget jumping from $30.266 billion to $38.591 billion – a 27.51% jump.

Did you increase your family budget 27.51%?

No.  And either did the government – yet.  Because the budget process – the one that leads us to the actual budget – just started, really, last week.

The “Structural Deficit” Is A Cop-Out: It is true that there are legal mandates to increase parts of the budget. The answer is deceptively simple; if you have a structural problem, the best – albeit not necessarily easiest – way to fix it is to fix the structure.  Put another way,   these mandates need to be reassessed, and most likely abolished. House File 2, sponsored by Rep. Banaian, will be a good start; it’ll start to chip away at the current practice of increasing spending for programs on autopilot; every government department will have to justify its spending and, in its most gratifyingly Scandinavian feature, sic the Legislative Auditor on state agencies with an aim toward sunsetting them when their usefulness has passed.

The most important thing to remember, though – and tell your co-workers and family members and neighbors, if the topic comes up – is, once again, this:

The “Budget Deficit” is a fraud.

For years, South Dakota’s been pilfing  jobs from high-tax Minnesota for years, in a campaign that features radio ads and billboards around the Twin Cities comparing the states’ various, very different tax philosophies.

It looks like we’ll be seeing more of these campaigns.  John Edwards was right – there are Two Americas.  One of them is the states that’ll deal with budget deficits by cutting their spending.  The other will do it by raising taxes.

Wisconsin is in the first America. Illinois – which just passed a series of tax hikes that have Genghis Khan’s ghost coming back from the great beyond to tell the Illinois legislature “look, subjects can only pay so much tribute…”

Kim Strassel notes the contrast:

Illinois this week earned the honor of becoming the first state in 2011 to sock it to taxpayers, passing a tax hike the size of Lake Michigan. Citizens cried out, legislators deflected, but the most interesting response came from neighboring Wisconsin, where newly elected GOP Gov. Scott Walker had three words for Illinois businesses: “Escape to Wisconsin.”

Across the country, dozens of new governors are taking office, fine-tuning state-of-the-state addresses, polishing budgets. With each event we are seeing a growing national divide.

On one side are wide swathes of the country that this past midterm elected reformers intent on slashing spending and reviving growth. On the other are the holdout pockets—Illinois, California, Massachusetts, Connecticut—drifting further into the abyss of tax and spend. The chasm has huge implications, not just for local and regional politics but for Washington.

Mr. Walker is painting that gulf as big as the Grand Canyon, this week blitzing the Chicago media markets to let suffering Illinois businesses know that while their governor, Pat Quinn, levies a 50% increase in corporate income taxes, Wisconsin is working to enact the total elimination of corporate income taxes for two years for firms that migrate. The “Escape to Wisconsin” line comes from an old tourism campaign, but Mr. Walker thinks it sums up the business choice perfectly. “We’re going to send out that line to every employer in the state of Illinois,” he tells me

Speaking of which – Governor Dayton announced he’ll have a budget ready by February 15.  Remember – the Governor has told the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce that business in the state is “undertaxed”.  If his “team” does the same job it did over the summer, it’s going to be a long winter for the Administration.

(Perhaps he’ll call his critics “anti-gay”, like he did during the campaign…)

Forbes says F the Twin Cities are the number four Job Market in the US:

“The Twin Cities, and Minnesota in general, has a much more diverse economy than many other parts of the nation,” said Vang. “While our heart goes out to all those individuals who are unemployed right now, our economy tends not to be as hurt as bad as nationally because we are never dependent on one sector. We didn’t extend ourselves as far out during the home mortgage crisis as other cities did so that gave us more breathing room for our economy to return.”

Hmmmm.

Of course, the market isn’t great for everyone:

One of the thousands hoping for an economic recovery is Riordan Frost, 22, of St. Paul. Eight months after college graduation, Frost is still looking for…

For what?

…a public policy job.

“Left college with high hopes, thinking ‘here I am world,’ and it turn out that way, sadly,” he said.

Maybe young Mr. Frost will take the opportunity to find a career someplace other than trying to run society.  At age twenty freaking two.

Frost tried plan B, which was looking for retail jobs and a job at movie theatres — all without luck. He is now working as an unpaid intern at the MN 2020 organization as a transportation policy associate.

Or maybe not.

Anyway – DAMN YOU, Governor Pawlenty.

Mark Dayton committed Minnesota – the most-insured state in the union, a state that already has comprehensive insurance assistance for the poor, and a state that is complaining of a “six billion dollar deficit” – to a third of a billion dollars in spending.

From a GOP caucus news release:

“There is legitimate cause for concern when actions are taken to add 95,000 people to any entitlement program. The policy in place removes all residency requirements and removes nearly all asset limits that were previously used to determine eligibility. This is a big step in the wrong direction,” said Senator Hann.

Early enrollment in to Medicaid has been estimated to cost $26.5 million from the General Fund budget for Fiscal Year 2011, depending on the time that it could be implemented. Upon Governor Dayton’s Executive Order, a far larger number of enrollees will be transferred into the program, leaving the state with an estimated net cost of $384 million.

On top of our already-immense social spending.

I have broken the Tenth Commandment.

Quotes from “the Governor”:

“Under our administration, state government will do only what is necessary – no more, no less,”

[in] his first day in office [the governor authorized his Attorney General] to join a lawsuit challenging federal health care reform. Democrats, who controlled state government until Monday, had prevented the…attorney general from doing that last year.

[the Governor] was interrupted 14 times by applause, the loudest and most sustained coming when he declared: “What is failing us is not our people or our places. What is failing us is the expanse of government. But we can do something about it right here, right now, today.”

[the Governor proposed legislators, in special session, move to] give tax breaks to business owners and income tax credits for contributions to health savings accounts; reduce business regulations; provide protections from lawsuits; give the governor more say in state rule making; turn the state Department of Commerce into a partly private entity to focus on job creation; and require a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of the Legislature to approve any increases to the state sales, income and franchise taxes.

[the Governor] also promised to improve education, protect natural resources, honor the role of family and “right-size state government by ensuring government is providing only the essential services our citizens need and our taxpayers can afford.”

“Let me be clear on one thing: Increasing taxes is off the table – as it will counter our efforts to provide economic growth”

“[This State] is open for business.”

Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Governor.

Meanwhile, back at the Batcave, Governor Dayton was heard to say

“Meow.”

Governor Dayton, as his first “substantial” act as governor, is going to put the state on the hook for hundreds of millions in permanent entitlement spending in exchange for thirty pieces of silver a short-term federal subsidy.

Twila Brase of the Citizens Council for Health Freedom writes:

On Tuesday, January 4th Wednesday, Januaray 5th at 9:30 a.m. Governor Mark Dayton is holding a special Obamacare signing ceremony to implement the federal law’s Medicaid expansion program.

So why protest?

The Medicaid expansion program funded by $1.4 billion federal taxpayer dollars will cost the State (YOU) $188 million in state taxpayer dollars. Federal dollars eventually disappear leaving Minnesota on the hook for all the newly entitled. The program is expected to increase Minnesota’s Medicaid population by 21% (163,000 people)…Other states have sued to stop the Obamacare Medicaid expansion mandate…Governor Dayton plans to implement it.

If you listen to the media or the leftyblogs, they make it sound like the $1,4 Billion is going to answer a lot of long-term problems.  It’s not – and the DFL and Dayton want to turn the short-term windfall into another never-ending obligation.

Just like they did with every single “surplus” from 1990 to 2002.

The protest will be in the Rotunda Room 130 of the State Capitol, the governor’s Lobby.  Please try to meet in Room 123, right off the Rotunda, by 9:00AM.  .

OK.  You’ve been sworn in.

Now, let’s get down to business.

You and your supporters – the unions and your family – ran a shameful, slimy campaign.  And had you not outspent Tom Emmer and the GOP by about 3:1 – using family money, and money expropriated from union dues-payers – and had the media not (I firmly believe) exploited the “Bandwagon Effect” using polling that was either fatally but conveniently flawed or (part of me believes) rigged, you would have come up well more than 10,000 votes shy of where you ended up.

But OK, politics ain’t beanbag, and that’s truly life in politics.  And now you’re governor.

Let me tell you where I, a mere non-plutocrat schlemiel citizen, stand today.

I believe you are a perfectly fine human being – but I don’t like your platform (to the extent you had one; I pretty well eviscerated it during the campaign). I don’t like what your party stands for.  I don’t like what your supporters want to expropriate from me, and I don’t like how your willing sycophants in the media are going to try to snow-job Minnesotans into demanding the Legislature allow it.

And while I’m just a single guy, a schlemiel with a blog, I’m going to fight that snow job, and I’m going to fight your platform, and I’m going to fight everything you stand for – your tax policies, your healthcare policies, your regulatory policies, all of it.  I will do whatever I can to stymie you.  If any member of the GOP majority in both houses flags in his or her drive to beat your agenda back,  they will hear from me, and from anyone I can get into joining me – and as we saw last November, I’m hardly alone.

I will do whatever I can to make them stiffen their backbones.  We sent them to St. Paul.  We can send them home.

Because even though 42% of my neighbors fell for your odious campaign, we – The People – must not flag or fail. I – we – will fight you throughout your entire term, we’ll fight you on Capitol Hill, we’ll fight you in the shop floor and by the water cooler, we’ll fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the alternative media, we shall defend our lives and lifelihoods, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight you on all 10,000 lakes, we  shall fight you in the colleges, we shall fight you and your agenda in the City Council meetings and at the caucuses and in the streets and in the op-ed pages; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, you make it to the end of this term without turning power over to Lt. Governor Prettner Solon, then our silent, browbeaten majority, motivated and guided by the groundswell that will drive Obama from office in two years and nauseated by the arrogance of the DFL and its union and bureaucrat and media minions, will carry on the battle until,  in God’s good time, the Tea Party and all the other courses of conservative discontent, with all their silent but implacable power and might, step forth and get you voted out of office in 2014. [1]

My goal is not to negotiate or compromise with you, Governor Dayton.  My goal is to stop you.

(more…)

As this post appears at 8:30AM, Mark Dayton will be sworn in as Minnesota’s 40th Governor (UPDATE:  Oops.  I got that off of a state website.  It was apparently wrong; the swearing in will apparently be held at noon.  Thanks, State of Minnesota!).

Time to give the guy his due.

He won the election, by whatever means.  He is now the governor.  Mine, as well as all of the people who voted for him.

So congratulations, Governor Dayton.  Enjoy the inauguration!  And while I oppose you, your agenda, and everything about you, I sincerely hope you do a good job.

Jeff at MNPublius aims big.  After taking his de rigeur shot at departing Governor Pawlenty (trying to portray one of Minnesota’s most significant governors of the past 100 years as “nothing special)”, Rosenberg reviews a list the Governor released of his major accomplishments, and asks:

In eight years, what would we like a similar document from the Dayton administration to include?

If I were a DFLer, I’d be hoping for “at least four years of actual credible service before retiring to Vail rather than losing the 2014 election”, as opposed to a 2014 “Look back at Governor Prettner Solon’s Year In Office”.   The Vegas Over/Under on Dayton’s actual time in office is hanging around two years; bookies are betting on “alien invasion” as the trigger.

Rosenberg has a wish list:

Here are a few accomplishments I hope Mark Dayton will be able to spotlight:

* A fairer tax system in which the rich pay the same percentage of their income as the poor and middle class. [Notwithstanding the fact that “the rich” are both undefined and already overtaxed]

* A sustainable budget that’s in the black, with a significant budget reserve to cushion the blow in the next recession. [That’s one of the left’s most irritating memes; the idea that government should skim just a leeeeeeetle bit more out of the parts of our society that actuall produce wealth, to make sure that the part that doesnt’ – government – needn’t want for a thing when all of the useful people are suffering.  Kinda shows where their loyalties lie, if one needed any clarification]

* A thriving economy, with new business being created and established businesses making Minnesota a destination [Ah.  How would Jeff propose that “Governor Dayton” do that?  Perhaps by passing a law requiring business list Minnesota as a destination?  What sort of miracle does Mr. Rosenberg propose that “Governor Dayton” do to mandate this?  Will it be the “fair tax system”, or the “surplus”, that’ll make Minnesota a “destination?”  ]

* A fully-funded social safety net and educational system. [Both have all the funding they need, and always have.  Holding the “social safety net” – aka “subsidy of poverty” – above the rest of the economy merely creates a permanent class of government service consumers, removing any motivation to get off poverty.  And our education system needs reform, not more money to feed Tom Dooher’s addictions]

* Innovations in education that reverse Minnesota’s decline nationally and internationally during the Pawlenty years. [“Insert Miracle Here”.  Minnesota’s “declines” are almost universally expressed in terms of “how lavishly we fund government”.  To the extent that there have been declines, they’re the same ones shared by all statist societies in trying to compete with more  nimble, more  market-driven societies.  Minnesota’s “Golden Age” happened at a time when the world was still recovering from World War II; a fat, happy, unionized workforce and a big, dumb government were survivable errors in 1970, since there was no competition; today, if we don’t change the path that the DFL and Rosenberg would put us on, they’ll merely make us a Cold California]

* Equal marriage for all Minnesotans. [Ah.  So that’s what’s holding the economy back.]

What accomplishments do you hope the Dayton administration will produce? Leave your own additions in the comments.

I hope he accomplishes a graceful exit in 2014, turning office over to a good conservative governor.  The media would caterwaul that the new governor is an “extremist”, but they’re too busy wondering if the DFL will become a third party by 2020.

January 3: Session kicks off.  Mark Dayton throws a “blue jeans” inaugural.  Musical highlight: the “Alliance For A Better Minnesota” Choir singing “Look For The Union Label”.  For four solid hours.

January 4:  The Humphrey Institute releases a poll showing that 80% of Minnesotans want the Legislature to pass Mark Dayton’s budget immediately.  Bloggers point out that the poll included only respondents from Kenwood and Crocus Hill. MPR reports that it’s a nice day for a bowl of Cream of Rice.

January 5: The Star Tribune’s Joe Doyle starts a three part series on “obscene corporate profits” and how they benefit “the rich walking among us”.

January 6: Dayton releases his first budget, calling for $40 billion in spending. Delivering the announcement in blue jeans with the SEIU Singers humming “We Are The World” in the background, Dayton notes that he plans to increase revenues to $41 billion. “We’ll finally have a surplus!” he exclaims, as a crowd described by the Star/Tribune as “50,000 womenandchildren at risk” applauds in the Capitol rotunda.  The plan calls for big tax hikes on “obscene corporate profits” and “the rich walking among us”.

January 10: The last of Dayton’s Iron Range supporters are finally bailed out of the Ramsey County lockup after the inaugural.

January 12:  Speaker Zellers refers the Dayton budget to the House Very Special Boom Zoom Committee” – actually a group of legislators’ children wearing “Junior Representative” t-shirts.  Bill dies, and is colored on, and has juice spilled on it.

January 16:  Lori Sturdevant notes that “a seasoned group of bi-partisan policy wonks say that the GOP risks getting tossed out by an angry mob if they don’t raise taxes.  Conservative bloggers point out that “bi-partisan” in this case means DFL and Green Party members.  Presented with the allegations, WCCO TV reports that Brett Favre just loves Chipotle Big Bols.

January 19: Governor Dayton submits a budget bill involving $42 billion in spending and $ 45 billion in taxes.  “A three billion dollar surplus”, Dayton announces to a group of senior citizens (“at least 20,000”, according to the Strib’s Pat Doyle) at the Hockey Hall Of Fame in Eveleth.  “It’s like a billion hat tricks!”.  Keith Ellison solemnly proclaims that the only reason not to vote for the bill is “racism.  Racism from all you crackers.  Pay the **** up, crackers”.

January 27: Speaker Zellers forwards the bill to the House Budget Committee.  The Mississippi House Budget Committee.  Which loses the bill.

February 3: The Humphrey Institute releases a poll showing that eleventy-teen percent of Minnesotans demand tax and spending hikes.  KARE 11 News finds eleventy-teen people on the street that agree.  Frank Newport of the Gallup Group points out that ‘Eleventy-teen” isn’t even a real number, but something Dennis the Menace used to say to show that he couldn’t count.  Rachel Stassen-Berger responded with a piece on “The Override Six, Two Years Later:  Profiles In Courage And Extremism”.

February 18:  Governor Dayton, speaking at a homeless shelter in Brooklyn Center, holds up James Blount, a three-year-old boy, in front of cameras; notes that “this boy is going to go hungry because of GOP extremism and intransigence tonight”.

February 19:  Conservative bloggers point out that the “boy”, Blount, was actually a schnauzer that had wandered over from a nearby housing development.  Eric Black of the MinnPost responded with a piece on how animal shelters are suffering under GOP rule.

February 27:  Dayton submits his third budget, a $39 Billion plan that is very similar to the budget he proposed during the campaign.  Conservative bloggers point out that it has exactly the same problems it had during the campaign; it assumes “the rich” (in this case, Minnesotans who are still employed) will pay the taxes rather than moving or getting Mark Dayton’s financial advisor, that the state can fire contractors whose jobs are both legally mandated and involve skills the state’s workforce doesn’t actually have, among many others.

February 28: The Star Tribune “Minnesota Poll” claims that Minnesotans want the Dayton budget passed, that the people want to carry Governor Dayton through the streets on their shoulders, and that violence is about to break out against the Minnesota GOP.  Bloggers point out that the survey was conducted entirely at one “Drinking Liberally” event in Minneapolis.  Informed of the allegations, KTCA’s “Almanac” embarks on a three-week special on the history of Danish cooking in Minnesota.

March 20:  Speaker Zellers assigns the budget to the House Government Operations and Finance Committee.

March 28:  Rep. Quam (GOP) of Byron demands that the DFL members of the committee play a game of Twister on the House floor if they want the budget to get out of committee.  The committee members comply.

April 8:  Nick Coleman, writing his new colum in the Wayzata Shopper, remembers when his father was running things.  “The wingnuts wanted to play Twister for a better Minnesota”.

April 12: The Dayton budget comes to a vote in the House.  It loses decisively, on state party lines.  To signify the defeat, Speaker Zellers ties the budget to a string hanging from the ceiling of the House chamber, and members of the House Republican Caucus whack at it like a piñata.

April 15: Speaker Zellers tells a cheering crowd of 10,000 at the Tea Party rally on the capitol grounds that the budget is dead on arrival.  Six pro-tax protesters stand across the street wanly chanting in favor of the Dayton budget.

April 16: The Strib editorial reports that a crowd of “dozens” at the Tea Party rally were evenly split, showing the deep partisan divide in Minnesota politics today.

May 1: , Governor Dayton start making contingency plans for a shutdown.  Bloggers point out that the Governor’s plans include evacuating the Governor’s office to Vail, and euthanizing animals in all state parks.  Told of the allegations, Keri Miller of MPR wonders on the air “whatever happened to bipartisanship?”

May 14: A day ahead of the deadline, the GOP Caucus introduces a $33 Billion budget that makes steep spending cuts and balances the budget with no new taxes.  It passes on a straight party line vote, is sent to the Senate, which also passes the budget by the end of the day.  The bill is sent to the Governor.

May 15  Mark Dayton appears at the Hockey Hall of Fame, dressed in a Minnesota Wild Uniform, with Minnesota hockey legend John Mayasich, to veto the GOP budget. “Minnesota demands that we do the responsible thing and pass my budget without all this debate and democracy and crap”, he says, as Mayasich looks on.   Bloggers point out that “Mayasich” is actually Alliance for a Better Minnesota chair Denise Cardinal in a bald wig.  Told of the allegations, KARE 11 news re-runs the January 4 Humphrey Poll.

May 16:  The Strib runs a piece by reporter Pat Doyle, an expose of the “Casualties of the Shutdown”.  Doyle, clearly gunning for a Pulitzer, writes a heartrending tale of Minnesotans standing in line at soup kitchens, of families (mostly “womenandchildren”) living in huge “Zellerville” on the Capitol Mall living on McDonalds coffee, and people lining up to throw themselves off the High Bridge.  Bloggers point out that government hasn’t actually shut down yet, that nothing Doyle wrote had actually happened, and that the piece was clearly pre-written weeks earlier and run by mistake.  Told of the allegations, MPR’s Keri Miller runs a two-hour broadcast on “How Blogs Provide A Chilling Effect On Free Speech”, featuring a bipartisan panel of Larry Jacobs and Nick Coleman.

May 17: Dayton demands the Legislature pass his budget.

May 18: Nobody at the legislature responds.

July 1: Minnesota’s state government shuts down.

July 2:  The Strib re-runs the Doyle piece.

July 22: The state budget office notes that business activity is increasing, and tax receipts are rising.

July 23: The Strib editorial board runs an extended interview with Elmer Anderson, who gruffly demands that Minnesota Republicans “think about what’s best for Minnesota” and adopt Dayton’s budget immediately without any of that “commie wingnut debating crap”.  Bloggers point out that Elmer Anderson died in 1998, and “Anderson’s” rhetoric read like Nick Coleman writing with a bag over his head.  Told of the allegations, MPR’s Mark Zdechlik embarked on a two-week series on “What we can learn about Democracy from the Iroquois”.  Salient observation: the Iroquois tradition of “Local Tribe Aid” was considered inviolate.

August 18: The State Budget Office notes that, with no government expenditures and business thriving, the state is in a surplus.

September 2: Katherine Kersten’s column, “Happy Days Are Here Again”, notes that Minnesota is in a much better state with the government shut down.  Lori Sturdevant muses in her column that in Wendy Anderson’s day, the governor would have told the State Patrol to arrest Kersten for “making terroristic threats”.  Bloggers point out that that is utterly absurd, there is no record of any such demand, anywhere.  There is no response to these allegations.

September 23: With no budget in place and government shut down for weeks, Mark Dayton, operating from his office in Vail, orders the National Guard called out to react to what Dayton’s press secretary Tinucci calls the “Terrorist Threats”.  Bloggers point out that the “threat” was the conclusion of Sturdevant’s slanderous column about Kersten.  The National Guard’s commandant says “the paperwork is in process, call back in July”.

September 24: Dayton exercises his unallotment power on the GOP’s budget.  Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch is left visibly speechless on hearing the news.

September 25: Finished with his line item vetoes, Governor Dayton signs a 27 billion dollar budget.  Alliance For A Better Minnesota’s Denise Cardinal notes that “Mark Dayton has always been the budget-cutting candidate”.  But Andrea Outrage-Guevara, president of Minnesota’s “Alliance of WomynAndChildryn”, speaking at a rally on the capitol grounds that drew “Millions” (according to the Strib), demands that all budget cuts be reinstate immediately or “Dayton will be ousted”.

October 15:  Dayton, relocated his office from Vail, sits on a whoopie cushion left in his office by Tony Sertich.

The Saint Paul Pioneer Press‘ Bill Salisbury wrote a valedictory yesterday in the Pioneer Press about the career of outgoing Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty.

So far, anyway.

He left it to Pawlenty to sum up the crux of his legacy:

“This is a state that was on a spending binge for a long time with a liberal-leaning political culture that goes back decades or generations, and to try to change the direction of the state was a big undertaking. But I think we did that,” Pawlenty said during an extended interview Tuesday with a group of Capitol reporters.

Making that change was not easy, the Republican governor said. He had to call a predominantly Democratic Legislature into special sessions, issue a record number of vetoes in one year and use a government shutdown to force the changes.

“This will be known as the time Minnesota finally came to terms with its excesses and got itself on a more sustainable and responsible path,” he said.

That legacy, he asserted, is more significant than any new program or building he might have created.

Pawlenty’s right – and in ways the article isn’t scoped to explore, in and of itself.

Not only did Pawlenty’s years start the process of breaking the state of the culture of “the people exist to keep the government fed” school of government, but he set the stage for this years’ GOP sweep (Republicans flipped control of both chambers of the Minnesota legislature, controlling the body for the first time in recent history) in ways that I don’t think he’ll get credit for – even among conservatives.

Maybe especially among conservatives.

Until 1998, the Minnesota GOP was a “moderate”, even “progressive” party.  James Lileks once joked on the radio, around the time he lived in or came back from DC, that he’d tell his friends in Washington “Minnesota is the place where you have your pro-abortion, pro-gun-control candidate – and the Democrat!”.

Former MN governor Arne Carlson (who served from 1990-1998) was a typical pre-Pawlenty Republican.  In many respects, he was a bigger “liberal” than the DFLer he replaced, Rudy Perpich, and he was hardly alone.  The GOP during the “Independent Republican” era – the years after Watergate, when the MNGOP rechristened itself the “Independent Republican” party, to break with the national GOP – was a throwback to the national GOP of the Eisenhower years, which was vastly more “communitarian” than libertarian or fiscally conservative.

And there are plenty who wanted, and still want, the GOP to remain that party – basically DFLers with better suits; a party that believed “Fiscal Responsibility” meant making sure you tax enough to run government…

…but that keeping government fed and fat and happy came first and foremost among government’s  missions.

And, predictably, there are many in the Minnesota’s GOP who pine for the old days:

But a lot of Pawlenty’s financial savings were “smoke and mirrors” instead of permanent cost reductions, said John Gunyou, finance commissioner under former Gov. Arne Carlson’s and a DFL candidate for lieutenant governor this year. Pawlenty relied heavily on delaying payments, raiding funds set aside for other purposes, unilateral spending cuts that the state Supreme Court ruled overstepped his authority and federal stimulus funds.

“He didn’t really bring costs under control,” Gunyou said.

Unmentioned by Gunyou – or any of the other outdated impedimenta, “GOP” or DFL, that keep repeating that particular chanting point – is that Pawlenty was hamstrung throughout his eight years, for four years by a DFL-controlled Senate and a GOP majority in the House that was addled by too many old-school, “IR”-era Republicans to do much more than hold the line on spending – which he did! – and for the last half of his administration by facing a rapacious, money-crazed DFL majority in both chambers of the legislature.  Against such grossly, irresponsibly, blindly spenthrift ideologues as Larry Pogemiller, Margaret Kelliher, Sandy Pappas and the rest of the Twin Cities metro-area DFL clacque that ran the Legislature, the only way to meet his statutory responsibility to balance the budget and keep his “no new taxes” pledge was to defer that which he couldn’t cut.

Pawlenty will leave his successor, Democrat Mark Dayton, with a projected $6.2 billion budget deficit.

Well, no – the Legislature did, and the 6.2 billion number is a made-up figure with no legal meaning, but the DFL and media (pardon the redundancy) don’t want you to know that.

But I digress.

Salisbury turned to talk of Pawlenty’s legacy.  In discussing the big takeaways from Pawlenty’s eight years, a group of assembled poli-sci wonks phumphered that Pawlenty didn’t leave much in the way of “big achievements”:  the inevitable quote from U of Minnesota poli-sci professor Larry Jacobs was “Huge promise, remarkable intelligence and understanding of the issues but uneven or limp follow-through”.  Salisbury points out that Pawlenty “…was excellent at diagnosing problems and generating ideas, such has providing health care for all kids or funding transportation projects after the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed. But he dropped many of his creative ideas, often because they would have cost more tax dollars, which his conservative base opposed”

The observation is partly right.  The part they miss; conservatives were never “his” “base”, where “base” means “people who ideologically support him through thick and thin”.  Pawlenty came into the governor’s race as the moderate.  He had to earn every conservative vote he got, starting at the 2002 GOP convention, where he held off a charge by conservative businessman Brian Sullivan after 17 ballots, largely by adopting the conservative Taxpayers League of Minnesota’s “No New Taxes” pledge – pledging to balance the budget by controlling spending rather than hiking taxes.  In many ways, Pawlenty never entirely won conservatives over;  he still hasn’t entirely won “conservatives” over, although I believe that, being as perfect is the enemy of good enough, he should have.  I believe Minnesota’s conservatives shorted Pawlenty.

Poli-sci prof Steven Schier from Carlton College provides the key caveat that the U of M’s Jacobs didn’t, pointing out that Pawlenty “never had a fully cooperative Legislature”.  That’s putting it lightly.  When the DFL took complete control of the Legislature in 2006, DFL Senator Cy Thao famously remarked “When you people [Republicans] win, you get to keep your money; when we win, we take your money!”.  Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller said in 2008 “it’s silly to think that people can spend their money better than government can”.

So when Salisbury quotes Jacobs…:

A governor must build coalitions to get things done, Jacobs said, but Pawlenty had a hard time finding “honorable compromise” with DFL legislators.

…one can forgive him for not adding “because the DFL had no interest in compromise, and were largely not honorable”.

But I will.

My real point is that Pawlenty’s legacy goes waaaay beyond simple, material things like programs and departments and government real estate.  Tim Pawlenty did something that’s needed doing since long before I came to Minnesota.  Because for all of my hard-core paleocon friends’ grousing about “impact fees” and “travelling with Will Steger”, it’s a simple fact that Pawlenty’s political leadership helped drive the Minnesota GOP to the right; it helped the GOP provide a real policy alternative to the DFL for the first time in recent memory.

Pawlenty was the first important political figure in recent Minnesota political history to define “fiscal responsibility” as “controlling spending” rather than “making sure we make the people cover all of government’s bills on time!”.

I think there’s a pretty airtight case that Tim Pawlenty is the most vital, transformative figure in Minnesota politics since Hubert H. Humphrey.

The leadership of the Tea Party, and of Minnesota’s newly-empowered conservative legislative majority, might quibble with the statement, but in every way that mattered, Tim Pawlenty paved the way for everything the Tea Party and the new conservative majority stands for.

And because of this – because Minnesota now has, for the first time in recent political memory, a genuine two-party system, with two sides that are actively holding each others’ feet in the political fire, and a genuine conservative opposition to Minnesota’s generations-long tradition of spend first, think later  – Tim Pawlenty has left this state a vastly better place than he took over.

Economies rise and fall.  Budgets work themselves out (and, with a new GOP majority that owes more than it admits to Pawlenty’s legacy now in charge, they’ll likely work themselves out a whole lot better than they would have).  But changing a state’s political system, vastly for the better?  That’s a wonderful thing.

I think Tim Pawlenty is getting grossly short shrift from conservatives in his all-but-certain bid for the presidency.  His record as a solid, commonsense fiscal conservative (on all the things that truly matter in the long view) deserves a serious look on the national stage.

Because while you can quibble about the details around and about the edges of his record, Tim Pawlenty’s real legacy is that of eight years of true political grit.  Pawlenty was doing the Tea Party’s work before there was a Tea Party.

And Minnesota needed that.  We needed it bad.

Pawlenty is leaving this state in good hands – at least, two chambers dominated by those good hands.  That new majority, in all their enthusiastic numbers, has two big shoes to fill.

Thanks, Governor Pawlenty.  I hope to write about you a lot more in the next two years.

With the new session coming up, all you liberals are going to be in for a new experience – being a legislative minority here in Minnesota.

It’s never happened, not in the political lifetime of any of you out there.

It’s gonna be a whole new feeling for all you libs – not being able to spin the wheels and levers of government to make it do what you want at will or, at the very worst, to be able to control a chamber of the legislature to bog down legislature.  All you have is the veto (and of course DFL control of the state’s bureaucracies, which is not an inconsiderable power by itself).   He’ll float his “Crack Whore With A Stolen Platinum Card Budget”, just like the people who paid for his election told him to.  It’ll get shot down.  He’ll turn around and veto the budget put forward by the responsible adults.  That’s how it’s done.

So, speaking as someone who’s been in the legislative minority in this state as long as I’ve been in this state – 25 years, now – here’s some advice for all you DFLers.

You can thank me later.

The entire legislature was elected, not “Selected“:  Yes, the people really did flush the DFL out of office.  Buck up, little campers; 2012 is another election.  Although I think we’re gonna clobber you then, too.

Stay Calm:  Some of you people are nuts even when you’re in power.  We conservatives are pretty good at tamping down our odd nutbar.  You guys need some practice.  You’ll probably get it.

Elections Have Consequences: The DFL used its temporary legislative supremacy to try to jam down a phalanx of spending and taxes over the past four years.  They were stymied by Governor Pawlenty, who exercised his veto and conducted a masterful rear-guard job.  And when he did, you – especially your pundit friends in the media – were downright heart-rending in your demands that Pawlenty also represent the Minnesotans who didn’t vote for him, and pass the DFL’s legislation.  Now, as a conservative, I’m under no illusion that Dayton is going to vote my conscience when he takes office. 

So I’m counting the hours until we get the first mawkish blog post or Lori Sturdevant column asking Republicans to remember that “you represent the majority of Minnesotans that didn’t vote for you”.  In that way that the DFL always forget when they controlled all the knobs and levers.

Pack Your Bags!:  I thought nothing could match Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon’s narcissistic solipsism in threatening to move to France if George W. Bush won his various elections (and naturally, neither did), until I heard Minnesota DFLers threatening to leave the state if Emmer had won the election.  Well, controlling both houses of the legislature is arguably a better deal than having the governor’s office and one chamber.

So since I just bought a truck, do you and your crap need a ride to Hudson?

Get A Grip: No matter what the DFL, Tom Dooher, the Strib’s editorial board and DFL-pet columnists tell you, Minnesota isn’t really going to change all that much when the adults take over.  Oh, keeping government fed will no longer be the primary stated mission of government (and if the GOP majority doesn’t change that, those of us who sent them there will be happy to bring them home), but the schools will stay open, the parks will still be there for, er, parking, there will still be libraries, cops and firemen will still respond (unless you live in a city where the DFL will hold those services hostage).  Indeed, the schools will probably do better, you’ll be able to enjoy the park to relax from the job you don’t have now but are more likely to have then, you can spend your time at the library reading rather than job-hunting, and so on.  But by and large, not all that much is going to change.

Except, it seems, your (plural) blood pressure.

Buck up, little vegan campers.  We conservatives survived.  So will you – if you choose to.

A Dayton Governorship is a distant second to an Emmer Governorship as a Minnesotan but for a conservative blogger, a hell of a lot more fun. Four years of job security!

(right Mitch? …Mitch?)

Dayton is (along with his buck-toothed sister the Star Tribune) going to be awesome blogfodder!

Consider this for example:

said his first priority now will be to improve the economy and add jobs.

Improve the economy? That’s like improving the weather? How does a governor improve the economy? The “economy” is a symptom, a result. Okay, so it’s a nit, but nonetheless an apropos observation of a nit wit. Let the befuddlement begin.

…and here comes his buck-toothed sister:

Those actions complete a stunning resurrection for Dayton, a one-term U.S. senator, who now will become the first Democratic governor in Minnesota in two decades.

A stunning…less than half percent…resurrection? …certainly not the high praise it was intended to be considering the status one must occupy from which to be resurrected, yes?

Methinks had the election been held one or two days later we’d be celebrating Governor Emmer, which is to say Mark Dayton is a beneficiary of chance.

…back to the Strib:

He said he would work with the business sector, which largely opposed his candidacy, to improve the state’s economy and job opportunities.

Nice gesture but that’s okay, Mark. We didn’t need you then and we don’t need you now. I’m sure we can wait four years – in the mean time, if you could just sort of stay out of the way, that’d be best.

Make sure you have a comfy couch and a big screen TV in the mansion (sorry if it’s smaller than the one you grew up in) so you can be comfortable in your sweats while the legislature conducts the business of the state.

But be prepared!

They might need you to sign something, cut a ribbon, or make an appearance from time to time (no talking please – just smile) – so keep one shirt and one suit coat pressed at all times!

Night-night now little Marky. Take your meds and go to sleep. We’ll wake you when we need you.

So with Emmer’s apparently-upcoming concession, you’re the Governor-elect, now, Mark Dayton.

Congratulations.

After pouring millions of dollars of your family’ s money into the most toxic, slimy, sleazy campaign in Minnesota gubernaturial history, a campaign noted for its serial, cynical inaccuracy by anyone with the brains to spell the words – a “campaign” based on the two sole concepts of “taxing the rich” and tearing down Tom Emmer – and outspending the Emmer campaign 2:1, you eked out a half-point “victory”.

It’s a proud day.

You’ve gone to show that with millions of dollars of inherited money and the slavering servitude of a lot of union donors, any little boy can grow up to back into office with 42% of the vote.

Now, when you’re crowned, you will face two chambers of red-hot, motivated, unified conservative Republican majorities.  They will not be the inside-the-beltway post-Gingrich-era RINO hamsters that you got used to “reaching across the aisle” with in DC.  They are not the RINOs you remember from your time in the State House.  These are Tea Party Republicans; conservatives who’ve been sent to Saint Paul by a majority that said “come back with your shields, or on them”.  On a mission to cut the spending, cut the taxes, cut the regulations…to oppose everything you stand for.

And beyind them, there are a whole lot of people like me.  Who are going to damn well hold them to those promises.

Mark Dayton:  Your agenda is dead on arrival.  Your “budget plan”, as big a fraud as it was, is now legislative toilet paper.

There’s a feeling out there that you’ll be a one term governor – maybe.  Maybe less.  We’ll see.

I’m “the loyal opposition” – but after the campaign you ran paid others to run, the emphasis is on opposition.  I’m going to spend the next four years working to retire you for good.

So welcome to office, Governor Dayton.

Congratulations.

The old “take a theatrical look in the dictionary to set up today’s column”  trick is an old favorite for writers who’ve hit bottom in the idea bag but still need to crank something out. 

I am, of course, nowhere near the bottom of the barrel – and I’ve always found the whole “Hey, lookit what I pulled out of the dictionary!” thing to be a tiresome cliché. 

Still, I found myself drawn, mirabile dictu, to the dictionary this morning.  For some reason, I felt the need to look up “flack“.  ‘Strooth!  And here’s what it said:

flack    /flæk/  [flak]  

–noun Sometimes Disparaging .

1. press agent.

2. publicity.

–verb (used without object)

3. to serve as a press agent or publicist: to flack for a new rock group.

–verb (used with object)

4. to promote; publicize: to flack a new record.

Use flack in a Sentence

Origin:

1935–40; said to be after Gene Flack, a movie publicity agent

Utterly unrelated to my trip to the dictionary (pinky swear!), I read yesterday’s Lori Sturdevant column in the Strib.  No, I know – I constantly accuse Sturdevant of being, well, a flack for the DFL.  But there is, I swear to Jah Rastafari,  no connection.  Really!

Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s self-congratulatory performance Thursday in response to that day’s whale-of-a-deficit state budget forecast sent me to the dictionary [Oh, snap! – Ed.] to check the meaning of the word “chutzpah.”

“Supreme self-confidence: nerve, gall,” Merriam-Webster Online said.

If chutzpah isn’t a fitting label for the show in the governor’s reception room, it surely comes close. It also may be apt for the temperament required for a governor who has presided over eight years of persistent fiscal trouble to mount a bid for the presidency.

Poor Lori.  Tim Pawlenty, governor and in the front ranks of Sturdevant’s phalanx of betes noir of eight years, is moving on to bigger and better things – certainly a run at the Presidency, and most likely a really, really great career in some capacity or another no matter what happens, while the DFL is set to endure at least four years in the Legislative cold and with, frankly, the worst governor in Minnesota history (even before inauguration), as she wraps up her career in a dying industry.   Tha’ts gotta stink.

No other governor in Minnesota’s 152-year history has handed his successor a $6.2 billion deficit forecast along with the keys to the Capitol’s executive suite.

But to be fair to Governor Pawlenty (an idea that no doubt causes Ms. Sturdevant abdominal pain), no other governor in Minnesota history has had to face such a grossly, profligately irresponsible legislative majority.   The DFL majority this past four years has set the “standard” for rodentine cowardice and expedient buck-passing.

Best of all – Sturdevant admits it herself, later in the piece. 

But we’ll get to that.

But if Pawlenty has any remorse or regrets about passing that much trouble along to the next occupant, he didn’t display them. Instead, he boasted that he was ending his watch with the state “on the right track” and with “money in the bank.”

And so he should!  Minnesota has – despite the DFL majority’s best efforts – an unemployment rate two points below the national average.  He kept (to a gratifyingly great extent) his 2002 “no new taxes” promise, and held the line against a crushing DFL majority for the past four years. 

Though Thursday’s numbers foretold a worsening problem in 2012-13, Pawlenty pronounced it “very manageable.” He allowed that most of it would have vanished already if his old nemeses, the DFLers who controlled the 2009-10 Legislature, would have done his bidding.

And Pawlenty was absolutely right.

Had he been paired with a legislature that was focused on anything other than catastrophic spending as a matter of principle, we wouldn’t be in this jam. 

But this is the DFL – the party that believes your money belongs to the government first and foremost.

Even though the 2010 Legislature gave its blessing to virtually all of the spending cuts and shifts Pawlenty imposed unilaterally (and, it turned out, illegally) in 2009, it deviated from the governor’s script in one respect. The cuts were designed to boomerang back for reconsideration by a new governor and the 2011 Legislature. (Those crafty DFLers didn’t anticipate that in the 2011 Legislature, they would be in the minority.

Did you catch that?  Sturdevant is saying that the DFL engineered the “budget crisis” to try to embarass the GOP!  

The DFL – the Party of Fiscal Sabotage!  Lori Sturdevant says so!  And if there’s an official voice of the DFL, Sturdevant is it in all but official name.  

How very statesmanlike of the DFL!  Way to look out for the future of Minnesota!

  The answer is simple; the GOP majority should show the new “Governor” no mercy, and no quarter.   He and his constitutional officers are the last vestiges of a party that gambled with Minnesota’s fiscal well-being, and lost. If that’s what the DFL did – essentially set a fiscal IED to try to pad their own political nest – then they deserve a good crushing. 

Spanish has a good word for that; Degüello.  Applied rhetorically, of course.  I – insignificant schnook blogger that I am – certainly plan to practice it for the next four years.

Look it up in the dictionary yourself.  It’s your cliché, not mine.