Gary Gross at Let Freedom Ring does the job the Twin Cities media juuuuust can’t seem to get around to (emphasis added by me):

During his mini-infomercial with Esme Murphy, Mark Dayton admitted that the highest income tax rate he’d propose would be less than 11 percent.

Based on Minnesota Department of Revenue guidelines, which I wrote about here, that means Dayton’s budget wouldn’t come close to balancing. Here’s what the guidelines say about revenue projections:

So how much money would boosting income tax rates actually deliver? According to the revenue department, each tenth-of-a-percent increase would currently bring in an additional $27 million annually, or $54 million each biennium.

Dayton said that he wouldn’t raise taxes more than 3 percentage points, meaning his tax the rich scheme would generate approximately $1,600,000,000 in additional revenue. Dayton also said that he’d raise property taxes on homes valued at more than $1,000,000.

Based on that information, and assuming that Dayton would essentially approve of the spending increases from last session’s budget bills, Dayton’s ‘detailed budget’ would fall at least $3,000,000,000 short of balancing.

It’s time that Minnesotans realized that Dayton’s supposed detailed budget isn’t a budget blueprint. It’s a tax increase. PERIOD. END OF DISCUSSION.

It is, literally, nothing more than throwing money at the deficit.

The Dayton “plan”…:

• Does not solve the deficit: As Gary notes – but Esme Murphy for some reason won’t – Dayton’s budget comes up way short on its promise to “solve the deficit”.
• Shifts the burden to the legislature, which could barely pass a $400 million tax hike in the 2008 session, will not be passing any huge tax increases in the next session, with the likely blood-letting among tax-and-spend DFLers
• Will required Dayton to push the definition of “the rich” well down into the middle class:  if jacking up taxes on couples whose adjusged gross income is $150,000 a year leaves Dayton’s “plan” billions short, how far down will the definition of “rich” have to get pushed?

Here’s the biggest question of all:  Gary Gross asks some excellent questions.

Why the hell didn’t Esme Murphy ask any of this?

The simple fact is this – the media isn’t going to ask Mark Dayton any of the tough questions.