Dutifully, the Strib carries the short version of the DFL’s current party line; it’s the governor who’s being the “moderate”:
“Here I am in the middle, and they haven’t moved,” Dayton said of Republican lawmakers.
It’s BS, of course; the GOP started the session committed to holding the line at 2010-2011 budget levels; as projected revenues rose, they increased the spending to match – keeping us “within our means”, against the wishes of some conservatives who pushed to cut services back to 2009 levels.
That – when you’re dealing with a legislature with a decisive mandate, as opposed to a governor who backed into office with the tiniest plurality since Jesse Ventura – is more than enough.
So what we have here is…:
- A legislature that’s done exactly what they were sent, and sent in overwhelming numbers, to Saint Paul to do, up against…
- A Governor who is willing to risk a government shutdown to support the only policy initiatives he has; stick it to the state’s most productive citizens, and force us non-government employees to work ’til we’re 70 so his union supporters can retire at 55. He can do this, because he can count on…
- …the media. Part of which is actively carrying water for the DFL (I”m looking at you, Esme Murphy and John Cronan), and the rest of which worships at the Cult of Process, believing that negotiation and compomise themselves are the overriding goals of all legislative government, worthy of frittering away all manner of princple and, for that matter, fiscal common sense.
Let the spinning begin!
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