I got a brief shot at listening to the Jack Tomczak show this morning, on the lesser talk station.
They were talking about Minnesota’s “budget surplus”.
And they played an audio clip of Gov. Dayton, which pretty completely summed up the disconnect the DFL has on this issue.
In the audio clip, the governor referred to the surplus as “our collective good fortune”.
And this highlights a yawning golf of cognitive dissonance between DFLers (and others they’ve fooled) and the rest of Minnesota.
To a DFLer, budget surpluses are borne down from heaven in velvet-lined ivory chests on the wings of unicorns.
To the rest of us? The government’s “surplus” is our deficit. Every penny of that surplus came from what could’ve been a more productive use. Small business’ payroll; a manufacturers capital budget; your household budget and mine.
It’s not a “collective good fortune”; it’s a burden. It’s money taken out of the productive economy to run government, in excess of what government demanded in the first place; if the DFL has its way, it will be turned into permanent spending, to be wrenched from your wallets, your budgets, your bottom lines in perpetuity.
Surpluses are a bad thing. Deficits – provided they lead to spending cuts, rather than tax hikes – are a good thing.
Except for the permanent government class, of course.
For a state as prosperous and well-run as Minnesota, a two billion dollar budget is pretty small.
I say we double taxes on the working poor, maybe even triple them, see if we can’t really pump up the surplus next time. Then we’ll have a state to be proud of.
Surplus? As I’ve noted before, if we are running surpluses, please explain the “bonding bills” we get every year. Growing debt amounts, properly speaking, to a deficit, not a surplus.
Triple the tax on toys! For the children!
1. The budget surplus is 2 billion. The Budget is more like $38 to $40 Billion. Dayton wants $42 Billion in the new budget the senate probably closer to that than the House. The House will probably come in with $38 or 39. holding the line at best.
2. They did cash instead of debt for some capital projects last year. But they borrow because they can do that and spend cash too.