Category Archives: Minnesota Republican Party

If the DFL Wants To Impress, Leave Early

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The new DFL majority in the Minnesota State Legislature is anxious to prove to voters that it is better equipped to lead than the previous Republican majority.  The DFL agenda has essentially been the polar opposite of the Republican agenda.  Whatever Republicans did, DFLers are undoing.  Republicans used Minnesota schools as their personal ATM to “balance” their budget.  DFLers are rushing to pay school kids back. Republicans used budget gimmicks instead of fixing the long-term structural deficit.  DFLers are increasing taxes and cutting spending to close the long-term structural deficit. Republicans tried to restrict the freedom to marry.  DFLers are expanding it.

Those are all good and important changes.  But of all the things that DFLers could do to impress Minnesota the swing voters who will determine in 2014 which party remains in control of the Legislature, I submit that the most memorable and impressive achievement would be to adjourn early.

I’m serious.  Declare victory and vamoose early.  Voters would adore legislators for it.

While  complex policymaking is sometimes difficult for voters with busy lives to appreciate, all voters appreciate the keeping of deadlines. We had deadlines in school.  We have them at work.  We have them for our taxes and fees.  Our spouses give us deadlines.  We have them for our household bills.   Every Minnesotans has to relentlessly meet deadlines throughout our lifetime, or we will face serious punishment.  Like it or not, deadlines shackle our lives.

Regular citizens appreciate deadline-making at a gut level.  For this reason, it makes us absolutely bananas when the Legislature regularly and cavalierly blows deadlines.  At school meetings, church gatherings, youth sporting events and backyard barbeques, I hear more complaints about this legislative habit than any other substantive issue.  Missed deadlines, or even nearly missed deadlines, make incumbents look like irresponsible and incompetent children.

I understand why pushing policymaking decisions to the last moment or beyond can be an advantageous move for a legislative strategist.  They employ brinksmanship to achieve their policy goals.  “Nothing focuses the mind like a deadline,” the saying goes.

This makes perfect sense inside the walls of the State Capitol, but leaders need to understand the optics outside the walls of the Capitol.  Voters get punished for missing deadlines, so they have a visceral feeling that legislators should as well.

Imagine how surprised and delighted Minnesotans would be to awake next weekend to news headlines like this:

“Legislature Surprisingly Finishes Work A Day Early.”

This news would be a stunner, one of those unlikely “man bites dog” type stories that voters never see.   Such a headline would disarm the perennial political challenger critique: “Legislators spent all their time on X, which prevented them from getting their  work done on time.”  It would send a signal that the grown-ups had arrived in Saint Paul at long last.

With the news this weekend that legislative leaders have reached agreement about the broad outlines of the fiscal end-game, finishing on time might seem more feasible than usual.  Still, legislative leaders are refusing to let go of pet initiatives that fall outside the agreement, so it still seems likely that negotiations will go right up to the deadline abyss.  Legislators probably will finish on-time, but just barely.  Just as they do nearly every year, they will look like children turning in half-assed assignments at the very last minute, and swing voters’ eyes will collectively roll.

If DFL legislators want to survive difficult mid-term elections in 2014, they should heed the sage advice of Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bobby Womack about when to exit the stage:  “Leave them wanting more and you know they’ll call you back.”

- Loveland

Who is the MN GOP Representing on Gun Background Checks?

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In politics, presidential candidates who win the support of over 60% of Americans are said to have won overwhelming “landslide” victories.  Harding’s 60.3% in 1920. FDR’s 60.8% in 1936. Johnson’s 61.1% in 1964. and Nixon’s 60.7% in 1972.  Landslides!

It is so difficult to get 60% of Americans to agree on politics, that such “landslide victories” are considered highly unusual indications of a historically overwhelming level of public sentiment.

In Minnesota right now, Minnesotans of all walks of life, including Republicans, Independents, gun owners and Greater Minnesota citizens, are giving a landslide victory to gun background checks:

The Minnesota Republicans’ point person on this issue, State Representative Tony Cornish (R-Vernon Center) shrugs off this Star Tribune Minnesota Poll with a cavalier “nobody really believes those polls.”

  • Or this poll — CNN/ORC (89% support background checks)?
  • Or this poll — Quinnipiac (91% support background checks)?
  • Or this poll — Morning Joe/Marist (87% support background checks)?
  • Or this poll — CBS (90% support background checks)?
  • Or this poll — Fox News (85% support background checks)?
  • Or this poll — ABC/Washington Post (90% support support background checks)?
  • Or this poll — Pew/USA Today (83% support background checks)?
  • Or this poll — University of Connecticut (69% support background checks)?
  • Or this poll — Gallup (91% support background checks)?
  • Or this poll — Associated Press-GfK (84% support background checks)?

For those who quibble about question wording, these polls all asked the question a bit differently.

For those who argue methodology, these polls all reached a different randomized sample of respondents, and relied on different methodologies.

For those who worry about sponsorship bias, these polls were sponsored by a wide variety of news outlets and academic institutions.

For those who stress that polls are blunt instruments, these polls did not find slim margins that conceivably could be slightly off.  They found support levels that are between 10 and 30 points higher than “landslide” threshold of support.

Make no mistake, on the issue of universal gun background checks, Minnesota Republicans are choosing to represent the will of NRA lobbyists over the will of the overwhelming majority of Minnesotans, including gun owners, Republicans, Independents and Greater Minnesota citizens.

Frankly, Minnesotans, Republicans just aren’t just not that into you.

Note:  This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs.

Why Wealthy Minnesotans Can Pay More

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Taxing millionaires.  Surcharging millionaires.  Raising the minimum wage.

For the casual observer who hasn’t done their homework, I can see how this might be confused with “class warfare” waged by mean DFLers intent on punishing rich people.

But here’s the thing about warfare.  You can’t take a quick glance at a battlefield and identify the aggressors.  For instance, an observer flying over Normandy Beach on June 6, 1944 couldn’t reasonably conclude “those mean Americans storming that beach down there are obviously wreckless war mongers.”

After all, what about the blitzkreig and Pearl Harbor, right?  You have to know at least a bit about the prelude to an event to be able to make informed conclusions about the event.

So it goes with the  “class warfare” charges flying around the 2013 Minnesota Legislature.   Observers who say the DFL has launched an all-out “class war” against wealthy Minnesotans need to look at the prelude to the policy.

Context

As the following chart shows, in recent years the wealthiest Minnesotans have been doing very well, thank you very much.  At the same time, poor and middle-income Minnesotans have been doing relatively poorly.

“The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer” isn’t just a cheap slogan.  In Minnesota right now, it’s the demonstrable truth.

As billionaire Warren Buffet put it:

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

That little piece of historical context explains why wealthy Minnesotans are being asked by DFL legislators to do the most to address Minnesota’s structural deficit problem. Wealthy people are being asked to pay more, because they have by far the most capacity to do more.  This terrific infographic video explains the breathtaking degree of concentration of wealth in America:

This is important context for understanding the DFL proposals to increase taxes on the rich and raise the minimum wage, just as the blitzkrieg is important context for understanding the storming of Normandy.

Perspective

Along with reporting the context, we also have to keep the proper perspective about what the DFL’s proposals would, and would not, do.

Despite the hyperventilation on the right, nobody is proposing communist-style income equality.  Not even close.  The DFL legislators are talking about a very modest  adjustment for the wealthiest Minnesotans, an adjustment that will still leave them, far-and-away, the wealthiest Minnesotans.

To summarize, if there is a class war going on, poor- and middle-income families didn’t start it.  But I reject the assertion that there is a “war” of any type going on.  What the DFL proposes is a modest adjustment to a system that has gotten badly out-of-whack.

That’s not war.  That’s wisdom.

- Loveland

Note:  This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs.

“Democrat Party:” The GOP’s Childish Name Game

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We all remember those times on the playground when kids’ names would be twisted into teasing word play.  Private parts and mental health were common themes, as I recall.  Woe be unto the unfortunate child born with a name like “Seymour Butz.”

During childhood, the motives behind the name-oriented word play varied from benign to bullying.  But whatever the motive, it was rarely welcomed by the recipient, and was, above all else, childish.

So surely adults have left all that infantile behavior behind, right?

Well, take a look at recent blog posts on leading Minnesota conservative blog aggregator “True North:”

  • Bill Blahn refers to “the new Democrat majority.”
  • Matt Abe complains about “constant attacks from the Democrat Party.”
  • Nancy LaRoche speaks of “hypocrisy in the Democrat party.”
  • Mitch Berg suggests :  “the best thing the Democrat Party can do is bar its members from being on Twitter unless they pass an intelligence and literacy test.”
  • Jeff Kolb writes of “contemporaries in the Democrat Party.”
  • Former GOP gubernatorial nominee Tom Emmer and Bob Davis refer to “the leadership of the Democrat party.”

Notice a trend?  You’ll find the same trend coming from conservative talk radio guru Rush Limbaugh, former Minnesota GOP Chair Tony Sutton, GOP House Speaker John Boehner and other issuers of Republican talking points.

This practiced use of the epithet “Democrat Party” isn’t correct, and it usually isn’t a mistake.  Instead, this is a remarkably jejune name game that adult Republicans have been playing for decades.   Type the words “Democrat Party” into Google, and you will get 3.4 million hits to peruse, and many of them are Republicans intentionally misusing the name of the “DemocratIC Party.”

The motive behind this language misuse?  It is no different from the motive of the name-oriented word play on the playground, and it is no less childish.

I’ll leave it to grammarians and editors to debate whether, in this particular usage, the D-word in front of “Party” should be a noun or an adjective.  I’m not the least bit interested in that debate, because the only thing that really matters is what the owners of the name prefer to call themselves.  The members of the Democratic Party have made it abundantly clear that they chooses to call themselves the Democratic Party, so that is what mature adults should call them.  (See Golden Rule.)

Think I’m overreacting ?  What would Minnesotans think if Governor Dayton started calling the Republican Party the “Republic Party,” long after Republicans had repeatedly pointed out the actual name of their party?  What if President Obama referred to the “Republic Party” in a solemn State of the Union Address, as George W. Bush did when he said “Democrat Party” in his 2007 address?  Wouldn’t that seem more than a little puerile?

At a time when the national Republicans are taking stock of the things that are sullying their “brand” with moderate voters who are tired of infantile political game-playing, I’d suggest they do some soul-searching about this silly little party custom.

There are a lot of things that are curious about this “Democrat Party” usage, not the least of which is that it’s not a particularly clever insult.  In fact, I have never been entirely sure what was even meant by it.  Perhaps Republicans wish to point out that the Democratic Party is not the embodiment of “democracy,” because “democracy” is a popular notion?

New Yorker commentator Hendrik Hertzberg observed “There’s no great mystery about the motives behind this deliberate misnaming. ‘Democrat Party’ is a slur, or intended to be—a handy way to express contempt. Aesthetic judgments are subjective, of course, but ‘Democrat Party’ is jarring verging on ugly. It fairly screams ‘rat.’”

At the end of the day, I don’t even think a lot of Republicans know why they are habitually dropping the “-ic,” other than they know that it annoys their foes.  In other words, the dropping of the “ic” is motivated by the same thing that motivated the name game insults when we were churlish children on the playground.

Ick indeed.

- Loveland

Note:  This post was also featured as a “best of the best” in MinnPost’s Blog Cabin.

 

Norm Coleman To Return To His DFL Roots?

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Former St. Paul Mayor and U.S. Senator Norm Coleman is nothing if not flexible.

  • When  leftist radicals were de rigueur in the 1960s, Norm 1.0 was a leftist radical.
  • When Skip Humphrey and Bill Clinton were on top of the political world, Norm 2.0 clung to them and the rest of the Democratic establishment.
  • When the easier path to higher office appeared to be through the GOP, Coleman retrofitted into GOP Norm 3.0.
  • When the Tea Partiers became power brokers, Norm 3.0 dutifully donned a tri-corner hat, formed a Super PAC to fund Tea Party-backed candidates, and endorsed Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann for, I kid you not, Vice President.

Then in 2012,  the going got tough for Senator Coleman and Tea Partiers, so the tough got a poll. In a St. Paul Pioneer Press commentary this week, Coleman advises Minnesotans  that he is in possession of scientific evidence indicating that “Minnesotans are not anti-government.”

New Norm

Accordingly, Senator Coleman is now telling his fellow Republicans that they should be more like him, Norm 2.5, center-right Norm.  Specifically,  Coleman’s commentary calls for his conservative followers to adopt a brand of conservatism that is “intent on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government,” while “ensuring that those who most need help in our society are able to have the support they need.”

This evolution is welcome news.  In the past Senator Coleman and his party often chose to perform his government repairs with a wrecking ball rather than WD-40.  For instance, in a 2005 vote Senator Coleman, according to www.ontheissues.com, voted to “reduce federal spending by $40 billion over five years by decreasing the amount of funds spent on Medicaid, Medicare, agriculture, employee pensions, conservation, and student loans.”

“It’s time to listen to what Minnesotans want”

But now Coleman’s commentary tells his followers that “it’s time for conservatives to listen to what Minnesotans want.”  Recent public opinion surveys tell us in no uncertain terms “what Minnesotans want:”

(Incidentally,  opinions’ on guns, marriage equality, voting restrictions, abortion, stem cell research and other social issues also are leaning decidedly left these days, but Coleman wants conservatives to de-emphasize social issues, so we will ignore “what Minnesotans want” on social issues for the purposes of this discussion.)

In other words, “listening to what Minnesotans want” leads Senator Coleman, after all these years in the political wilderness, back to the Democratic Party agenda.

Welcome home, Senator Coleman.  Welcome home.

- Loveland

Note:  This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs and MinnPost’s Blog Cabin.

Star Tribune Survey Delivers Mixed News for Dayton Tax Package

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For Governor Dayton’s bold package of tax increases, there was more good news than bad in the Star Tribune’s Minnesota Poll, released yesterday.

Bad News for Dayton

  • Bye Bye Professional Services Tax.  Only 28% of Minnesotans support a sales tax on business services.  With only 36% of DFLers supporting this idea, and an army of special interests mobilized against it, this part of the Governor’s budget is in deep political trouble.

So-So News for Dayton

The news is not universally awful on the services sales tax front, though:

  • Personal Services Tax?  Maybe.  While a sales tax on professional services is unpopular (28% support), a sales tax on “personal services such as haircuts and auto repair” has considerably more support (45% support, 48% oppose).  Interestingly, the difference between the DFL (44% support) and GOP (40% support) is nearly within the poll’s 3.5% margin of error.  To me, this is the most surprising finding.  This is politically difficult, but it may not be out-of-reach yet.

Good News for Dayton

On most other issues where the Governor and the GOP are battling fiercely, Minnesotans are siding with the Governor:

  • Wealthy Tax Rallies the Base.  A  majority (54%), though not an overwhelming one, support “raising state income taxes on married couples with taxable income over $250,000 and single filers with taxable income over $150,000.”  There is a ginormous partisan gap on this issue – 82% support among DFLers, and 37% support among GOPers.  Independents are in a statistical dead heat – 43% support and 45% oppose.  This is the defining partisan issue of our times.
  • All Over It Like A Cheap Suit.  About half (49%) of Minnesotans support instituting a sales tax on clothing items costing more than $100, while 42% oppose.  Even 44% of Republicans support this strategy, along with two-thirds of DFLers.  Interestingly, women (57% support) are much more likely to support the clothing sales tax proposal than men (40% support).
  • Last Call for Alcohol.  If Dayton, who has been open about the fact that he is a recovering alcoholic, needs to backfill for the loss of revenue from the demise of the services sales tax , an alcohol tax is a popular alternative that Dayton has not yet embraced.  Six-out-ten (61%) Minnesotans support “raising the state tax on alcohol in place of other proposed tax increases.”  Interestingly, there is a two-to-one gender gap on this issue, with women more likely to say “cheers” to the idea.
  • Tobacco Tax Support A Foregone Conclusion.  The Star Tribune didn’t even bother to poll on the Governor’s lifesaving tobacco tax proposal, probably because the public has been so overwhelmingly supportive in past polls.

Bottom line:  While part of the services sales tax looks to be toast, Dayton has pretty solid  support for most of the rest of his tax package.  In a state where tax increases have been considered politically radioactive for many years, Dayton has  reason to feel good about that.  At the moment, the data suggest Minnesota is a fairly progressive place.

- Loveland

MN GOP Condemns Colleague for Endorsing Spherical Earth Theory

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Saint Paul, MN — In the wake of two Minnesota Republicans’ shocking endorsements of  freedom-to-marry legislation, today Minnesota Representative Orville Nielsen (R-Outing)  further stunned the state’s political establishment by becoming the first member of his caucus to say he now believes that the planet Earth is probably not shaped like a disk.

Conservatives were quick to downplay the Nielsen announcement as an isolated example of a misguided member being bullied by “junk scientists,” and not the beginning of a movement toward a more science-friendly Republican Party.  A few Republican officials who asked not to be identified also expressed concern that Nielsen may be suffering from a mental illness.

While the Greek scientist Pythagoras asserted that the Earth was spherical as early as 6 BC, Minnesota conservatives say that claim does not yet represent a scientific consensus, citing numerous contrary studies conducted by highly respected Mesopotamians, ancient Norse and Germanic thinkers, pre-Socratic Greeks, and the world renowned Flat Earth Society.

“Clearly the scientific community is split on the question of planetary shape, and until there is unanimity, Republicans will support the time-tested, traditional viewpoint,” said Buck Scheinenfelder, Chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party’s Conformity Committee.

This is not the first time the two major political parties have clashed over scientific interpretations on issues ranging from evolution to climate change.  Most recently, Minnesota GOP congressional candidate Allen Question has maintained that dinosaurs lived alongside humans as late as the 12th century, a claim liberals say is not supported with scientific evidence.

“Liberal scientists want to make all of these issues needlessly complicated, with all their elitist calculations and peer reviewed studies,” said Sheinenfelder.  “But the next time you fly, just look out the window.  I promise, you will see clear evidence below you that looks much more like a flat disk than a dang marble.”

Minnesota Republican leaders denied that elected officials backing marriage equality and planetary sphericality signaled a broader moderating trend in response to a difficult 2012 election cycle.

“A tiny minority of weak-willed individuals may abandon their conservative values and principals, but the majority of Minnesota Republicans still understand that it is a mistake to jump to conclusions until the scientific community is unanimous,” said Scheinenfelder.

Note:  This post is, to the best of our knowledge, satirical.

MN Government Workers’ Pay Falls Further Behind

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The basis of much conservative commentary in Minnesota is that overpaid government employees are causing Minnesota taxpayers to be gouged.  With this week’s news that Governor Dayton is giving 35,000 state workers a raise, we can expect to hear a lot more of that type of commentary.

I have a lot of conservative friends, and I get very concerned for their health when such news causes them to hyperventilate en masse.  Because I care for them, I want to put their minds at ease.  Here goes:

Minnesota state workers make less on average than private sector employees.  According to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute:

  • On an annual basis, full-time state and local workers and school employees are undercompensated by 11% in Minnesota, in comparison to otherwise similar private-sector workers. When comparisons are made for differences in annual hours worked, the gap remains, albeit at a smaller percentage of 7.9%.
  • Minnesota public-sector workers are more highly educated than private-sector workers; 60% of full-time Minnesota public-sector workers hold at least a four-year college degree, compared to 37% of full-time private-sector workers.
  • Minnesota state and local governments and school districts pay college-educated workers on average 25% less than do private employers.

Moreover, the 2% pay increase that Dayton approved for state workers is hardly extravagant.  In fact, it puts them a little further behind most workers.  Robert Half International recently made the following projections for private sector workers in 2013:

  • Starting salaries are expected to rise an average of 3.3 percent for accounting and finance positions…
  • Base compensation for information technology professionals is expected to increase an average of 5.3 percent…
  • Salaries for administrative professionals are anticipated to rise an average of 3.5 percent…

(By the way, the average salary of an S&P 500 CEO has been increasing a little bit more than the 2% state workers are getting.  In 2010 and 2011, it increased by 23% and 14% respectively, to an average of about $13 million per year, about 380 times the wage of the average U.S. worker.)

Finally, Minnesota taxpayers are not getting mugged at the hands of our underpaid public servants.  Far from it.  The “price of government” – the sum of all state and local government taxes and fees charged, expressed as a percentage of statewide personal income – has decreased over the years, not increased.

Even the Dayton budget, which is causing my conservative friends to threaten a mass exodus to rival the Israelites fleeing brutal Egyptian enslavement, merely flattens the downward trend line.  As this graph from Minnesota 2020 shows, the Dayton budget proposal doesn’t begin to restore us to the price of government we were paying in the late 1990s, when the economy was booming.

So for my conservative friends, I have this advice:  Read this post repeatedly, breathe into a paper bag, stay away from KTLK and True North, and rest comfortably knowing that state government workers continue to fall further behind the rest of the workforce.

- Loveland

Is Legalizing Gay Marriage a Minnesota Jobs Program?

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Governor Mark Dayton used his State of the State Address last night to endorse legalizing gay marriage in Minnesota.   And right on cue, Rep. Greg Davids (R-Preston) took the Republicans’ most predictable jab:

 ”He’d rather talk about gays getting married instead of getting Minnesotans jobs that could provide for their families.”

We’re going to be hearing a lot more of that claim from Republicans in the weeks to come, so the argument merits dissection.

Forget for a moment that Davids’ party repeatedly beat down Governor Dayton’s  job-creating bonding proposals when it controlled the Legislature.  Forget that Dayton’s 2013 budget proposal includes several items designed to create jobs:

  • $86 million in low-interest loans for businesses relocating to Minnesota;
  • $25 million for a Minnesota Job Creation Fund;
  • $30 million in transportation and housing spending linked to economic development;
  • A Vikings stadium that will put about 13,000 Minnesotans to work; and
  • A more stable tax system to make our economy more bullet proof during downturns.

Forget about all that for a moment.

Instead, let’s take a look at whether there is any direct connection between legalizing gay marriage and creating and retaining Minnesota jobs. A 2012 article from CNNMoney sheds some light on this question:

 Since gay marriage was legalized in New York state a year ago, marriage license fees, local celebrations and wedding-related purchases have boosted New York City’s economy by $259 million, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced Tuesday.

“Marriage equality has made our City more open, inclusive and free — and it has also helped to create jobs and support our economy,” Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement.

More than 8,200 same-sex marriage licenses have been issued over the past year, representing more than 10% of the 75,000 licenses issued in the city, according to a survey conducted by the City Clerk’s Office and NYC & Company, the city’s tourism and marketing organization.

The city collected $16 million in tax revenue from same-sex marriages over the past year. But weddings brought the biggest economic boost to the city, with about 67% of same-sex couples who got married in the city holding wedding receptions at venues like hotels, restaurants and catering halls throughout New York City’s five boroughs.

Same-sex couples spent an average $9,039 on their weddings, while 31% spent $10,000 or more — though that’s still not as high as the $27,021 that the average couple spends on a wedding, according to a national survey of gay and straight newlyweds from TheKnot.com.

More than 200,000 guests flocked to New York City from other parts of the state or country to partake in the celebrations. Hotels booked nearly 236,000 nights at an average rate of $275 per night. More than 40,000 wedding announcements were printed, and couples bought 47,445 wedding favors, the economic impact survey found.

Of course, in addition to the beginning we also have to consider the end.  That is, many a heterosexual can tell you that what naturally follows many weddings is divorce, and it can sometimes cost more to get out of a marriage than it costs to get into one.  Though an expansion of divorce is an unfortunate consequence of an expanded definition of marriage, divorce proceedings do generate additional economic activity.

It should be noted that Minnesota is not as populous as New York, so we would not see economic benefits anything like the New York benefits.  More to the point, equality and fairness are the more meaningful reasons Minnesota needs to legalize same-sex marriage as soon as possible, not job creation.

Still, a look at what is happening in other states with newly legalized same-sex weddings shows that the Republicans’ asssertion that same-sex marriage would have no positive impact on jobs in Minnesota is every bit as silly as their other arguments against same-sex marriage.

- Loveland

Note:  This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs.

The Five Best Things About Dayton’s Budget

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Governor Mark Dayton went big and bold this week.  He took on the most powerful special interests in order to fix Minnesota’s chronic structural budget deficit problem.  Recent Minnesota Governors haven’t had the guts to do that.  This governor did.

The nitpickers are busily picking nits in Dayton’s proposal, and it’s not a perfect proposal.  But when you focus on the big picture, there is much to admire:

  • It Balances.  No gimmicks.  No shifts.  No one time revenues.  No smoke.  No mirrors.  The revenue and spending sides apparently balance.  Don’t you dare yawn about this accomplishment, because that has been a rare feat at the State Capitol in recent years.
  • It’s Balanced.  This budget does not embody  the extreme right wing’s “no new taxes,”  or the extreme left wing’s “all new taxes.”  It’s a moderate package of “some spending cuts, some spending increases, some tax increases and some tax decreases.”  While that may not play to the extremes, it’s the kind of balance that, according to polls, the vast majority of Minnesotans have been wanting.
  • It Saves Lives.  The Governor has historically worried that tobacco taxes are regressive.  This is a worthwhile thing for any lawmaker to consider.  But the flip side of that coin is that the benefits of a tobacco tax also disproportionately flow to smokers.  Because the tobacco tax is proven to lead to much more tobacco cessation and prevention, and tobacco cessation and prevention leads to much less tobacco-related suffering and death, raising the tobacco tax causes smokers to pay more, but suffer less.   It ends up being a “cruel to be kind” proposition.  The Governor dug below the surface to consider the public health implications of the change, not just the fiscal implications, and that caused him to do did right by smokers.
  • It’s Fair.  Wealthy Minnesotans pay a lower share of their incomes in state and local taxes than citizens of any other income quintile.  Dayton, a wealthy man, is righting that wrong by increasing income taxes on Minnesota’s wealthiest citizens.  To have a credible tax system, we must have everyone paying their fair share.  That’s not “soaking the rich.”  That’s unsoaking the non-rich.
  • It’s Good Government (Not Good Politics).  “Broaden the base and lower the rate” has been the mantra of non-partisan good government advocates for years.   An astute politician like Dayton understands that taxing new things is always a tough political sell.  But he did it because broadening the base and lowering the rate is the right “good government” thing to do.  I know that observation probably comes across as pollyanna-ish to cynics, but it just happens to be true in this case.

Dayton didn’t pick the easy political path.  This budget takes on a lot of special interest groups, and therefore seems likely to get pretty thoroughly shredded under the Capitol dome.  I can’t think of many Minnesota politicians with the political courage and integrity to propose a budget like Governor Dayton just did.  It’s a terrific starting point, and if even half of the major components of the Dayton budget survive the legislative kondirator on John Ireland Boulevard, that would constitute major progress.

- Loveland

Note:  This post was also selected as a “best of the best” for MinnPost’s Blog Cabin feature.

Will There Be Payback for the Bakk Brodkorb Broadside?

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WCCO-TV’s Pat Kessler tweets that Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk (DFL-Virginia) wants to reduce Republican payrolls because of the over $200,000 in legal expenses associated with the contested firing of  Senate staffer Michael Brodkorb after Brodkorb had an affair with Bakk’s predecessor, then Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch.

 This raises Golden Ruley questions, such as:

  • Were DFL staff payrolls reduced in order to cover legal expenses associated with the DFL-heavy Phonegate scandal?
  • Would DFLers support a local school board Education Minnesota members’ salaries to pay for legal expenses associated with anti-gay bullying lawsuits?
  • Would DFLers have been comfortable cutting the salaries of workers at the EVTAC mine in Eveleth to pay legal expenses associated with the sexual harassment charges against that company?

The point:  Most rank-and-file Repblican staffers presumably were not making decisions about the Brodkorb affair and firing, so explaining the payroll cut as an en masse punishment for the lawsuit doesn’t seem fair.

To be clear, the issue is the explanation, not the action.  Majority Leader Bakk is justified in reducing Republican staff payrolls, just as Republicans reduced DFL payrolls when they became the majority party.  When electoral shifts cause changes in party majorities, political staffing levels shift accordingly.  As long as the staffing shift is proportional to the electoral shift, there’s nothing nefarious about such adjustments.

But if Senator Bakk insists on using the Brodkorb suit as his rationale for the Republican payroll cuts, that rationale may well be used against him or his party some day.  And paybakk could be a bitch.

- Loveland

Note:  This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs and Minnpost’s Blog Cabin feature.

MN Senate Republicans Propose Improvements To Social Studies Standards

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Saint Paul, MN — Minnesota Senate Republicans today detailed a series of suggested improvements for the new social studies standards originally proposed by the Dayton Administration’s Minnesota Department of Education.

 In a letter to the Department, Senate Republicans suggested a number of “pro-America reforms,” including:

  • Replace the term “social studies” with “Exceptional America Studies”
  • Substitute President’s Day observances with Reagan Day observances
  • Note that the Laffer Curve is an irrefutable Natural Law
  • Utilize Fox News viewing as the centerpiece of current affairs units
  • Strike the cumbersome words “a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state…” from the Second Amendment worksheets
  • Move discussion of FDR’s New Deal into the Communism unit
  • Remove mention of any Presidents who have failed to supply birth certificates that meet Donald Trump’s approval
  • Utilize Lone Ranger episodes to prove how well Tonto and his friends were treated by real Americans
  • Strike any mention of the fringy Founding Fathers’ advocacy of religious pluralism
  • Ensure that all materials not only note that God has blessed America, but that God is American
  • Add some awesome Toby Keith lyrics to spice things up

“We’re trying very hard to be constructive,” the letter noted.   “The Department’s originally proposed ‘standards’ completely failed to adequately acknowledge the contributions of the United States and our economic and political ideals, so we expect the Department to immediately prove it is pro-America by adopting our improvements.”

Can Norm Coleman Recover From His Recent Tea Party Cheerleading Role?

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So, Norm Coleman won’t rule out a run for Minnesota Governor.  Well, let’s see, what has Norm been doing to ingratiate himself with Minnesota voters since he lost to Al Franken in 2008?  He:

1)   Moved out of Minnesota at the first opportunity.

2)   Became a Super PAC (Congressional Leadership Fund) political hit man doing the dirty work for a group of Tea Party-controlled House members sporting a 9% approval rating, an all-time historic low.

3)   Promoted Michele Bachman, Minnesota’s most irresponsible Tea Partier and McCarthyite, to serve a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

Over the last four years, Norm bought into the Tea Party scene lock, stock and Bushmaster barrel.

So, how is Coleman’s Tea Party cheerleading role selling back in moderate Minnesota, a blue state which recently gave Democratic President Obama a relatively easy 8-point victory?  Not well.  In 2008, Norm Coleman only lost to Senator Al Franken by a small fraction of one percent.  But after watching Coleman go all Tea Party the last few years, Minnesotans now choose Al over Norm by a comfortable 7% margin.

Norm Coleman would be a better gubernatorial candidate for Republicans than, say, Kurt Bills or Michele Bachmann.  But that isn’t saying much.   Norm in 2013 is a much weaker candidate than he was when he lost in 2008 to a highly flawed DFL challenger.  His Super PAC adventures have further besmirched his image in recent years.  Minnesotan Republicans could do much better with a fresh face.

A Kinda Sorta Retraction on Constitutional Amendments

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A while back, a communications strategist for the Minnesota House Republicans took umbrage with my assertion that the 2012 GOP-controlled Legislature had a historically low approval rating of 17% in part because Republican legislators were:

“Wasting all their time on constitutional amendments to limit Minnesotans’ freedoms to marry and vote.”

He took exception with my use of the word “all.”  To his credit, the Umbrage Taker was wielding supportive data, which earned him extra credit in my book.  I have no reason to dispute the data, and found them interesting, so I am happy to share them to hereby clear the record:

Wry Was Wrong

In light of this evidence, the Republican Wry reader asked for a correction.  I will oblige.   Using “all” in that sentence was incorrect.   I apologize for my mistake.

But…

While the “all” part of the statement was incorrect, I maintain that the overall spirit of the statement was correct.

While legislators weren’t wasting “all” of their time on these two issues, they certainly were wasting too much of their time.  The non-partisan League of Women Voters has shown that Minnesota basically has no voter fraud problem to fix.  At the same time, nine states have shown us that marriage equality poses no threat to citizens.   Spending any legislative time on solutions in search of problems is wasteful.

Finally, though the supplied data shows that the GOP legislators’ measures didn’t waste much of THEIR time on these issues, it is worth noting that they wasted plenty of OUR time.  The Legislature passed the policymaking buck to 2.9 million Minnesota voters, which meant that we had to spend exorbitant numbers of hours and dollars on these issues.

We didn’t much like it.  Those issues hurt Republicans with the swing voters they needed to win over.  According to a November 2012 Public Policy Polling survey, only 34% of self-identified moderates were with the Republicans on gay marriage, and only 38% voted were with them on voter restrictions.

But again, it is true that Republicans didn’t spend “all” of their legislative time on those two amendments, so I apologize.

(I never was very good at apologies.)

- Loveland

Note:  This blog was also featured by Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs.