Is everything settled by Pawlenty’s May Surprise? Not quite

To hear the buzz around the Capitol following Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s press conference this afternoon, you might think he had just mooted anything the Legislature could possibly do over the last four days of this session. Not so. There’s still a $1 billion gap in the budget where all parties had assumed that either the governor’s appropriation bond borrowing, the Legislature’s omnibus tax package, or some equivalent compromise measure would be.

To fill it by himself, Pawlenty would have to find another $1 billion in cuts over and above the $1.5 billion in cuts he put forward in his original budget. It’s doubtful that he really wants to do that cutting, or else he would have done it back in January instead of pitching a plan to borrow against future state revenues–a plan that nobody in the governor’s office could have seen as an easy sell in the first place. The liberal use of one-time money in the governor’s budget–the cost shift, the appropriation bonds–proves that he’s known from the start it was impossible to cut his way to balance without slitting his own throat in the process.

There was an air of shock about this afternoon’s meeting of the Legislative Commission on Planning and Fiscal Policy. House Speaker and commission chair Margaret Anderson Kelliher (DFL-Minneapolis) initially convened the meeting just minutes before Pawlenty’s press conference, and immediately commented to state budget director James Schowalter that she hoped the rumors she’d been hearing about line-item vetoes and unallotments were untrue.

When the commission reconvened after Pawlenty’s announcement and an impromptu response presser by Kelliher and House Majority Leader Tony Sertich (DFL-Chisholm), Kelliher seemed incredulous and very angry. Much of the remainder of the meeting involved sparring across party lines between legislative DFLers not quite sure how to reclaim any leverage and Management and Budget Commissioner Tom Hanson, who gave no sign that Pawlenty was prepared to budge on anything.

Regarding the education cost shift that the governor wanted and the Legislature did not pass, Hanson said the delayed payments could be accomplished by financial maneuvers that "mimic" a legislative cost shift.

When Kelliher pointed out the remaining $1 billion revenue gap to Hanson, he acknowledged it: "Yes, Madame Speaker, but it’s not going to come by raising taxes. He’s made that clear to me, and he’s made that clear to you."

Sertich, who has had some of the angriest exchanges with Hanson in LCPFP, then spoke up: "Commissioner Hanson, you can keep telling us what [the $1 billion in revenue] is not, but that doesn’t solve the problem. I can tell you what’s not going to happen; that doesn’t solve the problem."

Hanson: "Rep. Sertich, if you have another idea, we’re listening."

Sertich: "Commissioner Hanson, you use words like ‘agreement’ and ‘mutual’ as if you mean them, and I don’t believe you, quite honestly. What I hear you say on agreement is, we want you to agree with what the governor says, and if you don’t do that, we’ll go it alone. I don’t share the optimism from around this table. I don’t think this is funny…. If the governor goes it alone and has it his way, 113,000 Minnesotans will lose health insurance. Sixteen thousand Minnesotans will lose their jobs, and there will be cuts in education and higher tuition. That’s not funny. That’s not an agreement. I’m not optimistic."

Hanson: "Well, Rep. Sertich, your version of agreement is us doing exactly what you want."

Sertich: "That’s not true. We’re looking for compromise. We have compromised in many of these bills to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. We’ve cut more than you’ve cut. We’ve lowered our revenue [proposal] down to the revenue that the governor has stated is needed to balance this budget."

And that was more or less the tenor of the whole meeting. Before adjourning, Kelliher held out the possibility the commission might reconvene tonight, and said it certainly would by sometime Friday morning.

Because Pawlenty clearly does not want to incur the added political costs that would come with another $1 billion in cuts, there is almost certainly more haggling to come even if the governor
goes the line-item-veto-and-unallotment route on all the other major bills. It also remains possible, though just barely, that some more encompassing compromise on the rest of the budget will be reached. But the absolute anger and bitterness of legislative DFLers today, coupled with the governor’s cat-that-ate-the-canary triumphalism and intransigence, make that seem awfully unlikely at the moment.

But there are still four days to go.

10 Responses to “Is everything settled by Pawlenty’s May Surprise? Not quite”

1. Anonymous Says:
   May 14th, 2009 at 10:09 pm

   The governor should be congratulated on a master stroke! If the DFL has anyone to blame, they need only look in the mirror. The governor is signing their bills — their so-called solutions that bring us up $3 billion short. Five months of inactivity, no targets, no reforms, and now they want to blame the governor for saying “enough.” The alternative would have been three months of political brinksmanship by Special Session Speaker Kelliher, angling for the governor’s office. Pawlenty has shown he’s willing to use his executive authority to do what the DFL’s special interest groups clearly would not let them do: Balance the budget. Minnesotans have acknowledged there are tough decisions to be made, and they want the legilsture to get it done on time. How ridiculous to leave the real work of the legislature up to the governor! So, before anyone criticizes Pawlenty, they need to ask, “Where was the DFL plan for balancing the budget?” They had no plan, and that’s why the governor is once again doing the leading.

2. Anonymous Says:
   May 15th, 2009 at 10:06 am

   The thing I keep hearing from Pawlentyites is “the Democrats have no plan.” They do have a plan, but it involves raising taxes on the tippy-top income earners in the state and Pawlenty does not want to anger his country club buddies with that kind of thing. The DFLers do have a plan, just one the Republicans don’t like, but that does not mean that it doesn’t exist. So the governor takes an “I’m the decider” approach to this problem. That is not representative government, it’s a dictatorship. Wasn’t that the kind of government we were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan?

3. Anonymous Says:
   May 15th, 2009 at 11:11 am

   Leadership is AWOL. So too is tax fairness, economic justice and the art of compromise.

   No new taxes is such a dead tag line that only feeds on people’s lowest common denominator, namely greed, especially when we use people’s rough times at the “kitchen table” as a cloak to protect those most able to do their fair share, yet somehow meriting a “special protected class status” from the one person who could really turn Minnesota around from the dead end policies we’re faces with six years of smoke and mirrors, funny money, refusals to invest, and a budgeting that even refuses to acknowledge that it makes no sense to count iflation in revenue but not in spending.

   No one at the kitchen table or the board room table would run an organization this way without being seriously doubted…. or at least having a drug test.

   For God’s sake, and for the sake of those the Bible calls on us to be most mindful of, let’s hope for a new spirit of copmpromise AND investment… and let’s hope thast the Legislature andthe Governor agree to meet halfway…. after all, this is a democracy, not a monarchy where only the wealthy have rights and access.

   PJM,
   Inver Grove Heights

4. Anonymous Says:
   May 15th, 2009 at 3:14 pm

   Sertich was dead on. The Democrats cut more spending than the Governor did because they read the writing on the wall. This isn’t the time for showmanship. There was only one option, cuts plus revenue, and even the governor agreed with this concept when he suggested his accounting gimmicks.

   Conservatives need not celebrate Tim, since the Governor never intended to make these cuts. He had hoped that financing the state with the rough equivalent of a subprime mortgage on future revenues would make him a conservative hero for not breaking his tax pledge in the face of both a full-blown recession and a systemic deficit. The end result is that he’s being forced to ruin his state and his political career.

   Even Pawlenty is aware that cutting another billion will savage our schools for years, as yet another generation of starting teachers are being forced to leave the profession after schools had already thinned their young from the herd for several years. Between Pawlenty’s cuts and the teacher’s union’s insistence on canning their youngest, the next generation of Minnesotan workers is under attack. Even suburban districts with the best standardized test scores are hiding a critical problem. They programmatically teach the test materials in order to manipulate the statistics, but far too few students are learning any critical thinking skills that will allow our state’s next generation to succeed in private enterprise against world competitors. The old best teaching practices that made Minnesota the powerhouse it was are not being passed down anymore.

5. Anonymous Says:
   May 16th, 2009 at 12:12 pm

   When I relocated my wife and six children to Minnesota in 1993 I never asked about the income tax rates, the sales tax rate, or the property tax rates. I chose Minnesota due to her reputation as a state with a high quality of life. I love my adopted state of Minnesota.

   Governor Tim Pawlenty was elected twice by a minority of voters. He continues to protect the $1 Billion per year tax break given to the top 2% of the wealthiest Minnesotans. If we cannot afford to fund schools, hospitals and nursing homes; how can the governor justify protecting the wealthiest top 2% of Minnesotans from paying a higher income tax rate than middle income taxpayers?

   Voters spoke loud and clear last November when they replaced a presidential “decider” with an executive willing to collaborate with others. The governor has appeared on national news shows 24 times in the last 4 months yet has only met with legislative leaders 4 times this session.

   Minnesota has regressed under the lack of collaborative leadership under “Governor Pawlenty the Decider”. Leadership can be collaborative and compassionate. Leadership does not need to be dictatorial or mean spirited.

   Governor Pawlenty has been consistent. He has consistently chipped away at our quality of life over the past six years by protecting the wealthiest 2% at the expense of the remaining 98%.

   When voting for governor in 2010, voters should remember the vital importance in electing a governor that will:

   Promote our quality of life;

   Provide for the common wealth of all citizens;

   Protect our schools, hospitals, and nursing homes;

   Joseph E. Brown, Sr.
   27667 Mower-Freeborn Road
   Austin, MN 55912
   (507) 437-1403 Home
   (507) 438-9083 Cell

6. Anonymous Says:
   May 16th, 2009 at 5:39 pm

   What you really mean is lets protect ASCME Jobs You must think were all stupid you piece of ShI**

7. Anonymous Says:
   May 16th, 2009 at 9:02 pm

   The DFL Leadership should call Pawlenty’s bluff! We need an IMMEDIATE override vote on the GAMC line item veto. First, now that we know the devastating impact of the General Assistance Medical Care (GAMC) veto of $381 million on hospitals statewide, which will force many to abandon their role as safety net hospitals (not to mention the human impact on the most vulnerable people in the state) we need to force Republican legislators to endorse these cuts. Let Pawlenty know that his politcal suicide pact will also bring down his Republican allies in the legislature once the impact on communities statewide becomes clear!

   Pawlenty should also be forced to make an additional $1 billion in cuts by himself, if he wants to act like a dictator and disregard the people’s representatives. He will surely go down to defeat in 2010 and will cause the Republicans to have their lowest representation in the legislature in modern history.

   Go ahead and let him self destruct!

8. Anonymous Says:
   May 17th, 2009 at 8:19 am

   Why does Govenor Pawlenty feels it is necessary to use a line item veto in regards to the budget? I contend that it is because the legislature has not come up with an acceptable plan. They have failed. They know full well what the Govenor’s position on new taxes was. Why then was there a proposal for more taxes? Why were spending cuts not resolved by the legislature? These legitimate questions that I feel you as elected officials are responsible for reflecting on. Obviously we as a state are spending too much on too many programs. This cannot go on.

   I also as a citizen do not want any new taxes. I dispute your statements that the majority of the citizens agree that we need tax increases or new taxes to resolve the budget shortfall. That is simply not true. How is that true. I contend that the majority of TAXPAYERS do not want to be taxed more. Where are the facts that support this statement?

   Not coming to an agreeement on the budget is not acceptable. Paying for a special session is a total waste of money that is why the Govenor has resorted to the line item veto. I totally support him. He has shown true leadership. Now it is the legislature’s turn to do the same. Some compromise should have happened well before this point in time.

9. Anonymous Says:
   May 17th, 2009 at 8:23 am

   This comment is just plain nasty. Attack the govenor seems to be a typical tactic to divert attention from the matter at hand. The govenor took control of the situation with the line item veto option because the legislature DID NOT DO their job. They had plenty of time but showed ineffective leadership. Pawlenty is showing true leadership.

10. Anonymous Says:
    May 24th, 2009 at 7:30 am

    You must be one of those ignorant right wing idiots. No values or morality for you, oh no.. It’s all about you, never growing emotionally beyond the age of a three year old. If you’re one of the greedy rich Minnesota’s unwilling to pay their share..you day will come. If you’re just ignorant I will do what Jesus said and pray for you!.

    Lee