The T Word: Pelowski on why he voted against the tax bill

Ask Rep. Gene Pelowski Jr. (DFL-Winona) (pictured) why he was the lone Democrat to vote against the tax bill that Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed last weekend and you’ll get a lengthy and harsh critique of what he terms game-playing by his own party and the governor’s office. What you won’t get is any sense of the circumstances in which DFLer Pelowski would vote for tax increases unless the Republican governor was going to sign them into law.

Yesterday PIM stopped by Pelowski’s office to ask why he had voted against a bill that essentially would have replaced the $1 billion in appropriation bonds Pawlenty is pitching as a revenue source with a combination of new tax measures totaling the same amount. (Earlier, Pelowski had been one of 18 DFLers to vote against the House’s original $1.5 billion omnibus tax bill.) To call his answer discursive would be understating the matter, so I’ll quote him at length.

"Why did I vote against two tax bills?" says Pelowski. "Because they’re fake. They’re fiction. The governor wasn’t going to sign the first one, so why go through it? And then what did we do last week? We have a conference committee in place. We have two bills, and we are discussing those two bills. The discussion is on taxes. I think that’s the wrong discussion. The discussion has to be on the totality of the cuts. That’s why I went to every local unit of government, and every constituency group, and said, Prepare. Because I don’t think they know what’s coming. I don’t think they know what $6.4 billion means–factor in your federal stimulus, but it still doesn’t matter–to K-12, to higher ed. Health and human services is just going to get whacked. This is going to transform the relationship of Minnesota to all those entities. They will not be the same as they were before.

"And you know what? Next session we get to do it again. So instead of playing games–I’ve voted for tax increases when they were real and the governor signed them. I voted to override the governor when we had the votes to override on transportation. I’m one of the few members here who can say, I voted for a tax bill the governor signed. In fact, my first term here: Gov. Rudy Perpich, $860 million. I have no trouble voting for something and going home and saying, this is what you get. I have a real problem voting for things that are fake or fiction when the stakes are this high. This isn’t game-playing. We’re either statespeople or we’re politicians, and it isn’t about the next election. It’s about the future of the state.

"Tell me that I can go home and say, I voted for this but it didn’t happen. How does that help the schools or Winona Health, or the city of Winona or the county? How does that help? Can I puff out my chest? The thing we banter around here a lot that I think is funny is that it’s courage. It’s bold. It’s neither one. There’s no courage in this. There’s no boldness. We’re elected to take votes, to represent people. I’m not elected to play games. We’re past that. This is the biggest fiscal crisis of my generation. The next generation’s going to pay for it.

"I’m not elected to be popular with [my caucus]. That’s another thing I find curious–this idea that I’m supposed to be representing the DFL caucus. No, I’m not. I’m elected to represent two entities–my district and Minnesota. And I have to make tough choices between those two. I am not elected to represent the DFL party. That’s not why I’m here. What I find interesting about all this is that we failed terribly to explain to Minnesota what the harm of these cuts is going to be. And the governor’s part of this, too. He’s played games with it.

"I think real leadership would have been to instruct all the fiscal chairs to do what is difficult. No new spending at all, and look at these cuts account by account. Let every member of this body know what happens when you spread these cuts across those accounts. Then Minnesota has to face it."

3 Responses to “The T Word: Pelowski on why he voted against the tax bill”

1. Anonymous Says:
   May 12th, 2009 at 9:55 am

   hey, you guys still use the phrase “the T-word”. Are you guys implying taxes are a third rail issue that cannot be discussed? you certainly reinforce that idea when you use “the t-word”. The writing on this site is good, but you guys lose credibility and sound infantile when you use the phrase “the t-word”. Call them taxes, it’s what a grown up does. There is nothing cute about it, it’s time to drop it.

2. Anonymous Says:
   May 12th, 2009 at 12:15 pm

   I think ” The T-Word” started out being a theme at the beginning of session when we all knew the state was in some serious financial trouble and there would be tax increase proposals, but the DFL was doing its best not to mention tax increases so that they could leave attention on the Governor’s budget cuts and shifts. DFL members were literally not supposed to use the word “tax”. So, PIM started it as a bit of an inside joke, and has decided to keep the theme despite the fact that the tax proposals are out in the open. At least, that is how I understood it.

3. Anonymous Says:
   May 12th, 2009 at 6:54 pm

   And here we are in May, and the democrats have been talking about raising taxes for the last two months. They even had rally’s in favor of raising taxes. Thanks for the context. I’m going to point this out until it stops because it really is beneath this site.