[This item is excerpted from today's PIM Weekly Report.]
Late summer is the most soporific time at the Capitol. On some afternoons, you can stand around the rotunda without seeing a soul for minutes at a time. Daily news cycles line up to die quiet little deaths, one after the other. All the more reason to keep one eye on a little-noted series of meetings concerning Minnesota's handling of federal stimulus dollars and disclosures.
Louise Radnofsky writes in today’s Wall Street Journal that states have been slow to get their applications in for that portion of the federal stimulus package that is supposed to be disbursed by September 30.
But the real highlight is the interactive online map and chart that accompanies the story. Here you can eyeball each state’s [...]
As it turns out, the shower of federal dollars that came to Minnesota with the passage of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act has brought a sprinkling of red ink as well. The Minnesota Department of Revenue today released its estimate of the dollars the state will lose as a result of adopting the tax [...]
[An excerpt of this story was first published in last Friday's PIM Weekly Report.]With the dismal budget scene, Capitol hearings can be quite a depressing experience. However, last Wednesday, Rep. Bill Hilty’s (DFL-Finlayson) Committee on Energy Finance and Policy let some sunshine in, with a broad array of policy and finance bills that would pave [...]
One of the most striking things about talking budget with members and staffers at the Legislature these days is the continuing confusion over what’s kosher and what’s not under the terms of the federal stimulus package passed last month. A month ago, chaos reigned at the Capitol as everyone scrambled to absorb the details of [...]
One of the many ambiguities of the hastily constructed American Reinvestment and Recovery Act that’s causing scrambling and confusion in states all across the U.S. is what qualifies as a "shovel-ready" project for stimulus spending purposes. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that most state and local governments do not sit around with a passel of unfunded [...]
More than $1.5 million of Minnesota’s share of federal stimulus funds will provide meals for low-income seniors in the state, Vice President Joe Biden announced today.
The money is part of $100 million in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that will go toward feeding seniors at senior centers and other community sites, home-delivered meals and [...]
One of the many ambiguities of the hastily constructed American Reinvestment and Recovery Act that’s causing scrambling and confusion in states all across the U.S. is what qualifies as a "shovel-ready" project for stimulus spending purposes. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that most state and local governments do not sit around with a passel of unfunded [...]
This morning at the governor’s press conference, there was an interesting moment when MinnPost’s Doug Grow asked Tim Pawlenty if he liked the federal stimulus package any better now than he had initially.
Below, I’ve transcribed Pawlenty’s answer, which sounds for all the world like a very rough draft of a Campaign 2012 soundbite–and at least [...]
A week and a half after the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was signed into law, the governor’s office and the Legislature are still strugging to decode its implications for the state’s budget. The bottom-line infusion of up to $4.3 billion in federal dollars has been clear from the start. But at the Capitol there [...]
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