The Deputy's Six Percent Solution

As one of the chief Republican confidence men, Il Vacario always bears watching.


The Deputy's Six Percent Solution from Steve Timmer on Vimeo.

In the clip, Geoff Michel repeats the current meme of the MNGOP: we're proposing a six percent increase over the last budget. But that involves a sleight of hand that Two Putt Tommy explains:

In a nutshell, here's what happened during the 2009 Legislative Session: the February 2009 Forecast predicted revenues of $31.1 Billion (rounded).  Knowing that number, Gov. TBag proceeded to sign Spending Bills of $33.8 Billion (rounded) anyway.   

This created a deficit of $2.7 Billion (rounded) from Governor-approved spending -- remember, when TBag signed those spending bills, they were now law).  A bill to balance that deficit, HF-2323, was passed and presented to Gov. TBag to sign.  Except, TBag didn't sign that revenue bill to balance the budget; he vetoed it. 

Upon creating an unbalanced budget, rather than call a Special Session, TBag immediately claimed unilateral power to fix the problem he created, and then hit the campaign trail.  As to TBag's actions creating an anticipated budget problem, then using powers to deal with unanticipated budget problems?  The Court was not amused. 

The only reason GOPers today can use that "$32 Billion" number, is because in 2009 Pawlenty did something the Supreme Court ruled he couldn't. 

The reality is that the "$34 Billion" compromise number the Kochzellerstan crowd is crowing about today, is really the same "$33.8 Billion" number that Pawlenty signed into law, before he went all Nixonian by utilizing excessive  -and illegal - Unitary Executive Power (Nixon would be so proud!)

The Deputy brags about “hundreds of million more” for K-12 education. But ask your school board if it would get six percent more under the Republican plan (especially if you live in Minneapolis, St. Paul, or Duluth). School districts around the state are planning to make budget cuts and lay off staff. Health care facilities are in the same boat, or worse. And never mind what the Republicans want to do to local government aid for our largest cities.

One more point: the Deputy challenges Governor Dayton to sign the non-controversial (less, anyway) parts of the budget and avoid the shutdown.  If he did that, health and human services, among others, would be left entirely in the cold. The only way to negotiate a budget is comprehensively: put everything on the table, not to give your adversary what he wants then beg for the rest.

You know how far that will go with the current Republican crowd.