Defending A Rigid Theology

Well the Governor did it. He went and used his line item veto power to do what the DFL has refused to do all session - balance the state budget as is constitutionally prescribed. If you had listened to the hyperbole that ensued from folks like DFL Chairman Brian Melendez...

We may as well not have held an election in 2008. First, former senator Norm Coleman has deprived Minnesotans of their full representation in the United States Senate, refusing to concede that Al Franken got more votes and is entitled to the seat. Now, Coleman’s crony Governor Tim Pawlenty has threatened to dispense with the elected Legislature, and run the state’s finances in the middle of a historic economic and fiscal crisis using only his executive powers of line-item veto and unallotment. Next week, after the Legislature adjourns its regular session, Minnesotans may wake up in the closest thing that America has had to a monarchy in 233 years.

...to the Speaker of the House...

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has announced his intention to go it alone on balancing the state budget if an agreement satisfactory to him cannot be reached by Monday. He will unallot $3 billion in state funding for areas such as health care, schools, public safety and local government aid. He indicated these cuts will be similar to his first budget proposal; if this is true, Minnesota will lose thousands of jobs in nursing homes, hospitals, schools and public safety. The health care of our families and seniors will be diminished, and the education of our children will be compromised.

...you would think that the best efforts of the Legislature were by-passed by a power crazed mad-man. However their best protestations are (as usual) about as far from the truth as the east is from the west. Britt Robinson, from PIM, laid out a laundry list of DFL missteps that (in his analysis) were precursors of the events that we saw today.

Literally months before the start of the 2009 session, the challenging scenario confronting the DFL leadership was already clearly apparent: The state’s general fund would be billions of dollars in deficit, and a nationally ambitious governor would do anything possible not to raise taxes. But Tim Pawlenty was vulnerable on two fronts, both of them exacerbated by the deficit. First, basic services such as education and health care increasingly lack the funding necessary to ensure that Minnesota will retain its traditionally above-average quality of life, and regain its standing, lost during the Pawlenty Administration, as a robust regional economy. Second, for the past decade, the state budget has been put together with accounting gimmicks and baling wire, without the basic structural integrity necessary to guarantee that there will be revenue available to underwrite ongoing government services.

First off I do have to agree with Chairman Melendez on one thing. We might as well NOT have had an election in 2008 with the way that the Legislature handled the power vested in them by the voters of Minnesota. The DFL leadership knew when the session adjourned last summer that the state of Minnesota was facing a record budget deficit and they knew when they adjourned last summer that all budgets - from the state down to the taxpayers were facing ever tightening budgets. They could have (and should have) started working on a solution to the state's woes last summer (as the Governor did). Oh they will cry and tell you that they did not have access to the same resources that the governor had but that is total buncome! As a co-equal branch of the state government they have the right to the same resources that the governor has - all they need to do is go to the state agencies in question and ask!

Thus far this session, Pawlenty has predictably stuck with his simple but compelling message that Minnesotans should not be burdened with increased taxes at a time when many are struggling for solvency in this brutal recession. In response, DFLers could have chosen between two messages that are nearly as simple and equally compelling.

One would be a full-fledged “Invest In Minnesota” message that argues for a significant tax increase along with the usual accounting gimmickry so that the education and health care needs of Minnesotans are adequately funded. DFLers can rightfully argue that previously substantial investments in education were rewarded by decades in which our state economy outperformed the national averages, and that a major reason for the current spike in health care spending is the victimization of middle-class Minnesotans who have lost their jobs and/or health insurance in this recession.

Or the DFLers could have opted for a “Fiscal Integrity” message, pointing out that Pawlenty’s no-tax stance is literally unaccountable and irresponsible, hamstringing prudent planning and innovative flexibility by obliging future governors and Legislatures to patch over increasingly large structural deficits, even as services fall further and further short of keeping up with needs.

Instead, DFL legislators have half-heartedly commingled these messages and thus botched them both...

The self-inflicted legislative chaos allowed Governor Pawlenty to play the DFL like a finely tuned fiddle again and again. He saw that the House and the Senate were not talking and he offered compromises that he knew the Senate would partially accept but the House would reject out of hand. That showed the people of Minnesota how rigidly the DFL was sticking to ideology - as opposed to actually doing the people's business.

The DFL's biggest misstep though was coming into the Session unprepared or unwilling to tackle the budget right out of the gate. They held all the cards - a veto proof majority in the Senate and a near veto proof majority in the House. They knew going into the Session that this budget deficit was huge and a realist would understand that spending cuts and tax increases were inevitable. Instead of compromising, they held tightly to ideology. That allowed Governor Pawlenty to stick to HIS ideology - his no new taxes pledge.

In the end, the inflexibility that the DFL showed and their refusal to work together (much less working with the Governor) set the tone for the finish of the session. They could have taken advantage of their gains last November and used it to make even bigger gains in 2010. But instead, the DFL leadership sacrificed their Consititutional right to set the budget at the alter of ideology and in the end, that could (and should) spell the end of their large majorities in the Legislature. Well done Madame Speaker!

Update and Bump: Sarah Janecek said it best I think...

Hasn't this entire legislative session been about DFL indecision?

I think we can all agree that this was the case. They couldn't decide what to prioritize so they prioritized nothing. They were asked to make spending cuts, but they couldn't decide what to cut so they cut nothing...the list goes on and on!