The longest shutdown in state history is over. Thank goodness.
As the smoke clears, it is fair to ask what the new Republican majorities accomplished — other than missed deadlines and a painful state government shutdown — in their first year leading the state Legislature. The answer to that question, unfortunately, is nearly nothing other than a beg, borrow, and steal budget that jeopardizes the future of our state.
Let’s look at the facts. This was supposed to be the “jobs, jobs, jobs” session. All too many are struggling these days: 200,000 still are without jobs, and many of those lucky enough to have one are facing pay cuts and still are struggling just to make ends meet.
Unfortunately, the Republicans did not lift a finger to support good-paying jobs for middle-class Minnesotans.
They chose instead to attack job protections, and the budgets they proposed actually will cause layoffs — including many in the health care industry, one of the only parts of the Minnesota economy that is growing right now.
The Republican beg, borrow and steal budget also continues the failed financial shenanigans of former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, balancing the budget on the backs of middle-class Minnesotans.
We’ve paid more and gotten less for far too long. Yet instead of defending our wallets, the Republicans raided them — resorting to the old pass-the-buck plan of cutting aid to communities across Greater Minnesota, which means residents will be paying increased property taxes and getting less police and fire protection.
And they are solving a $5 billion state budget deficit by borrowing $1.4 billion and leaving a multi-billion dollar deficit two years from now. That is the height of fiscal irresponsibility.
So, if the Republicans weren’t standing up for middle class families, who did the Republicans work for this session?
Corporate special interests — those who donated hundreds of thousands to Republican campaigns to gain legislative majorities — got to keep their special tax breaks that allow them to hide their profits overseas.
Millionaires also did very well, thanks to the Republicans. In fact, the Republicans were so adamant that the wealthiest Minnesotans not be asked to play a role in solving our historic budget deficit that they took our state to shutdown in order to protect them from paying the same amount of taxes that middle class families pay — not even temporarily.
Not even in order to prevent historic cuts to our state colleges and universities, or cuts to nursing homes and support for seniors and the disabled.
By the way, only 7,700 people would have been affected by the so-called “millionaire tax” — and just half of those even are Minnesota residents. Talk about priorities.
Republican legislators are not working for us. Their budget begs for money from seniors who can’t afford it, borrows from ourselves at a terrible rate and steals from our future by shifting funds for our children’s schools.
It’s a budget that protects millionaires in Wayzata at the expense of folks in Worthington, Willmar, and Wadena.
Those aren’t DFL priorities, and they certainly aren’t Minnesota values. We deserve legislators who will put our kids, our schools, our seniors and middle-class families first.
And that’s exactly what I and my DFL colleagues will continue to do as long as we have the honor of serving Minnesota.
The fact is that this is a beg-borrow-and-steal budget. It borrows and steals from Minnesota’s future and begs the people of our state to look the other way as once again you simply kick the can down the road. We can and must do better. Minnesota’s prosperity and future depend on it.
Paul Thissen is the minority leader in the Minnesota House. He is an attorney and has served in the legislature since 2002.
A couple of years ago, he announced his candidacy for governor. His run for governor was our gain musically because it was during this time that Representative Thissen was alone in a car for hours and hours driving all over the state, meeting folks, getting to know the furthest corners of our beautiful region and listening to classical music.
On his playlist is the wonderfully lyrical ballet “Appalachian Spring.” Though we’re far from the eastern mountains, Copland became his soundtrack for the Glacier Ridge Scenic Byway and much of Western Minnesota.
Another choice on Paul’s playlist is the first movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony, a piece he says he stumbled upon while exploring the winding alleys of Prague and stumbling upon an orchestra playing it outdoors. The music, the location and the people listening made their imprint and this piece is a favorite.
I am most intrigued by the jagged and rough edges of Shostakovich that Paul tells me he heard played by the Emerson Quartet in concert. While music often provides relaxation, focus and a soothing escape, Paul says he loves the complex emotions evoked by this string quartet, as well as its very specific social commentary on the lives of people of that era, something he hopes our vibrant classical scene in Minnesota can also provide its people.
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Paul Thissen’s playlist:
J.S. Bach, Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ – Alfred Brendel
Antonin Dvorak, Symphony No. 9 “From The New World” – Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Fritz Reiner
Dmitri Shostakovich, String Quartet No. 3 – Emerson String Quartet
Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring – Minnesota Orchestra/Eiji Oue
Last summer and fall, Republicans stomped along the campaign trail repeating the mantra that we could easily solve the state’s massive budget deficit by waving the magic wand of reform and “living within our means.” They said all they needed to do was trim the fat from the state budget. They said they could pass their all-cuts budget without causing any pain to schoolchildren, seniors or the disabled. They said the state had more than enough money, despite the deficit.
Turns out, it doesn’t seem quite so easy now that Republicans have to actually make tough choices. They are squeezed between the rock of partisan purity and the hard place of a $5 billion budget deficit.
Here’s some perspective: You could fire every single police officer in Minnesota, as well as the people who plow our roads and guard our prisons, and still not fill the state’s budget hole. You could also close Minnesota’s schools two days every week without bridging the gap. Close every state park? Not nearly enough. You could cut more than half our investment in growing jobs and our economy, as the Republicans have done with their 52 percent proposed cut in the area of Jobs and Economic Development, and barely make a dent in the deficit.
Clearly, more than magic and wishful thinking are required.
Now that we know what Republicans plan to do in their budget, middle-class families should grab hold of their wallets. Republicans are proposing $1.4 billion in property tax increases and more than $200 million in tuition hikes. Those hidden taxes are on top of more than $5 billion in increased property taxes and fees that already have been putting the squeeze on middle-class families in Minnesota for the past eight years.
In addition, Republicans — of the self-proclaimed “party of tough choices” — are trying to avoid budget-cutting responsibility by passing the hard work of making cuts on to mayors, county commissioners, college and university presidents, school boards and Gov. Mark Dayton. They seem to want to pass on the responsibility to anyone they can force to do their dirty work.
In contrast to the hidden taxes and job-destroying cuts proposed by Republicans, the deficit should be solved in a way that’s honest and open. We know there’ll need to be difficult choices and shared responsibility. If Minnesotans believe our future prosperity demands college tuitions that are affordable for middle-class families, that safe communities require enough police and firefighters to quickly respond to emergencies, and that filling potholes and taking care of backed-up sewers is common sense, then we should pay for these essential functions without tricks or gimmicks. And we should make sure everyone, including the rich, pays his or her fair share.
Unfortunately, in their panic, Republicans, it now appears, intend to rush through their hidden-tax budget, which spends $34 billion or more of our money, without giving the public any real opportunity to weigh in. Given how reckless the broad strokes of their budget seem to be, and the potential for a budget chock-full of hidden taxes, Minnesotans should know exactly what the Republicans are up to. However, Minnesotans’ opportunity to voice their opinions is melting away as quickly as the March snow.
Republicans need to stop with their backward, Enron accounting. Minnesotans deserve to know just what so-called “fat” is really being trimmed and how closely they need to guard against pickpocket policies.
Minnesota middle-class families are paying more and getting less. It is that fundamental reality against which the Minnesota House DFL will measure the success of the 2011 legislative session. Was the squeeze on middle-class families eased by our decisions or made worse?
Commentary published in Star Tribune January 2, 2011
Middle-class Minnesotans are being squeezed from every direction.
We rightly feel we are just one downsizing away from losing our jobs and not being able to meet our mortgage payments.
We’re paying more for our kids’ school activities — everything from soccer to speech team seems to cost hundreds just to participate.
For some hardworking families, paying for a child’s college education is nothing more than a dream that has been forgotten.
Minnesota middle-class families are paying more and getting less.
It is that fundamental reality against which the Minnesota House DFL will measure the success of the 2011 legislative session. Was the squeeze on middle-class families eased by our decisions or made worse?
We hope that the Republicans now in charge of the Legislature will join us in standing up for everyday Minnesotans. In these times when real Minnesota families are facing real struggles, the Legislature should be grounded in reality, if nothing else.
Yet if past actions are the best predictors for future behavior, we should all brace ourselves for the Republicans’ 2010 campaign rhetoric to crash-land in the face of the reality of governing responsibly in 2011.
In the Republican imagination, we can balance a $6.2 billion state deficit — a 16 percent hole in our budget — with something they call “streamlining.”
It’s painless, doesn’t touch our children’s educations and has no impact on where our aging parents will live out their golden years. Streamlining is the Republicans’ magic wand that will simply wipe away the largest deficit our state has ever faced.
Don’t get me wrong: I believe government should do things more efficiently, and I will work with my Republican colleagues to make sure it does.
But I also know we cannot “reform” ourselves out of a $6.2 billion budget hole. Minnesotans deserve better than the promise to pull a rabbit out of a hat. They deserve an honest assessment of the pain that the Republican “all cuts budget” will cause our state.
My DFL colleagues and I will be monitoring the real impact of an all-cuts budget.
Does it mean our schools will be forced to educate 14,000 more Minnesota children next year without a dime to pay for them? Does it mean that middle-class kids will no longer be able to afford college tuition?
Do those cuts mean our grandparents will have to move 100 miles from their grandchildren to the only available nursing home? Does such a budget once again put the squeeze on middle-class pocketbooks through higher property taxes?
Above all, does it put job creation now and in the future in further jeopardy?
Will deeply reducing funding for research and innovation, cutting the money that pays for our firefighters, police and first responders, and decreasing investments in roads to move goods make Minnesota less attractive for employers?
If that is what an all-cuts budget means, then I and my colleagues in the DFL caucus will stand up with middle-class families across our state and demand something better.
Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, is the minority leader-designate in the Minnesota House of Representatives.
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