Republicans are the ones with a sensible budget plan

Recently, Minnesotans have been getting a story line about our state's budget impasse that runs like this: Mean-spirited, extremist Republicans in the Legislature are taking a cleaver to the budget. They're chopping vital services and callously shrugging off the needs of Minnesotans.

Gov. Mark Dayton, however, cares about people. He wants to meet their needs with a sensible mix of budget cuts and modest tax increases, which will only impact the very wealthy. Dayton, we're assured, is "Mr. Moderate" -- the Great Compromiser.

We can expect this message to be amplified in coming weeks by a $1 million ad campaign and an eagerly complicit media.

In scrutinizing these claims, our first question should be: Just how big are the cuts those nasty Republicans want to make? Ten percent of current spending? Fifteen percent or more?

Think again. The budget Republican leaders sent to Mr. Moderate doesn't cut state spending at all. In fact, it increases general-fund spending by 6 percent from the current biennium, and is the largest general-fund budget in state history.

Both K-12 education and health care, the usual arenas of partisan wrangling, will see budget boosts compared with actual spending in the current two-year period.

Yet the Legislature's budget requires no new taxes, because it balances spending increases with expected revenue increases. That's a prudent move at a time when most Minnesotans are scrimping to buy gas and groceries.

How about Dayton, Mr. Moderate? He's demanding an unprecedented $36 billion budget that includes a whopping 15 percent spending increase over the current biennium.

Dayton wants to plug the resulting gap with a $1.8 billion tax increase -- one of the largest in state history. His plan would boost Minnesota's top marginal income tax rate to virtually the highest in the nation, at 10.95 percent.

All about “meeting in the middle.” Obviously, we don’t know what the GOP leadership team really said - but the quotes that are printed do not (surprise, surprise) do the GOP any justice. Zellers says: “that’s all we got in the checkbook” and Michel says, “I’m impressed with the Gov devoting his personal time to this; he has cleared his calendar for the month of June.”

Geoff Michel should really just resist opening his mouth. From this quote (whether is is taken out of context or not), it sounds like the Gov is being a great guy and making all the effort. As Geoff must know, this is the Gov’s job. In fact, how quickly we forget that when negotiations would get tough in the past few years, the Dems would complain that TPaw was out of town running for President. Our GOP leaders must resist attempting to patronize the left wing media and what they perceive as the voters in the middle by trying to appear “nice” and “reasonable” - that time has passed.

I would respectfully submit the Speaker should change his approach and start pointing out the fallacy of the “meeting halfway argument.” For instance, let’s say two parties are negotiating the purchase/sale of a piece of property; the appraised value is $10K; the seller offers the buyer the property for $100,000; the buyer gags and decides that despite how unreasonable (and out of touch) the seller is, he will not only offer the actual value but he will try to show the seller how generous he is by offering a little more than he should . . . so he offers $12,000 hoping the seller will suddenly become reasonable and say - “wow, you are so generous. I have decided to be reasonable and I will accept your generous offer.”

Instead, the buyer is surprised when the seller responds by reducing his sale price by half to $50,000 and suggesting that the buyer should meet him halfway at $25,000. In other words, just because the seller sets an unreasonable sale price does not mean that when he starts to reduce his price he is “compromising.” He is not - that is - in a nutshell - the situation facing our legislative leaders in Minnesota today.

The solution? The GOP leadership, instead of trying to “play politics,” a game in which they are seriously overmatched (let’s face it, Dayton knows how to play this game as well or better than anybody - and the traditional media WILL NEVER give the GOP a fair shake) - should LEAD! How you ask? Why not just take the budget we presented during the campaign ($32 Billion general fund) and tell the Gov - “you know what, this was our budget, but we tried to compromise from the outset by increasing real spending out of our state’s general fund by some $2 billion. You apparently think this is some sort of game - we do not. This is serious stuff.

Our point of view versus yours (and by the way, several of us have actually run businesses) is the difference between driving more business and opportunity out of Minnesota as opposed to getting control of the runaway government spending and putting forth policies that ensure prosperity will return to our great state. That Sir, is worth fighting for . . . In short, we are not going to play your game.”

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