Only If We Win

Today (5/20), Minneapolis Star Tribune Chairman Mike Sweeney published an editorial that should upset me more than most: Minnesota voters have already pointed the way.  But overall it is so detached from reality that it's mostly amusing.  It's a great country where even this level of reasoning can be fiscally remunerative.

In their infinite wisdom, Minnesota voters elected a politically divided state government. They elected, for the first time in just short of forever, a Republican-dominated Legislature, because in these times of fewer resources government must be forced to be efficient and to make fewer promises. But they elected DFLer Mark Dayton as governor because they wanted someone to protect our safety net and to insist on "fairness" in our tax structure.

Infinite wisdom?  Hardly.  Mark Dayton simply repeated the DFL mantra of something for nothing, and the voters once again bought it.  Give an assist to those thoughtful moderates of both parties that thought Tom Horner had any answers.  We collectively elected as Governor the candidate who most embodied the policies that got us into "these times of fewer resources."  Wisdom tells us to stop digging, but Sweeney presses on:

The pounding of local government aid and of higher education has gone far enough. It is beyond efficiency and beyond forcing reform. It is now at the point of threatening the mission. And the voters know it. Significant majorities say they want a mix of cuts and revenue to solve our budget crisis.

The "pounding" local government aid (LGA) and higher education are taking is simply a long overdue reassessment forced by the recession.  That reassessment shows that LGA has strayed far from its original intent and that some recipients really do not need such assistance.  Higher education spending has inflated even faster than health care. If anything, more pounding is in order given its obvious inefficiencies.  And I'd say that significant majorities said no such thing about "a mix of cuts and revenue" last November.  If they had, the DFL would still be running the Legislature.

If just 1 voter in 100 had awoken from their MPR-induced coma, Republican Tom Emmer would be Governor, the "infinite wisdom" totally replaced by scorn and confusion by the Star Tribune.  They only think we're smart when we agree with them.

 

Comments

[Hiram]

The reality is that Minnesota has elected a divided government. One of the intellectual conceits I am prone to is that people, individually and even collectively, intend the natural consequences of their actions. By electing a Republican legislature and a DFL governor, the message sent was that the voters want compromise. And I think that's what they were telling people in the election, and that's what the polls show now.