Speed Gibson

Michele, My Belle

I know it's way too early but at this early point in the 2012 Presidential campaign, my first choice for the GOP nomination is Michele Bachmann.  I'm almost surprising myself, but the debt situation is so serious that only a serious candidate will do.  And I only see one, Bachmann, who tells it straight and would act accordingly, including the part about a total repeal of Obamacare.

Close Enough For Government Work

With national issues so well covered by my fellow bloggers and alternative (read: accurate) media, I seldom see my viewpoints not expressed elsewhere.  Often, my opinions are drawn and formed from these proven sources.  And sometimes it's what's not said.  And what I'm still not hearing is a real "why" not raising the national debt ceiling will be an avoidable catastrophe.

No plan, not even the Ryan Budget/Plan will solve the problem.  The plans currently on the table are absurdly weak, unfocused pain now, relief in the out years that never arrives.  What will arrive is devaluation, inflation and/or default.  That for sure will be catastrophic.

So put me down for not raising the debt ceiling now, at least not as proposed so far.  It's not going to pretty, but it won't be a year or two from now either.  We may indeed see an even uglier side of our leaders.  The cuts required will affect almost everyone.  Words like impeachment, indictment and recall may be heard.  There may be violence.  But finally, the welfare/bureaucratic state and yes, the military/industrial complex will literally be put on trial.

We could want a more orderly process, like some Republicans envision by winning the Senate and Presidency in 2012.  I don't know if we have the time.  Even then I can't imagine anything short of a President Bachmann and a Congress to match having the courage to truly act effectively.  We won't like the idea of the Arsonist In Chief allocating the money, but as long as he can't spend what none of us has it's close enough for government work.

Stop the madness now, out in the open.

Who Lost? My Two Cents

Last post, I stated why overall, the Republicans won the 2011 Minnesota Legislative Session.  Their mandate to stop the mindless, endless spending in St. Paul was clear.  The GOP takeover of the Senate alone is proof enough.  But as the Democrats repeatedly found with Tim Pawlenty, the Governor can be an almost immovable bulwark against legislative agendas.  Add demonstrably incompetent coverage by most of the media and I even now further admire what the GOP accomplished this year.

So much for the victors.  Who were the losers?

Certainly not the media.  If you throw progressive pebbles in a liberal pond, do they make waves?  One could hope that some of their followers are smart enough to question the questionable.  Hey, wait a minute - this number is the larger of the two.  That's clearly not what he meant.  They tried that in another state.  Why do I get a different result with my calculator?  Why the secrecy?  No, they'll just keep on keeping on.

I don't think the Governor really lost either.  He's too set in his ways, oblivious to the changing world around him.  He's got his resume updated and won't be running again.  Besides, it was a lot more work than he thought, even after avoiding as much of it as he could.  He has retired once again for the balance of his term and few should be surprised if he decides to step down early.

Some pundits that I otherwise follow and admire are matter of factly saying that there will be change in the GOP leadership next session, primarily the House, primarily the Speaker of the House, Kurt Zellers.  Some go further, saying that anyone who was part of "first, best, and last offer" strategy should be replaced, meaning more Conservative primary challengers need to be found.  I view this as both premature and unfounded.  Given what played out, does anyone think a $32 billion budget could have survived for long given the Governor and his friends in the media?  Don't forget, Dayton didn't have to fold because his spending was too low.  It was the absurdity of our over-regulatory state government that his interests could not afford to see further exposed.  There was no way to anticipate that outcome in setting dollar targets.

And let's not forget that, say, the Kurt Zellers that emerged from this session is not the admittedly inexperienced Kurt Zellers that opened it.  There is a learning curve, and I have no reason to think he won't further improve with experience.  Furthermore, at every point along the way he was much better than the flustered, blustering Margart Anderson Kelliher in her first year.  I therefore say to my more excitable friends, we can always dream of drawing more perfect candidates and leaders but I'll play these.  I say again, overall, the battle was won.

So who did lose?  The DFL leadership.  I'll excuse their rank and file at least one year, for their Governor and their leaders somewhat unexpectedly left them out the loop.  The Governor in turn left the DFL leadership out of the loop.  In a rare point of agreement, even Mark Dayton could see how absolutely useless Senate Minority Leader Tom Baak and House Minority Leader Paul Thissen were.  This actually surprises me, for more than once in the past, Baak in particular looked much more the leader than his Senate Majority Leader boss Larry Pogemiller.

All these two did was whine, and not very well at that given how even this left-leaning media largely ignored them.  It was the Governor's show all the way.  It was like Baak and Thissen were fearful of retribution should they oppose the Governor, even on an obvious reform like technology consolidation.  They contributed nothing and wouldn't let their members contribute anything.  Is it possible that Senator Linda Berglin's retirement has as much to do with her party's hopeless leadership as it does her minority party status?

The DFL remains a potent political force, arguably still the most powerful yet with their union and media alliances.  We in the GOP have a short window to produce the results to finally reverse that.  We have no time for foolish, unnecessary leadership changes and more than we can assume that the current vacuum atop the DFL will continue.

Who Won? My two cents

Only the Republicans even have such debates out in the open, recriminations some might call them.  The GOP Legislative leadership crafted the $34 billion (General Fund) budget almost from the start, and that's about where we ended up.  But many Republicans feel betrayed, the actual number or percentage hard to quantify.  They wanted actual spending cuts, a budget of at most $32 billion, plus other items like voter id, what they supposedly ran on in 2010.  There are even a few Republicans who say if anything, the DFL won.

Intellectually, even politically, it's a fine debate, even if it is largely hindsight now.  Had we started at $32 billion, would we have wound up at $34 billion anyway?  With or without the extra one time spending in the final deal?  Could we have held out for more on the theory that Governor Mark Dayton was on the ropes, his shutdown strategy clearly not playing out as he thought.  We've seen some fine articles in the blogosphere addressing these and other questions, and all focused on clear problem of unsustainable growth in state spending.  I again must call your attention to The Late Debate with Jack and Ben whose many quality interviews provided some of the best coverage of all.

There is a ragged edge, though, criticisms of GOP party leadership, DFL party leadership, and the media coverage.  On the latter, I say guilty as charged.  I'm old enough to remember the first $1 billion budget and I cannot recall a similar statewide issue where so many media outlets, most notably the Minneapolis Star Tribune, got so many black and white facts wrong, and always in the DFL's favor.  The DFL leadership can have their own debates, in private as usual.  Mostly they must be asking whether they gave too large a proxy to the Governor, leaving them irrelevant as in unnoticed by news crews.

Some in the GOP leadership drew criticism based on the above, some of it excessive in my opinion.  A common theme readily embraced by the DFL friendly media was that our leaders were inexperienced, overmatched for such a momentous battle.  Conveniently forgotten is how experienced leadership got us into this mess in the first place, as Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch pointed out early in the session.  There were some lapses in communications, like House Majority Leader's confusing explanations of General Fund vs All Funds accounting on the Davis & Emmer radio program recently.  Let me quickly add that Matt Dean was brilliant on the House floor during the Special Session.  Speaker of the House Kurt Zellers had a rough start, but now speaks quite effectively, as we saw again on Almanac tonight (7/22).  Personally, I'm now very happy with and very proud of Koch, Zellers, and Dean.

So again: who won?  I emphatically say that we the Republicans (and Minnesota) did, as well expressed in Dan McGrath's summary.  The dollars wound up about where they would have regardless of initial strategy.  And while we didn't get voter id yet, our leaders took good advantage of Dayton's clear lack of preparation and sudden motivation to end his shutdown to get many good reforms through.  Such reforms were unthinkable a year ago, when few gave any thought to taking over the Senate.  More should come in 2012, like ending what we now understand to be an almost silly system of state permits and inspections.  And at long last, voter id, by Amendment if necessary.

The battle was won.

Health Update

I had my six month follow up with my cardiologist yesterday.  There was lots of good news, starting with being able to show up, and not in a wheelchair.  I even took the bus.  I've had no further symptoms, all my numbers are good except weight and even that is down over 20 lbs since my December 2010 heart attack.  She even offered to cut the dosage on my statin prescription, but I hate to mess with success (LDL 53) if there are no other complications.  She said she doesn't need to see me for a year now, unless I do develop further symptoms of couse.

Weight remains a problem though.  If you've been following my chart on the right, you'll have noticed I've been treading water the past 4 months.  There are those who don't believe in plateaus, where you body adjusts metabolism and whatever else to counteract your diet and exercise plan.  I do.  I was in this range before with Weight Watchers around 2007, saw the same thing.  The scale stops moving as if you have been secretly eating a Big Mac every night before bed, sometimes with fries.

The only cure is to bear down, keep at it, cutting calories still further if necessary.  Sooner or later, I'll break through.  My short term goal is to get to my high school weight, 23 pounds to go as you can see at the right.  My "conservative" plan would get me there in March of next year, but it would sure be nice to get this done by Christmas.

Open Enrollment

Some of us commenters on a recent Shot in the Dark post lamented the lame representation we have at the Legislature and beyond.  I am served by only one Republican, and a moderate one at that, U.S. Congressman Erik Paulsen.  I am otherwise unheard in Washington.  And in St. Paul, what with Governor Dayton, officers Swanson, Richie, Otto and two very safe DFL seats in the Legislature.  Hennepin County?  Mike "Little Caesar" Opat.  School Board?  Seven Democrats.  Mayor? Democrat.  City Council?  Four Democrats.  I should add that I have endorsed and voted for some of these local Democrats, where party is not always the most important consideration.  But I have yet to see a State or Federal case where the Democrat was indeed the better choice, not since Hubert Humphey anyway. 

Now, even some Democrats agree that your zip code shouldn't determine your child's educational fate.  One block can determine if you go to Robbinsdale Armstrong or Minneapolis North or whatever remants of the Minneapolis Public Schools still operate in North Minneapolis.  But zip code can and does shut you out of any influence in St. Paul.

There is one remedy among many regarding schools called Open Enrollment.  We in fact used it to get our kids out of the Robbinsdale Schools, then a basket case in the 1980's.  So I'm wondering now, shouldn't we be able to at least opt our votes out to a neighboring district.  In my district, our Representative Hillstrom, once a good City Council member with demonstrated fiscal sanity has turned her back on us, Conservatives in particular, to be a spendthrift in St. Paul.  She tied her wagon to Speaker Kelliher's star, now is Assistant Minority Leader in the House. No doubt she will file to move up to Senator with incumbent Linda Scheid's passing.  And there's nothing I can do about it.  Ronald Reagan couldn't get elected here.

So maybe I should be allowed to vote for Kurt Zellers instead, maybe swapping with a Democrat in his District.  Maybe in these technically amazing times the entire notion of geographical representation should be reconsidered.  We could start with a few "at large" seats whereby the equivalent of a district's voter population could renounce their zip code assignment, signing a petition/proxy in support of say, a Phil Krinke.

Campaigns and voting could be done electronically.  It could prove more secure than traditional voting even with voter ID, even with a Mark Richie in charge.  And we'd all have someone who now must listen to us to get re-elected, unlike today in my district.

A Little Bit of Beer Let Me Down

For all the debate over budget priorities and why Dayton's lockout failed, it may have been more simple than we know.  Maybe it was all about the beer.  We the public learned that for lack of a $ 30 piece of paper, purpose unknown and/or unexplainable, you cannot sell beer in Minnesota.  Even if you accidentally overpay it.  We also learned that our shut down State government providing essential services only somehow retained enough muscle to enforce orders clearing store shelves of that beer.  And even Lori Sturdevant couldn't explain it.

A little bit of beer let me down, spoiled my plans to shut down
I had the GOP ready to back down, but a little bit of beer let me down.

When Republicans had done all that they could, Minnesota was saved by one of the littlest things - beer - that Theodore Hamm in his wisdom had once brewed in St. Paul.

Year Eight

Today begins year eight here at Speed Gibson, an increasingly impressive feat given those that have fallen by the proverbial wayside. Sooner or later I may be the MOB Mayor by default.  By the way, Mitch & Johnny, is there still such a title and if so, when is the next election?

It's been an eventful year seven, what with a heart attack this winter but finishing off walking Minneapolis this summer.  But judging by the media's blatant bias and fact starved coverage of the 2011 Minnesota shutdown, the worst since the 2004 Kerry campaign when I started, there is still much to do.  Like Sen. Kerry, I am reporting for duty!

I Think We're Winning

There is something almost heartening about the Minneapolis Star Tribune's increasingly rabid support of Governor Mark Dayton's shutdown gambit.  Please, please give him what he wants!  Consider today's installment.

If the state shutdown is to end, the Republicans in the Minnesota Legislature will have to allow a tax increase on the wealthy. Gov. Mark Dayton told the voters in 2010 he would tax the wealthy, and the voters elected him.

The logic apparently is that since Dayton is intractable, the Republicans will have to concede.  By that reckoning, we should should all just give the school bully our lunch money.  And to clarify, Dayton wants to tax high income earners, not the wealthy, a not insignificant difference.  And unmentioned is nearly a billion dollars in medical assistance surcharges, what long term care providers have labeled a "granny tax."  And while the Republican Legislative gains were state-wide, Dayton won only MInneapolis and St. Paul.  Continuing,

The GOP argument that a tax increase of the richest Minnesotans would be harmful in these poor economic times remains unproven. However, not approving a tax increase would result in more property tax increases.

Once again, the writer accidentally on purpose confuses wealth with income.  It spares having to defend why small business owners and family farms must suffer.  Regardless, taxing the "rich" has indeed proved harmful in many other states.  New York is letting their exercise in tax "fairness" expire before they lose any more revenue.  What is unproven is that not raising state taxes means higher property taxes.  This is of course a self-fulfilling prophecy in DFL strongholds like Minneapolis.

Dayton and the DFL members again and again have offered compromises. Dayton can be patient because knows the Republicans face re-election in 2012 and he faces re-election 2014.

Dayton's cocktail napkin proposals have been so vague and vacillating that you really cannot call them offers.  There is no basis for discussion - including compromise - versus the detailed, completed and balanced budget passed by the Legislature.  Indeed, the only serious discussions have been about revenue, not spending.  As for his offered compromises to date, reductions in the proposed tax increases, he obviously can come back in a year or two for the rest, whether he runs again in 2014 or not.  In fact he must, since the Dayton budget such as it is fixes nothing longer term.

Give the governor his tax increase, then let the voters decide which side was right and which side was wrong. That's usually how compromise goes. It's classic American politics.

This is Maria Cantwell / Al Franken thinking: keep counting and voting until you get the answer you want.  The voters did decide last November, in the case of the Legislature, decidedly, historically so.  There is no need to put off the debate another two years.  But let a commenter on the Star Tribune site point out the biggest fallacy of all in this editorial (edited for clarity):

"[Since] the Repubicans face election first why not give them their budget and let the voters decide in 2012?  Dayton doesn’t get his vote until 2014, so how does giving in to Dayton make him face the voters in 2012?"

Perfectly reasoned, unlike this editorial, unlike a prior one just like it.  There is a sense of panic rising from this paper, perhaps fearful that their erratic Governor may not succeed.  He has switched to talking sales taxes instead of income taxes, then back again for example.  They know his record as a quitter.  They see the polls showing overwhelming opposition to increasing state spending still higher.  They know that the public unions are unhappy being out of work even if silent for now.  Resurrecting the League of Inconsequential Gentlemen went nowhere.  And the State is running out of beer!  Time favors the GOP and they know it. 

I think we're winning!  Unless the GOP caves, the DFL booth at the State Fair may have to offer hazardous duty pay.

Pass the Salt

If you wait long enough, for every medical study there will be an equal and opposite medical study.  Even the World Health Organization found that if anything, second hand smoke might actually improve your chances.  Though not the first such rebuttal, we have new evidence about the latest nutrition phobia: salt.

The research against salt has always been weak.  At best we thought there might be a general relation but nothing could identify the small segment of the population with any such sensitivity.  This latest study says even that general correlation is now suspect. 

To paraphrase Patrick Reusse once again, if your Death Certificate says you died from radon gas, being hit by a comet, second hand smoke, or now, too much salt, you know that you will have lived to a very ripe old age.