The 86th Legislature Was a Failure.

I have purposely been holding back from blogging since the end of the legislative session. Although I was pleased that a few of my pet issues were ultimately rejected, I am not happy with the results of the budget. But just as it is not a good idea to drive angry, it is also not a good idea to blog angry, and so I forced myself into a cool-down period, to see how things might proceed before venting onto this blog.


First the good:
The governor vetoed to doublespeak "Safer Schools for All" Act, which I blogged about in March, but the Legislature passed anyway.

"Bullying is a serious issue that must be vigilantly monitored, prevented and addressed ... [but] the proposed legislation is duplicative of current law which directly and clearly prohibits bullying of any type against any student for any reason," Pawlenty said in his veto message to Senate President James Metzen. Star-Tribune May 26, 2009

Again, we already have policy in place that prohibits bullying for ANY REASON. Why does St Paul think we need to be more specific? Thank you, Governor for using your head and your veto pen.

Also, the "Shared Services" legislation was taken out of the final Education package. I had blogged about this in April, and I was glad to see that it was removed. District 110 is part of a fantastic community. We appreciate and depend on the widespread, loyal support we enjoy from local businesses, and this bill would have severed that relationship. It just doesn't make sense in a country where We the People have all the power to allow big government to dictate where we can buy our cheese...

...and now the rest
The Minnesota Legislature failed. It had one job to do for this session, and that was to pass a balanced budget for the biennium, and it failed. Instead of finding a way to budget within its revenue forecast (ie: tax burden), it went $2 billion over, and shoved through a tax increase to cover the difference.

This is like a guy losing his paycheck at a poker game and mugging an old lady on the way home to cover his losses, and the Governor was right to veto the tax increase before the ink was dry.

The larger failure of the Legislature was to control spending. Its really not that complex an idea: put the checkbook down and back away. The State budget has doubled in size in the past fifteen years. Are we really getting our money's worth?

Seriously, you take $26 billion per year from We the People, and then you tell us that you can't operate the State on so little?

The Legislators can go now back to their communities and say, "We didn't cut Education." and almost not be lying. It is true on the surface that education spending in the Legislative budget was held flat. Of course, the elephant in the room is the outstanding $2billion that the Governor will now have to un-allot and accounting-shift and line-item veto to get the budget back in line.

And thats the real danger. The Legislature has now handed all of it's budgeting power to the Governor. He legally and Constitutionally must now trim the budget. But as soon as he reaches for his pen, you will hear howls of, "We held steady, but the evil Governor is the one who cut your pet program!!!" I do not envy Mr. Pawlenty this difficult job, but we elected Senators and Representatives to do the job, and they failed. Miserably.

There are good Legislators out there representing us. I have worked with and against several of them in this session - creative, dedicated people who put in long hours, and listen to people and consider new ideas. There are also bad ones - the ones who won't take a phone call or answer an email. This budget failure is not an indictment of any one member, but the body as a whole. They had one job, and they didn't get it done.

Fortunately for We the People, there is an election before the next budget cycle. Mark Tuesday November 2, 2010 on your calendars.