Posted on 05/29/2011 6:04:46 AM PDT by rhema
The disconnect between the way government and private enterprise conduct business is never more evident than during hard times. Private-sector employees see their wages and benefits frozen, or in some cases permanently cut.
Doing similar things in the public sector brings howls of protest to state capitols everywhere. So in Minnesota, we merely "delay" payments promised to all the beneficiaries of state spending.
Now the empire is striking back, demanding reimbursement for deferred monies. Which explains why our state budget is $5 billion in the red even though revenues for the next biennium are going up.
That's right: If we were to actually freeze spending in the general fund, we'd have a surplus for 2012-13. Welcome to baseline budgeting, Minnesota-style.
According to the February forecast from the office of Management and Budget, "total resources available" in the next biennium will be just over $34.2 billion, a 10 percent increase from the $31.1 billion for fiscal years 2010-11.
What Gov. Mark Dayton describes as "drastic and extreme" cuts are really reductions in a budget that was slated to rise to a whopping $39 billion -- hence the deficit.
Republicans say that a 10 percent rise in state spending is enough, but Dayton insists on more. He's now calling for income tax hikes of $1.8 billion in order to finance a $36 billion budget, or a 16 percent increase in spending.
We should all be so lucky.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
But his plan to raise the top rate to 10.95 percent in a state that already derives more than 40 percent of general fund revenues from taxes on income puts Minnesota in very dangerous territory indeed.
“DLF” should be DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party).
Should be HYP as in HYPocrite and HYPerbole
Our "Cowardly Liar" badmouths all Conservatives everywhere and then accuses us of being unreasonable.
This what happens when you are born wealth and blow out your brain with drugs and alcohol.
Pray for Minnesota!
It's not surprising that we find the spending increases as cuts BS being repeated all across the country.
Call these people what they are: Mathematically Incompetent.
Don't try to hijack the thread to blame Republicans in DC for Democrat misdeeds.
Marx Dayton is an example of everything that’s wrong with Minnesota politics. As extreme as the uber-idiot Franken, but couched in better packaging with an even more subservient state press.
The way the RedStar Tribune treats him is truly sickening.
Not hijacking a thing. If you read everything I wrote, you would that I pointed out how this idea of an increase in budgets being called a cut started in DC and fanned out across the nation to the states. In the same way that the states are leading the way in fighting illegal immigration and public sector unions, we have to hope they’ll lead the way in fighting baseline budgeting and its increases as cuts canard.
It's hardly new!
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Yet another reason to move my business out of Minnesota.
I am currently looking at relocating it to Texas or Oklahoma. Thanks to Mark Dayton’s war on business, I have clients deferring projects. If this keeps up, I have to go where the work is.
I like “Dumb For Life”.
Yes, it takes the cash liquidity out of the hands of those who could actually use it to improve the private sector.
Like a gardener who digs all the dirt out from around the tomato plants, and then expects them to flourish.
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