Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Speaker of the House, continued to demonstrate that she probably isn't ready for prime time, primarily because she's just plain inexperienced for such a position. Her confusion over rules and too-obvious scripting at session's end aside, it wasn't all that bad a session. It was, however, at most very inefficient.
Apparently to draw fire away from the real culprits, the Minnesota Senate under Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller's all or nothing agenda, Kelliher offers some weak, schoolgirl rhetoric trying to blame the Governor, Tim Pawlenty. As usual, per
The Vision of The Annointed by Dr. Thomas Sowell, it got needlessly personal. Or maybe it had to be personal, given the facts were not on her side.
On "Almanac" we see Speaker Kelliher saying:
Minnesotans ... are really disappointed that we have a Governor that keeps looking in the mirror and primping for the national stage, and ... probably ignoring the best interest of Minnesotans here by this tax bill veto, this tax relief veto.
The Governor may or may not be interested in the 2008 Veep slot. He has denied it in the past, and the decision is largely out of his hands regardless. Kelliher is in no position to know otherwise, and is just BS'ing here. To characterize Pawlenty as primping is out of bounds. She should look at herself in the mirror once in a while. But it gets worse.
I have learned something here and I think it fits with the old Ronald Reagan adage 'trust but verify' and I think that if we have a Special Session, this should be a much more public process with the Governor. I think that would be an important part of having our trust level build and us being able to verify the agreements that are made with the Governor.
What agreements? The House never got to first base on any overall agreements largely because the House and Senate could not come to agreement first. Again this is just BS, suggesting there were some unpublished agreements made and then broken by Pawlenty. She gives no specifics; indeed, how do we know it wasn't the DFL that broke whatever truce was brokered? That said, her quote is right on the money with just two small changes:
I have learned something here and I think it fits with the old Ronald Reagan adage 'trust but verify' and I think that if we have a Special Session, this should be a much more public process with the Senate. I think that would be an important part of having our trust level build and us being able to verify the agreements that are made with the Senate Majority Leader.
Now, in the Sunday Op-Ed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune we have the Speaker's summary of the session, starting with:
Do we work to meet the needs of the people, or the needs of the governor?
This is an obvious false choice, again a bit personal. The truth is, it is the Governor who depends on pleasing Minnesotans far more than does Kelliher in her very safe house District.
That's the question we DFL legislators asked ourselves after the last election, when the people of Minnesota voted for change by sending a solid DFL majority to the House and adding to the DFL majority in the Senate.
One change the voters neither asked for nor did the DFL campaign on was raising taxes substantially, even recklessly.
With the power of a Republican governor's veto pen in mind, my caucus came down on the side of doing the work the people of Minnesota had asked us to do: Address years of inadequate funding for education, growing numbers of Minnesotans without health insurance (including almost 80,000 children), crumbling and congested roads, and property tax increases that are forcing many people out of their homes. We promised to address those concerns, and with the first budget bills we passed in the House we demonstrated our commitment to keeping our promise.
Speaker Kelliher was asleep at the wheel regarding vetos, blindly following Pogemiller's lead until early May. The veto of the bonding bill woke her up and soon more reasonable bills began passing.
Years of inadequate funding for education? My son's just completed K-12 education cost twice as much in constant dollars as my own 40 years ago. So much for that nonsense. It's even worse in higher education.
Health care? To quote Ronald Reagan again, "Goverment isn't the solution to the problem. Government
is the problem."
Crumbling and congested roads? It's an unspoken but clear DFL policy, underspending for at least two decades in favor of public transit. Most if not all of the "new" new money in the failed Transportation Bill was clearly for light rail, not roads.
Property tax increases that are forcing people out of their homes? First, Minnesota ranks about average nationally here; there is no crisis. Second, there is no guarantee in your mortgage, deed, or tax documents that says you get to live at a given address forever even if you can't pay for it. If there is a problem, it's a local one. And by the way, the DFL runs almost all local units of government, especially in the Twin Cities.
Our health care bill covered all kids, substantially increased funding for nursing homes and offered reform measures to reduce the cost of health care for every Minnesotan. Our education bill restored the funding cut from critical early childhood programs, increased the funding formula, and filled the budget hole schools across the state feel from unfunded special education mandates. And our higher education bill restored our state's commitment to our college students, ending years of double-digit tuition increases.
How can I characterize "reduce the cost of health care for every Minnesotan" as anything but a lie? Government has never lowered the cost of anything overall.
And here we go again about cuts that aren't cuts, education once again. FYI, the term "mandate" is an exaggeration, as these programs are either voluntary or non-specific monetarily.
Ending double-digit tuition increases? Why are college costs increasing far beyond inflation as it is? As I've repeatedly said, MnScu is bloated with duplication of services and unneeded campuses. How about spending what we've got more efficiently first?
Property owners in Minnesota have paid too much for too long. We proposed a plan that restored fairness to our state's tax system and offered a property tax cut to every property owner. The funding mechanism for this relief was a slight income tax increase on the highest earners in Minnesota. (Some contend that such an increase will drive people out of Minnesota; I believe people choose to live here because of our educational, cultural and environmental opportunities, all of which are at risk under the recent budget cuts.)
Fairness is a meaningless term in taxation, always an ugly business. The defacto standard is in minimizing the collective outrage as expressed by elections.
A "slight" income tax increase that wouldn't drive people out of Minnesota? It's happening already, with the average family moving in making $2,000 less than the average family moving out.
To address our transportation crisis, we proposed a modest gas tax increase, the first since 1988. Our state's economic viability, as well as the health and well-being of our citizens, depends on safe and less congested roads; too many hours are wasted sitting in traffic, and too many lives are affected by accidents and injuries.
A five cent a gallon gas tax, maybe even 10 cents a gallon by itself would have passed in my opinion. But when larded with sales tax, wheelage tax, tab fees etc, the average household was looking at several hundred dollars a year total. Kelliher doesn't mention this or the fact that most of than money would have not gone for roads.
These bills won praise from Democrats and Republicans alike for their balance, fairness and fiscal moderation. Unfortunately, with the governor's vetoes, many of these bills changed. Two of our top priorities, transportation funding and property tax relief, will not happen at all this year.
Fiscal moderation? Perhaps the largest, broadest set of tax increases in history, none of them necessary given the surplus? Had these passed, can you imagine the mega-honking deficit next recession? You would have to come square at the middle class to remedy your "revenue shortfalls" as you've looted everyone else already.
When the dust settles, Minnesotans may realize that we accomplished many good things this session. Students of all ages will benefit from increased school funding; almost 40,000 children will receive health care coverage; benefits were expanded for veterans, and we passed a nation-leading energy package that future generations will thank us for. We have taken the first steps toward what I believe will be a brighter future for Minnesota.
Barring some technology breakthrough as yet unseen, these Pollyanna renewal energy plans and targets will have to be repealed. Even the DFL cannot change the laws of physics.
***
As poorly spoken as Margaret Anderson Kelliher is, I actually see some potential. With more experience that will tone down her rhetoric, she may soon be the state's top Democrat. She's a little shaky yet on TV, not as good as Rep. Siefert or Gov. Pawlenty certainly but who is? But she's better than Larry Pogemiller already, and in my opinion less annoying than Sen. Taryl Clark, who also lacks the required experience for her position.
Kelliher can and should remain Speaker of the House this term, assuming she bones up on Roberts and House rules during the off season. It is the Senate that needs a complete leadership change.
