Legislature's recess a time for reflection

By Mark Fischenich
The Free Press

MANKATO April 04, 2007 12:50 am

— The Easter recess of the Minnesota Legislature is sort of like baseball’s All-Star break.
It comes at about the halfway point of the season. It allows the average players to take a few days off while the big shots get some extra media attention. And it gives spectators a chance to assess how their team has performed in the first half while looking ahead to the remaining games.
Rep. Bob Gunther’s theory is that House and Senate Democrats are preparing a series of budget bills that provide nice spending increases for schools, roads, transit systems, colleges and more — with the full expectation that Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty will veto them all because they rely on tax increases on high income Minnesotans and on gasoline.
“It’s a game of gotcha,” said Gunther, R-Fairmont, as he prepared for a week off from St. Paul. “Kind of sickening, but I’m getting used to it.”
Senate Democrats, during a press conference in Mankato Monday, said they aren’t playing games. They say they’re simply trying to bring Minnesota back to where it was a decade ago when good schools, more reasonable property taxes and investments in transportation made the state’s economy boom.
“It’s time for this generation to pay the price and do what’s right for the kids,” said Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, D-Minneapolis.
The Senate has moved more quickly through its budget-setting work than any state legislative body in recent memory, and Pogemiller said all but a couple of the budget bills received both Republican and Democratic support.
“This is the best bipartisan consensus of the Senate,” he said.
The Senate has passed a budget plan — and the DFL-dominated House is expected to approve a roughly similar plan in the next three weeks — to raise income taxes on the highest earners in the state and boost the gas tax and other transportation revenue sources. In return, they would increase spending for K-12 schools, provide more funds for highway construction, deliver property-tax relief and restore state aid to cities and counties.
The Senate plan also uses part of the state’s budget surplus to boost the budget reserve to prepare for any future economic downturns.
Pawlenty has responded with a radio ad that looks back at the economic downturn earlier this decade when lawmakers faced deep budget deficits.
“We just dug ourselves out of a big budget hole,” Pawlenty says in the ad. “Let’s not spend ourselves back into one. ... Please, call your legislators and tell them you’re taxed enough.”
Democrats respond to that by pointing to $2 billion in property-tax increases in the past four years, which they blame on aid cuts forced by Pawlenty’s refusal to raise state taxes such as the income tax.
Sen. Kathy Sheran, D-Mankato, maintains it’s more fair to raise income taxes because they are based on ability to pay and provide relief to homeowners facing rising property taxes.
“We’ll be able to get some relief to those people whose incomes aren’t growing with the market value of their homes or the costs of their health care,” Sheran said.
But House Minority Leader Marty Seifert said the Democrats plan to tax high-income earners — the state’s “job creators” — with the highest tax rate in the nation will harm the state’s economy.
“You’re either going to have fewer jobs, you’re going to have higher-priced products or they’re going to leave the state,” said Seifert, R-Marshall.
When lawmakers go back to work next week, House Democrats will work to complete their budget bills during the following two weeks. What comes next remains in doubt and could determine whether a budget is agreed to before the Legislature’s May 21 adjournment deadline.
House and Senate leaders will appoint conference committees to negotiate a compromise budget. If Pawlenty’s views aren’t taken into account during the negotiations, the DFL-created budget will almost certainly be vetoed, Seifert predicted.
And Republicans in the House will not allow the vetoes to be overridden, he said.
Pawlenty will be consulted during negotiations, Pogemiller said, but the governor needs to be willing to compromise after years of refusing to consider any state-level tax increases.
“He promised during his re-election run that he’s going to govern differently than he did in his first term,” Pogemiller said. “I take him at his word.”

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