Our absentee Governor Tim Pawlenty has been busted for some shady business. He has diverted money to pay for a staffer to do partisan work. He doesn't have the authority and the people vested with that authority didn't give their approval. Actually, they found out about it late last week.
Pawlenty is also a hypocrite for always talking about how much he supports our troops when he's been stealing from vets for the last year.
When Minnesota motorists paid out $30 apiece for "Support Our Troops" license plates, it's a good bet they had no idea they were supporting Lee Buckley, a political appointee of Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
Last year $30,000 from the license-plate fund was used to pay a portion of Buckley's salary. Buckley worked in Pawlenty's office as a $92,000 a year special adviser on faith and community services.
During budget hearings on Pawlenty's office budget this week, Sens. Steve Murphy, Don Betzold and other legislators were furious over what they saw as a siphoning off of the money and a deception to those who bought the plates thinking they were directly helping veterans organizations. By state law, money from the plates is split between the Department of Military Affairs for family members of deployed service members and the Department of Veterans Affairs for grants for homeless and needy veterans.
"For money that was supposed to go to fund things for veterans going to fund people in the governor's office, it's outrageous," said Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, a Marine veteran. "The governor runs around telling everyone he's cutting all these budgets, and then he back-door fills in his own department. I'm just disgusted with this."
I don't think anyone will find this surprising that the Star Tribune buried this article on the inside pages of the Metro section. Imagine if a certain Democratic Senator who recently won a recount against the paper's favorite Senator got busted like this for corruption. Yea ... that'd probably be on the front page, wouldn't it?
UPDATE I dug my Saturday Strib out of the recycling. It was on the front of the Metro. Still, if Franken would have done something similar, it would've been on page A1 with follow up articles through the week.
Our Democracy was based on certain ideals like a constitution that protected rights of people and like separation of powers into three branches of government. Constitutionally making corporations into people has broken the rights of people. The budget and policy rights of the legislature have been taken by presidents and governors. Our Governor Tim Pawlenty's deliberate planned use of unallotment to essentially remove legislature power is part of a court filing, quoted in one of today's recommended diaries on DailyKOS:
It would dramatically change the structure of government created by the Minnesota Constitution if this Court were to sanction a process in which this or any other Governor could sign appropriations into law, then veto revenue bills, and then use unallotment to ignore legislative appropriations and to rewrite the budget according to the Governor's own legislative priorities. This in fact is what has occurred. This use of unallotment was unauthorized by any law and was unconstitutional.
The Uptake will be streaming live coverage of the oral arguments today before Minnesota's Supreme Court.
The executive power has also been abused through how the law is enforced. Republican governors have particularly not enforced selected laws. Now judges and sheriffs are now getting into the process of overruling legislatures through how and which laws are enforced. This totally violates the principles of separation of powers, democracy and values of fairness.
In perhaps the most bizarre twist of all, my local Ramsey county Sheriff's race now has a group of ***DFL*** supporters and perhaps the campaign arguing for voting for the Sheriff based on legislative policy issue stances! My endorsed candidate, Matt Bostrom, from the beginning of the campaign declared that legislative issues are off limits unless they are very directly related to the Sheriff's office. For there is no perception of fairness when officiating civil rights issues when then personal stances of law enforcement officials is known. For example, Sheriff Fletcher is widely known to be a pro-war advocate. Especially law enforcement and judges ought to be selected by character, integrity and fairness (as well as ability to do the job).
So the real questions are: Do we stand up for principles of democracy and separation of powers always? Or is the DFL as bad as Republicans in erosion of Democratic principles when it is in our policy favor? Will we be suddenly for unallotment and expanded gubernatorial powers when we have a Democratic governor?
Rep. John Kline (R-MN) is a retired Marine. His claim to fame is he carried the "nuclear football" for Ronald Reagan. His expertise does not extend to economics, education or healthcare. Not that ignorance stops him. Conveniently, the Republican Party gives him handy talking points to repeat.
At a Lakeville Area Chamber of Commerce meeting on Feb. 22, U.S. Rep. John Kline, R-Lakeville, addressed employment, education and health care issues.
"There is a lot of turmoil in Washington and America," Kline said. "We're running deficits that were unimaginable two, three, four years ago."
Kline blamed Democrats for running up the deficit.
Kline said he opposes several current proposals in the House such as the Cap and Trade bill and the Employee Free Choice Act.
Kline said he also opposes the current health-care proposals.
(Thisweek Live)
Kline never met a George W. Bush budget or spending bill which he didn't rubber stamp. Kline wants you to forget that he and Bush turned a Clinton surplus into the largest deficit in history. Kline voted for the spending for two wars and for cutting taxes at the same time.
Kline helped Bush drive our economy of a cliff.
Now Kline would like you to forget that recent history and listen to him now when he says it's all the Democrats fault.
As we struggle to balance our state government budget, as we struggle to keep our constitutional civil rights and as we struggle to even provide basic health care and basic food to all US citizens, then we ought to remember how were got here.
How we got here?
War
More than any external threat, the United States is being hurt by the desire for war and insatiable greed. John Marty (not endorsed by me) says it best:
Cost of War is budgetary "Elephant in the Room"
by Senator John Marty
February 26, 2010.
The cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars is the budgetary "elephant in the room." It's enormous and it's right in front of us, yet we don't talk about it as we face our economic woes. We don't need to get into arguments about the wars to consider the burden war places on our economy.
President Dwight Eisenhower, one of our nation's greatest military leaders, late in life, expressed deep concern about what he called "the military industrial complex." Eisenhower stated, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
Let's break down the analogy literally: Pawlenty/conservatives = wronged white wife; Obama/liberals = unfaithful, multiracial public figure; politics = golf, both realms traditionally reserved for whites; violence = appropriate solution to budgetary challenges.
The governor has used the nine iron line before, so be assured that the race-based comparison is intentional and playing well with teabaggers. A point of information to the governor--you need more than a nine iron to make it all the way around a PGA course.
It seems pretty clear, now that the dust has settled, that Tim Pawlenty's budget proposal is more focused on burnishing his anti-community credentials for the 2012 presidential primary rather than actually solving issues here in Minnesota. It should amaze no one that for Pawlenty, the solution to a budget shortfall is to reduce the government's revenue even further, to somehow magically start generating more revenue.
Let's also keep in mind that Pawlenty's budget slashes aid to local governments, who will be forced to increase property tax levies to pay for basic services like police, fire, and public works departments.
Here's the statement from the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities:
STATEMENT FROM BRUCE AHLGREN, MAYOR OF CLOQUET AND SPOKESMAN FOR THE COALITION OF GREATER MN CITIES
"The governor's proposal will be devastating to Minnesota communities. If this is passed, Minnesotans need to brace for deep reductions in snowplowing and pothole repair, fewer police and firefighters, closed libraries, closed parks and closed community swimming pools.
"This is a reckless proposal that doesn't acknowledge the disrepair our state and communities are in, and will drive Minnesota into a deeper recession.
"Legislators from across the state and across the aisle need to stand up for their local communities and stop this proposal immediately."
Some items from others interested in goings-on in the corner office can be found after the break.
Despite being snowed in, today Congress is taking up a jobs bill in Washington. Just in time for Rep. John Kline to promote his vision for pulling Minnesota, and the rest of the nation, out of the current economic stall and into something resembling actual economic growth. So what is this vision for rebuilding the American economy, and thus, the American middle class?
Why, it's to do nothing. Of course.
Despite the fact that health care expenditures threaten to eat up nearly two-thirds of our national budget, Kline advocates hitting the pause button on health care reform. Despite the fact that our nation's military is strained to dangerous levels, Kline advocates against repealing the odious Don't Ask Don't Tell policy that prevents thousands of Americans from enlisting and serving openly. And when it comes to creating a domestic policy that would create jobs and rebuild crumbling infrastructure like with the Stimulus package, Kline's response has been to, you guessed it, do nothing.
Now Kline has taken that do nothing approach one step further, parroting protectionist talking points as he gears up for reelection. His most recent mailer praises his efforts at protecting Minnesota's economy and jobs. If he was really interested in protecting the economy he would be advocating strongly for health care reform--and meaningful reform that actually provides expansive coverage and meaningful cost control and consumer protection guarantees since rising health care costs are the single greatest threat to long-term sustainable economic recovery facing this state and the nation.
Tackling health care reform is also a great way to build jobs. Health care compliance, administration, and servicing is one of the fastest growing employment sectors both locally and nationally and even groups like UnitedHealth and Mayo acknowledge that reform efforts will likely require them to recruit and hire new employees. If Kline were truly interested in protecting Minnesota's economy he would be working towards enabling growth in our strongest, and most dependable industries like health care.
This do nothing, wait and see approach serves only one interest and that is not the welfare of Minnesota. It is the obstructionist agenda of the Republican party. So in a sense, Minnesota does need some protection--protection from the likes of John Kline.
Last night, on AM950 Radio's "Minnesota Matters - Friday Edition" show, we had State Senator Jim Carlson, DFL, SD-38 on, to discuss how Minnesota, under the "fiscally (non)conservative" Gov. Tim Pawlenty got the state into it's latest budgetary mess.
Well, we also talked about The Sons Of Nixon's Plumbers, a story that's not going away, and we played "False or False Witness!" too - Bachmann MotorMouth Overdrive's quote is below the fold, at the very end. But, the bulk of the show was how Gov. TBag deliberately put the State into an unbalanced budget, so TBag could exercise Unitary Executive Power (Nixon would be so proud!).
When the podcast/download becomes available, I'll update and link to it.
In the meantime, Senator Carlson's sheet explaining what we talked about is below the fold.
In a nutshell, here's what happened:
The February 2009 Forecast predicted revenues of $31.1 Billion (rounded). Knowing that number, Gov. TBag proceeded signed Spending Bills of $33.8 Billion (rounded) anyway.
This created a deficit from Governor-approved spending (remember, when TBag signed those spending bills, they were now law) and the Feb 2009 Forecast of $2.7 Billion (rounded). A bill to balance that deficit, HF-2323, was passed and presented to Gov. TBag to sign. Except, TBag didn't sign that revenue bill to balance the budget; he vetoed it.
Upon creating an unbalanced budget, TBag immediately claimed unilateral power to fix the problem he created, and then hit the campaign trail. As to TBag's actions creating an anticipated budget problem, then using powers to deal with unanticipated budget problems? The Court was not amused.
Maria Elena Baca of the Star Tribune has confused ad agency with newspaper. Or maybe Maria is just confusing stenographer with journalist. She wrote a piece that a campaign would have had a hard time putting out, since it is that balantly an advertising piece for Sheriff Fletcher. Let's see how high we can get on the Kelly scale of how biased can an article be.
1) Starting with the title. "Take note if you're up to no good: Ramsey County is watching". Does Maria Elena Baca or the Star Tribune realize that Sheriff Fletcher in previous campaigns took credit for the Metro Gang Task Force now under serious criminal investigation? Does that count as "up to no good?" Or that two close co-workers of Sheriff Fletcher were convicted of corruption? Did Maria ask if any these cameras were being installed in the Sheriff's office? Or if any cameras were already in the Sheriff's office? Or if any of them were actually turned on?
What is amazing about the "Chicken Little" title being assigned to Ramsey County Sheriff Fletcher is that this title is coming from a undercover cop, who should normally be one of the Sheriff's strongest supporters. In "Cop Book" a retired 27-year veteran of the Bloomington Police Department, Richard Greelis writes about a honcho cop he calls "Chicken Little". Ruben Rosario quotes Richard Greelis in his column:
"He wanted the credit for saving St. Paul from the sky that was, according to him, falling fast," Greelis writes. "In addition to airing his concerns, he tended not to play well with other cop-types who did not work for him - like our intel unit."
According to Greelis, this official was so adamant that his unit remove an informant who infiltrated a reputed anarchist group that he actually followed Greelis from a Minneapolis surveillance spot and pulled him over as if he was executing a routine pull-over traffic stop.
Let's play a little game. Can you imagine if the mayor of Minneapolis or St. Paul were a Republican? Imagine how much damage a fiscally irresponsible Republican would have done to Minnesota's two largest cities. Debt-reduction? Prudent management of shrinking resources? Keeping parks and libraries open? Forget these.
If a Republican ran either city it would be more along the lines of tax cuts for the residents along Summit Ave and around Lake of the Isles. How about reckless borrow-n-spend fiscal policy. Credit rating, schmedit raking. Who needs libraries, parks, pools and recreation centers when we have our unfettered liberty?
Now I'm not saying everything is rosy in these fair cities. Far from it. Because of 2012 Presidential candidate, lame-duck Minnesota Governor and occasional visitor to the state Tim Pawlenty both cities have a mess. Because Pawlenty used unallotment to balance the states books and shred our safety net for the young, poor, disabled and mentally ill, the actual mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul have particularly difficult budgeting problems this year.
But they are resourceful, prudent and fiscally responsible. St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman released his budget proposal on Tuesday and Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak released his today.
What do you all think about their budget proposals? Can you imagine what it might be like if a Republican ran either or both cities?
Given the major budget problems facing the state of Minnesota, many public services and goods have had their budgets cut or even eliminated by Governor Pawlenty's unallotment of the state budget, early childhood, K-12, and higher education especially. Former State Senator Steve Kelley has and is committed to investing in education, saying, "Now is the time to ensure a prosperous Minnesota, by keeping our educational promises to Minnesota's children."
Steve Kelley has said he would do the following as governor:
-increasing funding from early childhood education to higher education, with a focus on reducing class sizes, closing achievement gaps, and strengthening the arts and music education
-invest in early childhood education for 4 year olds, with resources to save at risk 2 and 3 year olds
-Developing new and innovative ways of assessing students skills, not just teaching to the tests and strategies on taking them
-Breaking down access barriers by creating and developing early childhood schools and preparing high school students for college
-Improve teacher preparation and development through mentoring, collaboration, and aligning staff development with school improvement goals
-increasing access and funding to up to date technology to allow all students and teachers the ability to better themselves
What suggestions do you have about the state of Minnesota's education system today?
By Ross Dybvig
Steve Kelley for Minnesota Exploratory Committee
The reactions to Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty's unallotment announcement yesterday have been loud and unhappy. One of the more interesting is that he may have exceeded his authority.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty may be greatly overstepping his authority by proposing delayed payments to state health care programs and shifting money between accounts under his unallotment proposal, according to the chair of the state Senate Health and Human Services Finance Division.
"I think there are some things he's doing that he doesn't have the authority to do," Sen. Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, said. "The governor does not have the authority to make appropriations or change policy, and he's proposing to do that in some cases."
(St. Paul Legal Ledger)
But was just one reaction. The analysis I'll analyze only covers Local Government Aid (LGA). This analysis doesn't cover the healthcare services that will be slashed. For rural areas that have seen medical services disappearing at an alarming rate over the last 30 years, LGA cuts are not the only pain.
Tim Pawlenty portrays this as welfare for cities. This couldn't be further from the truth. LGA is a percentage of the money that city residents pay in state taxes. It's their own money.
Let's see how badly Pawlenty screws over Minnesota cities in his effort to burnish his presidential ambitions...
"Well, you're probably wondering why I've gathered the whole family, even Gramma, here tonight," says Papa Timmy. "Well, time's are tough. Mom's been unemployed for a while and I'm not selling as many Amiga computers as I used to."
"So," sneers Junior. "Can I go now, I'm gonna be late for my game."
"About that, yes, we need to talk about that," Papa Timmy says. "We're cutting your soccer and your hockey."
"**** you, Dad!" Junior yells. "You can't do that!?!"
"Um, yes I can and watch your mouth young man," Pappa Timmy retorts.
"What's all the yelling about?" asks Gramma. Timmy's wife puts her hand on Gramma's shoulder to calm her.
"And you won't be going on your trip this summer," Papa Timmy continues.
"But, but I saved all that money myself!" splutters Junior. "You can't do that. That's my money, my bank account."
"Yes I can," continues Papa Timmy. "I've emptied your accounts."
"**** Dad, if you and Mom weren't racking up so much on the credit cards..."
"THAT'S ALL FROM YOU!" shouts Papa Timmy. "We need to cut expenses and live within our means."
California like Minnesota is in a world of budgetary hurt. Except the scale is so much larger. California is the 8th largest economy in the world. Because of irresponsible Republican fiscal policy and the insanity of ballot resolutions, they're slashing all services to the poor.
The parallels between MN and CA do not exactly line up, but the effects will.
In both states, education encompasses a vast amount of the state's budget. Class sizes will balloon to unheard of sizes. In both states, Republicans always seek to slash health insurance to the poor. Most dangerously, millions of the working poor will no longer have health insurance. Millions of the mentally ill will no longer receive treatment and medication. In California, they are worried about people dying in the streets.
Is California a harbinger of things to come for Minnesota? Probably.
