You are here: Home » Featured » Minnesota Closed For Business

Minnesota Closed For Business

Posted by: Linda Carbonell on July 1, 2011.

07-01-2011 by Linda S. Carbonell

Governor Mark Dayton

The State of Minnesota shut down at 12:01 a.m. Central Time today because of a too familiar battle over the budget. Gov. Mark Dayton wants to raise taxes to help alleviate the state’s deficit and the Republican legislature absolutely refuses to. .

Thousands of state workers are being laid off, state parks are closing for the July 4^th weekend, highway rest stops are padlocked, road projects are suspended, day cares are closed, state services will be closed on Friday and checks will not be issued for state programs that are independent of Federal funding. Only critical services will continue, prison guards, the courts and disaster response. Since Gov. Rick Scott of Florida is proposing eliminating his state police to cut his budget, one could question the critical status of the state troopers that are remaining on the job in Minnesota.

This morning, former Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz will begin her court-appointed job of trying to sort through appeals for continuing particular progams.

At 10 p.m. last night, the Governor announced that the shutdown was inevitable. “This is a night of deep sorrow for me.” He refused to call a special session to pass a “light on” budget bill, a stop gap measure that would just drag out the process.

Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, Republican of Buffalo, responded “I think the governor’s insistence that we pass afull budget is not going to be of much comfort to Minnesotans who are going to see delays on the highways because construction projects stop. It’s not going to comfort people who can’t use our state parks, or who can’t get a driver’s license.”

The state has a $5 billion budget deficit. Gov. Dayton has demanded an increase in taxes on high-earners while the Republican insist on cutting spending. The most recent election in Minnesota changed the political structure with a Democratic governor and Republican legislature, a complete reversal from the alignments of the past 20 years. Dayton was elected on a campaign promise to not make excessive budget cuts. Republicans say they were elected on the Tea Party/Norquist agenda of no new taxes. Dayton has compromised on the cuts, while the Republicans will not budge a dime on raising any taxes.

Dayton’s original proposal was to raise taxes on couples earning more than $300,000 a year ($180,000 for an individual). He has raised that to those earning over a million. But the Republicans refused to compromise in any way, with Sen. Michelle Benson saying “If we don’t start taking a different approach to how we manage our government, we’re going to swing from one bad economic circumstance to another. We can’t just keep throwing more money at government and hoping that makes things better.”

Republican moderates have actually offered a compromise with ideas for raising revenues that don’t involve raising individual taxes, such as eliminating tax breaks or legalizing casinos. Dayton has indicated he would be open to alternatives, but that revenue increases must be in the mix.

If this is a set-up for political gain, as the Republicans have alleged, they are the ones in the most jeopardy over this. As Rep. Mike LeMieur, Republican of Little Falls, noted, “I personally think the Republicans will probably be more damaged than the governor. The fact is that we’re all up for re-election again next year, and he’s not up for three years.” As a statement of the attention span and memory capacity of American voters, that’s an accurate statement. The first people facing re-election will be blamed for this.