Residual Forces

Speaker of the House Margaret Kelliher (D Minneapolis) has an op ed in the Strib today, and surprise surprise she is not going to lay down and let Pawlenty claim a win on the Special Session stalemate/agreement/debate.

Why I am worried, this is the mantra that will not stop.

People are wondering when there will be a special session of the Legislature. They ask about property-tax relief and aid for their local communities. They believe our state must do something, but not just anything. Minnesotans want to know their state leaders can manage a reliable and responsible recovery from these disasters.

In the days after the bridge collapse, the agenda for a special session quickly began to take shape. State leaders who had long disagreed about the best way to fund transportation saw the necessity to finally resolve the stalemate. Early on, the governor talked of his willingness to support an increase in the gas tax. Then he backtracked and supported only a temporary increase. In recent days, the governor has shown little interest in negotiating the prior agreement he says is necessary for a special session, while lawmakers have signaled a willingness to focus on emergency items put forth by local leaders.

You see, the DFL don’t stop the negotiation pressures when they leave the table. They go out into the public, sure chances are they go to their friends and supporters (ahem the media included), and they go on offense.

As summer gives way to fall, those families most affected by these disasters have little choice but to move forward. They continue to face difficult challenges on a daily basis. Parents of children injured in the bridge collapse wonder where they will find the money to cover medical expenses. Businesses near the bridge and throughout southeastern Minnesota face a struggle to survive. Families in the flood zone ask when they will have a safe and secure place to call home.

The pace of any recovery effort cannot be fast enough for these people. While our country has witnessed some painful examples of what happens when help is slow in arriving, Minnesota has the resources to help our people recover. It is time for all of us to act together as Minnesotans first.

Pawlenty opened a can of worms, for a good reason, but he just shouldn’t have used dynamite.

So where are we today, is the Session on or off? The DFL is pushing fast and furious for a one day session now. They now have the upper hand in the rhetorical political battle.

As Kelliher points out, the very first things that went through the collective DFL mind after the collapse was a tax increase. I just wonder why the Governor was so inclined to give merit to the idea.

We will be damn lucky not to have massive oppressive tax increases that will hurt our economy, but worse, soak the already struggling to get along and fill the tank Minnesotan. The massive state budget is big enough. Revenue is up, and has been up multiple periods in a row.

So why couldn’t the answer to the collapse have been re-prioritizing state spending. Why do lawmakers need to make us pay for their own misguided mistakes? We weren’t the ones who never thought about bridge maintenance. We weren’t the ones who felt the need to think of the transit system of the future, and ignore the one of today.

In one day, the Legislature could raise the gas tax, and appropriate money for the Southeast flooding, but what will that solve longterm? Will letting the DFL and entrenched bureaucracy in the transportation circles raise their precious gas tax change the way they operate?

No! So why punish us by paying more at the pump for more of the same?

Why couldn’t reforming state government have been on the radar screen?

As the Minnesota Government continues to ramp up the Ethanol mandates, miles per gallon averages go down. Now that the gas tax will likely go up, Minnesotan’s financial burden to fund the broken system, we know as our Government, will get worse and worse every year.

So tell me why I should be so damn happy about the way this whole thing was handled?