Sometimes, I’m just so grateful that we have Michele Bachmann watching out for us, fighting the tough battles:
“This legislation would ensure that the U.S. dollar remain the currency of the United States.”
Thank god. I was afraid I was going to have to convert all of my money to Yen.
Bachmann is so good at finding common-sense solutions to non-existent problems. I hope she’ll continue to introduce similar legislation. Perhaps she could introduce bills to:
Ensure that Slavic does not become the official language of the U.S.
Prohibit the U.S. from selling Minnesota to Canada
Stop toddlers from operating heavy machinery
What other causes would you like to see Bachmann working on?
This term limit story keeps unfolding. Yesterday, we learned that several House Republicans are advocating for placing term limits on the Governor and other elected officials. Under their proposal, Governors would only be able to serve two consecutive terms. At the same time that these Republicans push their two term limit bill, Tim Pawlenty is weighing whether to seek a third term. As I said yesterday, that’s not exactly a vote of confidence.
But perhaps I had it all wrong. Maybe those wayward House Republicans were simply seeking to emulate their dear leader. Turns out good ole T-Paw himself supports term limits. Or at least he did before he was Governor. Pawlenty actually sponsored legislation that would have instituted a two term limit on Minnesota Governors back when he served in the Minnesota House. In fact, St. Rep. Pawlenty felt so strongly about term limits, his legislation would have applied retroactively.
Of course, we haven’t heard much from T-Paw on term limits since he became Governor. But these revelations pose some interesting questions as Timmy weighs whether to seek a third term:
Has Tim Pawlenty changed his mind about term limits?
Does he now think Minnesota Governors should be able to seek more than two consecutive terms?
If so, why the change of heart?
Will Pawlenty’s past support of term limits be a factor as he decides whether to seek a third term?
If not, why not?
All these are questions I’d love to see some enterprising reporter ask Pawlenty at his next availability.
Have you ever thought of a comeback line just a little too late? That’s where Republicans found themselves after Obama cast Rush Limbaugh as the leader of their party. It’s been weeks and weeks now, but some Republicans just can’t seem to get past it. They must still be furious, because they absolutely refuse to let it go.
First there’s Bobby Kindal, trying to prove to us — and perhaps to himself — that his miserable State of the Union response didn’t completely destroy his national standing. It appears Jindal has finally come up with a response to the Democrats, albeit a few weeks too late. And, as is typical in this sort of situation, the comeback turns out to be pretty lame:
Jindal described the premise of the question — “Do you want the president to fail?” — as the “latest gotcha game” being perpetrated by Democrats against Republicans.
The number of medically disenfranchised grew three times faster than the total U.S. population, a clear sign that that access to primary care is worsening and reaching middle-class American families, even among those who do have insurance.
Nearly one-fifth of all Americans do not have access to primary care. That’s simply unacceptable. We have a moral obligation to provide at least basic health care to all Americans. But just in case you don’t care about those 60 million people, there’s another study that says the problem impacts even the insured:
When the uninsured cannot pay for the care they receive, providers shift costs to Americans with insurance in the form of higher premiums…. [A]n updated analysis by Ben Furnas and Peter Harbage concludes that a failure to continuously cover all Americans accounts “for roughly 8 percent of the average health insurance premium“:
Each party in Congress flip-flops on procedural issues depending on whether it’s in the majority or the minority. It’s only natural, after all, to want minority rights when you’re in the minority, but not so much while you’re in the majority. It’s still funny, though, to watch the hand-wringing over a suggestion that Democrats could bypass the Republicans altogether on certain policies:
The [procedural] shortcut, known as “budget reconciliation,” would allow Obama’s health and energy proposals to be rolled into a bill that cannot be filibustered, meaning Democrats could push it through the Senate with 51 votes, instead of the usual 60. Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both used the tactic to win deficit-reduction packages, while George W. Bush used it to push through his signature tax cuts.
What’s so funny is the rapid about face some Republicans have made in a very short timeframe. For example, here’s Judd Gregg on reconciliation in 2005:
Either [ANWR or a Medicaid savings bill] on its own could not have survived a Democratic filibuster without the protection of of budget reconciliation, Gregg said. (CQ Today, 12/19/2005)
“That would be the Chicago approach to governing: Strong-arm it through,” said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who briefly considered joining the Obama administration as commerce secretary. “You’re talking about the exact opposite of bipartisan. You’re talking about running over the minority, putting them in cement and throwing them in the Chicago River
Minnesota (and especially The Big City) is an extremely socially liberal environment - we are practically tripping over vegan friendly restaurants, Unitarian Churches, liberal arts colleges, feminist bookstores and rainbow flags. So, in an effort to encourage this liberal hand-holding love fest, here are a few articles on feminism:
Sen. Dick Cohen
Rep. Jeanne Poppe
Rep. Gene Pelowski
Rep. Bobby Joe Champion
Rep. Carlos Mariani
Rep. Cy Thao
Rep. Tim Mahoney
Rep. Sheldon Johnson
Former Rep. Shelley Madore
Former Rep. Connie Bernardy
Former St. Paul City Council Member Jay Benanav
Former St. Paul DFL Chair Stu Alger
Former DFL Feminist Caucus Chair Mari Pokornowski
Minneapolis School Board Member Peggy Flanagan
Cy Thao is also a co-chair of the Entenza campaign, along with Deb Hogenson of Nobles County.
This is an interesting list of endorsers. Mostly urban electeds, but some suburban and rural figures as well. Entenza has been beating the bushes and, as I noted earlier today, that kind of hard work pays off in an endorsement race.
Here’s a bill that’s bound to ruffle a few feathers over at the Capitol.
The bill, H.F. 770, is authored by Rep. Ron Shimanski (R-Silver Lake) and co-authored by Rep. Tim Kelly (R-Red Wing) and Rep. Steve Drazkowski (R-Wabasha).
The bill calls for two-term limits for the office of Governor and Lieutenant Governor
The bill would not effect Pawlenty’s ability to seek a third term (it wouldn’t take effect until after 2010), but the fact that Republicans are proposing term limits at the same time that the Governor is considering a re-election campaign cannot be seen as a sign of confidence.
Shimanski and company also want to term limit the other constitutional officers and the entire state legislature. Talk about a solution in search of a problem. Over half of the Minnesota House is made up of members in their 3rd term or less. That’s a lot of fresh blood. In addition, no Governor in the history of Minnesota has been elected to more than eight years in office (Rudy Perpich served 10 years, but two of those were after suceeding Wendall Anderson and only eight years were consecutive).
The truth is, Minnesota already has term limits. They are called elections. Minnesota voters are engaged and smart enough to know when it’s time to make a change. Its too bad that the MN GOP has such a low opinion of voters.
Joe Bodell published a ranking of DFL gubernatorial candidates on his blog yesterday. Its an interesting read, and I would encourage you to check it out. One important caveat is that Joe only ranked the six candidates that he has personally interviewed, and thus his list excludes potential candidates like R.T. Rybak, Chris Coleman and Margaret Anderson Kelliher. I expect all three of these candidates to run, and I would rank all three ahead of all six of the candidates on Joe’s list. Frankly, I expect Rybak, Coleman and Kelliher to take up most of the oxygen in the race.
With regard to the candidates on Joe’s list, I think he overestimates Steve Kelley and underestimates Tom Bakk. Bakk is the only Range candidate in this race, which gives him a pretty sizable delegate base in an endorsement contest. Its certainly not enough to win by itself, but with a multi-candidate field looking extremely likely, Bakk come in near the top of a hypothetical first ballot. In my mind, that puts him ahead of Paul Thissen (at least for the moment; I think Thissen has some dark horse potential), Susan Gaertner and Steve Kelley.
The other thing to note is that Matt Entenza is the most volitile candidate in the race. Entenza has a lot of two very valuable commodities in politics: money and ambition. With Entenza, most people focus on the money but I think its a mistake to ignore the importance of ambition. The amount of work a candidate puts into a race is absolutley key in an endorsement contest. Look at Amy Klobuchar in ‘06 or Ashwin Madia in ‘08. If Entenza outworks the field, it will be as big of an advantage (if not bigger) than his deep pockets (as a side note, I wonder how much money Entenza will really put into this race. How has the Entenza/Quam portfolio fared in the recent downturn?). On the other hand, Entenza carries some baggage (wow is that an understatement). Much more importantly, he has more enemies in DFL politics than anyone I know. This list includes some (past and present) elected officials who will stop at nothing to destroy him. If that last sentence sounds like hyperbole to you, I suggest you talk to Mike Hatch (and he isn’t the only one). Taken together, this means that Entenza has the highest risk of an epic flameout, but if he can avoid that particular fate, he’s in a relatively strong position.
My own rankings are below. I’m going to wimp out a little bit and rank only by tier (the candidates are listed alphabetically within their tier).
Regular readers know that I’m no fan of the budget plan proposed by DFLers in the House. However, it’s at least better than Tim Pawlenty’s plan. And while I may not be thrilled about the House plan, Rep. John Lesch (DFL-66A) makes some excellent points about how the DFL plan contrasts with Pawlenty’s plan.
In particular, Lesch writes that we have to raise revenue to balance the budget. Even the Governor’s plan raises revenue — it just raises it more unfairly:
The critical disagreement in the two proposals is how we generate the revenue and who pays. The House proposal would raise $1.5 billion largely through a progressive tax increase on the wealthiest Minnesotans. The Governor would borrow $1 billion through a 20-year loan (to be paid off by future generations) and assumes $600 million in property tax increases through deep cuts to local government aid.
Whether or not to raise revenue isn’t the importation question - we already know the answer. The question is how do we raise the revenue? Do we raise it today, or should we ask our next generation to pay for it? Should the wealthiest Minnesotans share in the burden or should it only be lower and middle class homeowners? [MN Progressive Project - Emphasis Added]
For too long, Tim Pawlenty has sought to avoid the consequences of his decisions by passing the buck — first to cities and counties, and now to future taxpayers. He refuses to raise state taxes, but he can’t bring himself to impose the sort of cuts his rhetoric would actually require. So he finds sneaky ways to raise revenue without calling it a “tax”. However you raise $1.6 billion, though, it’s still $1.6 billion. Let’s pay for it today, instead of making our kids pay for it.
Michele Bachmann goes after her opponents with a fervor that even I have to grudgingly admire. Unfortunately, though she speaks passionately, she also speaks incoherently. Watching those she’s debating against, you can nearly read their thoughts: “What the heck are you talking about?”
Yesterday, Michele Bachmann had the opportunity to question Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke during a committee hearing. I considered posting the video solely for the face Geithner makes in response to a particularly incoherent question by Bachmann. But now I’ve found something even better. Talking Points Memo’s Eric Kleefeld has discovered the Bachmann Effect: He’s found three different instances in which Bachmann’s opponents, struggling to understand what she’s saying, make the same confused and irritated facial expression.
I wasn’t able to watch Obama’s press conference last night, so I don’t have much to say about it this morning. Instead, I thought I’d post some excerpts from the press conference. If you didn’t watch it last night, here is a 5-minute highlight video, courtesy of Politico:
UPDATE: Sorry, our blogging software apparently really hates the Politico media player. Trying to embed the video caused this entire post to appear blank. To see the video, click here instead.
At first glance, a proposal by Rep. Paul Marquart (DFL-Dilworth) to create a local-option sales tax makes sense, given dramatic cuts in Local Government Aid (LGA) and County Program Aid (CPA). Because of huge cuts in LGA and CPA during the Pawlenty years, local property taxes have skyrocketed (see chart). Marquart’s plan aims to avoid continued property tax increases by giving counties the option to increase their sales tax instead.
There’s one huge problem with the idea, though, as far as I’m concerned. It accepts cuts to LGA and CPA and lays the groundwork for a system in which they no longer exist. Giving counties a tool to raise money in place of CPA is sending a signal that CPA is never coming back. Once CPA goes, so will LGA. There are major reasons why we shouldn’t accept an end to the LGA/CPA system:
State mandates should be paid for by state funds.
Local levels of government have a more difficult time raising revenue than higher levels.
Locally-based taxes mean more larger gaps between rich and poor counties.
A cynical person might say that Tim Pawlenty knew exactly what he was doing what he cut LGA and CPA every year; he wants to seriously cripple local governments by cutting off their access to funding. I am one such cynical person. And looking at Marquart’s proposal, I can’t help but think it will allow Pawlenty to win the debate on LGA once and for all
One more thought on Zack’s post about crazy Michele Bachmann. Can you imagine how ballistic conservatives would have gone if a Democrat had said something like that? Suppose Keith Ellison said that Minnesotans need to be “armed and dangerous” over exorbitant bonuses for corporate executives. He would have been called a communist, a traitor, and far worse.
Bachmann, though, consistently gets away with saying some terrible things. I suppose that’s because she’s standing up for good old American virtues, like pollution, greed, and bigotry.
Asked about the White House-backed cap-and-trade proposal to reduce carbon emissions, Bachmann told WWTC 1280 AM, “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people — we the people — are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.”
Is Bachmann calling for an armed revolution against the government? I think they have a word for that…oh yeah…treason.
At first glance, a proposal by Rep. Paul Marquart (DFL-Dilworth) to create a 
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