1. Will reduce the deficit
2. Will drastically expand health care coverage
3. Will not interfere with employer-based health insurance, for those who have it.
And now…
4. Will save families thousands of dollars on premiums.
That’s according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office and MIT’s Jonathan Gruber [courtesy of Politico]. For people who are currently buying their insurance on the individual private market, the plan in the Senate Bill could save up to $2,600 per year for a single person, and up to $7,800 per year for a family of four.
I know that some are opposed to health reform because they think the private insurance industry should be in control of everything. But let’s be honest — if the insurance industry could (or would) create these sorts of savings, wouldn’t they have done it already?
I suppose I would, too, if I was basing my political career on a philosophy the economic forecasts suggest is not working. I could see how it would be annoying being told that tax cuts aren’t the solution to everything.
That’s what Tim Pawlenty is being told by state economist Tom Stinson, according to an article in the Star Tribune on Friday. The article explains (I’m most definitely paraphrasing here) that Stinson has been pushing a very reasonable forecast of our state’s future, and Pawlenty has been steadily growing more irritated at having to pay attention to Stinson. Here’s Stinson’s message:
Minnesota faces a never-before-seen “structural budget deficit” that reaches far into the future, Stinson warns — a phenomenon wrought by an aging workforce and slowing revenue growth that will hamper the state’s ability to provide the services taxpayers have come to expect. There are no short-term answers, he said, and no single approach, such as tax increases or spending cuts, will by itself solve the problem.
Personally, I can’t believe there are folks out there who don’t believe this is true. Our state has run a deficit throughout the majority of Pawlenty’s term, and things are just getting worse. The cost of services is increasing, tax revenues are declining, and over the next couple of decades a disproportionate number of Minnesotans will be retiring — and in the process, paying much less in taxes and consuming much more in services.
Pawlenty, though, does seem to disagree. He says things will be fine — or at least, they’ll be fine for long enough for him to get out of Dodge:
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope all of our readers had the opportunity to spend their holiday with their friends, family, and loved ones. For those of you with a nice long weekend, enjoy! I know I will; I’ll be back Monday.
Republicans have this deluded idea that they are going to duplicate their performance in 1994. They think they can simply obstruct any progress on health reform and Americans will flock to vote Republican in 2010. They’re counting on the economy remaining slow and American voters blaming Obama. There’s just one problem — it turns out those two assumptions are at loggerheads, according to a new survey by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation:
A large majority of Americans view health reform as key to addressing the economy.
Nearly eight in 10 Americans (79.2%) believe it is important that President Obama includes health reform in plans to address the economy.
Let me piece this together for the conservatives reading the blog. The 2010 election will almost undoubtedly turn on the economy. However, the American public thinks health reform is critical to improving the economy, which means that if Republicans continue to obstruct health reform, they will face the voters’ wrath, and not Obama or the Democrats.
Regular readers know that I frequently find myself frustrated with the state of our politics. In particular, it bothers me that politicos can increasingly say whatever they want, facts be damned. Well, this clip from Fox’s Hannity brings the farce to a whole new level. Listen to Dana Perino, former White House Press Secretary, utter one of the most bold-faced lies I’ve ever heard:
We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term
Unsurprisingly, Hannity did not stop to correct her.
Shouldn’t facts have a place in our political discourse? If we can’t even agree on the most basic facts about very recent history, how is there any hope to ever come to a consensus on anything?
Tim Walz and Erik Paulsen held a press conference yesterday calling for lifting Minnesota’s moratorium on nuclear power plants. The issue of nuclear power has become something of a conservative versus liberal issue, but you can mark me down as one liberal who doesn’t understand why that’s the case. I’m glad to see both a Democrat and a Republican from Minnesota coming together on this issue.
The fact is, we’re not ready to produce all — or even most — of our energy from renewable sources like wind and solar. Nuclear energy is a good alternative which is already providing large amounts of energy. Given liberals’ concerns about global warming, nuclear energy is a clean energy technology that does not contribute to climate change.
I understand that there are concerns about the storage of waste, and these concerns are valid. So far, we have yet to find an energy source that is without pitfalls. But given the potential for clean energy, and nuclear’s ability to provide the energy we need right now, we should certainly be favoring new nuclear plants over new coal plants.
They call it an “accounting shift,” but that sounds far too benign. Pawlenty’s gimmicks to make our state look solvent have serious consequences:
St. Paul, Minn. — A Minnesota Public Radio News analysis finds that more than a third of the school districts in the state have been forced to borrow to pay their bills.
In normal years, some school districts borrow money because of low cash flow but education experts say many more districts are borrowing this year because of Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s budget action.
Schools will be borrowing nearly $300 million, and the cost of the interest will be at least $2.75 million. One has to wonder, will the state be paying the schools back for the interest?
MPR has a full breakdown of the borrowing by district here.
Now in the interest of fairness, the DFL was planning on a shift like this as well. And in the interest of fairness, it was a dumb idea for them, too.
And no surprise, it’s picked up by MDE, who thoughtfully did not provide a link to the original item, so linking to him will have to do. Anyhoo, let’s get on to the lies, shall we?
Pawlenty did what he had to do to balance the budget.
Why?
Because state lawmakers were unable to muster the political courage to make the difficult cuts or increase taxes. In other words, as much as we disagreed with the programs Pawlenty cut, he took action, something the Legislature seemed unable to do for months. Leadership in both chambers of the Legislature was inept.
Wow. No, that’s just wrong. We can argue about whether the DFL’s solution — a mix of spending cuts, accounting shifts, and tax hikes — was the best possible solution, certainly. But there is no arguing with the plain facts: the DFL sent Pawlenty a balanced budget. The DFL sent Pawlenty appropriations bills to fund state services, and the revenue to pay for the appropriations.
A lot of people were obviously not happy about the increased taxes, but with our budget deficit only getting worse, it’s hard to see how we’re going to avoid them. So the DFL mustered the courage to increase taxes to raise revenues to decrease our budget shortfall. Now, not only have the DFLers seen their budget unconstitutionally altered by Tim Pawlenty, they’re taking flak for not having the “political courage” to do something that, in reality, they did.
What do you think Ronald Reagan meant when he said that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, and not his opponent? Because I took it as a very general philosophy which simply implied that Reagan did not want to impose an ideological purity test on his allies. So it strikes me as absurd that the Republican party is now using Reagan’s words to impose an ideological purity test on its candidates for office.
WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan also believed the Republican Party should welcome those with diverse views; and
WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed, as a result, that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent…
[A list of policy positions that all Republicans must adhere to follows]
RESOLVED, that a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated public policy position of the Republican National Committee, as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee
{facepalm}
Are you freakin’ kidding me here? Are Republicans so incapable of abstract thought that they really think that’s what Reagan meant when he espoused the “8 out of 10” principle? This explains so much…
You know, I think the policy itself is bad enough. I hope this will put to rest the debate over which party is the party of inclusion and which is the party of teabaggers. Once the GOP goes down the road of purity tests, I don’t believe they’ll come back. But the policy aside, it’s the logic behind this resolution that really hurts me. Do you know what happened to the party of Reagan, folks? It’s now run by yahoos who can’t even understand what Reagan was trying to tell them.
Just in case you were interested, the list of policy positions is below the break:
Here, for your reading pleasure, MNpublius presents a few selections from the MN House’s brief of amicus curiae (courtesy of Politics in Minnesota) in the unallotment lawsuit against Tim Pawlenty.
As I read it, there are two main issues. First, Pawlenty’s actions stretched far beyond what is allowed by Minnesota’s unallotment law. His unallotments do not meet the legislature’s original intent for that law. Second, if the court finds that Pawlenty’s actions were legal under the unallotment law, that would mean that unallotment itself is unconstitutional, as it turns the separation of powers on its head. Budgeting is strictly a legislative role, not an executive one.
Once again, I’d like to point out how crucial this decision will be for our legislature now and in the future. Even Republican lawmakers should be supporting the House’s amicus brief. While they might want the Governor, a fellow Republican, to prevail for policy reasons, in the long run Republican legislators will be better off ensuring that the power of the legislature is not crippled by unallotment.
Below are a few excerpts from the brief supporting both of the House’s main arguments. I’ve stitched a number of small pieces together, and not necessarily in order, to try to give a relatively concise view of the arguments. All emphasis is mine. If you don’t think I’ve done it justice, leave your interpretation in the comments.
A Republican with deep ties to the Minnesota business community has decided against a run for governor next year.
Minnesota Business Partnership Executive Director Charlie Weaver said today he won’t get into the wide-open race. Weaver had been mulling a campaign since incumbent GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty ruled out a third-term bid.
Weaver is a former state legislator, state agency commissioner and chief of staff to Pawlenty.
I don’t know if he could have gotten the GOP nomination, but Weaver would have been a very strong general election candidate for the Republicans. He’s a moderate and has a strong base in Anoka County, a key battleground in statewide elections. You can add Weaver to the list of potentially strong Republican candidates (Pawlenty, Coleman, Sviggum, Sullivan, etc…) who have passed on this race. Every day it looks more and more likely that Marty Siefert will be the Republican nominee, and that makes every day a good day for Democrats.
UPDATE: For those who think I’m crazy when I say Weaver would have been a strong candidate, check out this “top ten reasons I won’t be running for Governor” that he released today…
1. The Governor’s Residence is nice, but it ain’t Anoka;
2. Old streaking ” incident” makes endorsement unlikely;
3. Has only raised $25.13 so far;
4. Discovered that he has to pay for personal parties at the Residence;
5. Thinks unallotment is a board game;
6. Troopers told him he couldn’t wander the Residence in his underwear;
7. Friends are too “busy” to attend convention;
8. Gift ban makes it harder to get free stuff;
9. Not interested in all those boring budget meetings; and
10. Recent polling reveals he would lose to the intoxicated motorized LazyBoy guy.
…when “victory” is a vote narrowly agreeing to open debate on healthcare. Not to close debate, mind you, and not to pass the bill, but just to bring the bill to the floor at all. Here’s what the NY Times says about the vote:
The 60-to-39 vote, along party lines, clears the way for weeks of rowdy floor proceedings that will begin after Thanksgiving and last through much of December.
So it took all the Democrats’ power to get the bill to a point where a circus-like debate will now ensue, and where the bill may or may not ever pass.
I suppose we can call this a victory for Harry Reid, but let’s hope his subsequent victories are a bit more impressive.
The 60-to-39 vote, along party lines, clears the way for weeks of rowdy floor proceedings that will begin after Thanksgiving and last through much of December.
Sorry for my absence over the past couple of days. I was extraordinarily busy, but perhaps even more importantly, ACORN wouldn’t let me blog. My Internet connection was down, and although I don’t have any proof whatsoever, I’m pretty positive it was ACORN’s doing. Yes, ACORN has become so insidious and evil over the past year, they seem to have their hands in just about every evil in this world: From my hectic schedule, to my Internet connectivity problems, to stealing elections like NY-23:
Former GOP state Rep. Ron Erhardt of Edina is exploring a run for his old House seat as a Democrat.
“I’m looking to run. I raised money earlier in the year,” said Erhardt today in a telephone interview with PIM…
…Erhardt said it appears his chances of winning are strongest by running as a Democrat.
“I’m exploring the possibility to run as a Democrat. If that doesn’t work I’ll run as an independent,” Erhardt said.
Sounds like Erhardt is pretty committed to running, he’s just trying to figure out which party label to run under. If he decides to run as a Democrat, however, he’ll have competition. 2008 DFL endorsed candidate Kevin Staunton is running again.
Looks like Edina is going to be a critical battleground once again in 2010.
Once the Vikings move to Los Angeles, what will happen to the Metrodome? Look at what happened this week in Michigan:
The Pontiac Silverdome, site of countless amazing runs by Lions great Barry Sanders and MHSAA football championship games, has depreciated in value.
A lot.
An unidentified Toronto-based group submitted the winning bid for the property with a paltry offer of $583,000. It’s pretty minuscule when you consider that the Silverdome cost $55.7 million to build.
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