In a sign of the gravity of the state’s fiscal crisis, Minnesota budget officials may force public school districts to loan the state money so that it can continue paying its bills.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s administration could withhold nearly $1 billion in state aid payments to public schools through May, to ensure the state’s checkbook doesn’t run dry, under a plan unveiled Wednesday at a legislative committee meeting. [Star Tribune]
How much further does this need to go before we admit we have a problem?
But Jeff, rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?
Literacy is a product of a liberal education. The Republicans are opposed to anything liberal. Get it?
Will the state be paying interest to the school systems? If not, “borrowing” is even less valid a term than it already is.
Excellent Point.
In Minnesota, the term “borrow” is often used as a synonym for lend; as in “would you borrow me your car”.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=%22borrow%20me%22
Tim Pawlenty is a native Minnesotan. Maybe what he really wants is to borrow (lend) money to the schools.
I am a Republican and admittedly read this blog regularly to find out kind of liberal tripe is spewing forth this week. I could go off about State Spending and rebuke the idea that Pawlenty has been mismanaging budgets and it’s all his fault for getting us here. Indulge me for a moment but no DFLer could convince me that taking MN’s Budget from $19B ten years ago to the nearly $37B today is not really the work of liberal government largess hell bent on spending more and more every year just for the sake of their beloved ‘tax, spend, tax, spend.’
However that would be missing the point because this idea is that bad. No likes the education shifts that have occurred over the past few years. Waiting an extra day to make the payments because the budget will balance and MN’s constitutional requirement to balance will be fulfilled. But an out right borrowing from school districts? This is the worst idea I ever heard of. If I see Tom Hanson, in person and I might, I will not hesitate to tell him in no uncertain terms…this is the worst idea I have ever heard. Every if I agreed with the policy, and I don’t, it’s political suicide because who can R’s be the part of fiscal conservatism and still look themselves in the face convinced this is some how responsible or justifiable. I am an R and I say, don’t do it.