Governor Pawlenty said today that he intends to sign a nearly $1 billion bonding bill but suggested that he would line-item veto projects from the bill. Pawlenty told reporters that he hasn’t decided which projects he would line-item veto from the bill.

“The bonding bill incorporates most of our key priorities,” Pawlenty said. “It’s still too large but it’s a bill we can work with and we’ll just have to slim it down to something that is more reasonable and responsible and affordable.”

“A bill we can work with” means that his priorities have been included, so he can easily cut hundreds of millions of dollars in other projects. It’s too early to say yet, but my guess is that Pawlenty will cut heavily, leaving this year’s bonding bill a serious missed opportunity. I would love to be wrong on that, but we all know Pawlenty’s track record.

So how did we get here once again? The same way we do every year: Pawlenty’s complete unwillingness to negotiate and the DFL’s unwillingness or inability — I’m not sure which — to call Pawlenty out in public and put him to a tough decision. The Star Tribune sums up the DFL’s thinking:

Sen. Keith Langseth, DFL-Glyndon, and Rep. Alice Hausman, DFL-St. Paul, acknowledged that there was a risk in making the concessions without knowing how many projects could get sliced from their bill.

But they said there was no chance for a deal otherwise because the governor wouldn’t agree to limit his line-item vetoes in exchange for concessions. They said it’s likely the entire public works bill would have been killed or delayed without the changes.

“He would have vetoed the whole bill if we hadn’t given him most of what he wanted,” Langseth said. “We were constantly asking them for some kind of a deal … and we never got any.”

I know the DFL wants to get construction going. But I wish they could have taken a week or two to put a bit more pressure on Pawlenty. Now we’re most likely looking at $300 million in cuts from the bonding bill. Once Pawlenty makes his cuts, I’m going to try my best to get an idea of exactly how much they will cost us in terms of jobs.

Under the program, hospitals will form Coordinating Care Organizations that, in cooperation with counties, will manage and provide medical care for about 32,000 single adults. The measure must be approved by the Legislature and signed by Pawlenty.

However, hospitals will be paid a lump sum to cover all GAMC patients, so may have incentives to control costs. All care they provide beyond the single payment must be covered by the hospitals.

The new program, like all of the proposals that have been made to save GAMC, falls squarely into the “better than nothing” category. It’s certainly not perfect, but it’s certainly better than either refusing coverage or forcing the hospitals to provide coverage without reimbursement.

I have to say, so far this session I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the willingness of the state’s political leaders to make compromises and get things done. Do I dare to hope that next year we might even be able to tackle our budget deficit?

1. Walz awarded for his work on rural economic development

Congressman Tim Walz (D-MN) was presented with the 2010 NADO [National Association of Development Organizations] National Leadership Award today. Congressman Walz was selected based on his outstanding leadership and support of federal policies and programs that support regional and local economic competitiveness initiatives, especially in small metropolitan and rural regions.

2. Bachmann has missed the most votes of all Minnesota Representatives

An analysis by the Minnesota Independent shows that Bachmann has missed more votes than any member of Minnesota’s congressional delegation in the 111th Congress — even after subtracting votes missed when Bachmann left to spend time with an ill family member. Twenty of the 47 remaining votes Bachmann missed occurred on days when the Sixth District Republican had media appearances scheduled.

The fewest number of missed votes? That was Walz.

A capital investment working group approved an offer that brings the bill total down slightly and contains the six core projects identified by the governor. However, the overall cost of the bill does not meet his desired amount.

The working group report calls for nearly $986.43 million in general obligation bonding, a decrease of about $13.5 million from the amount in HF2700*/ SF2360.

At this rate, it’s going to take a long time for the two sides to meet.

I think the implication of the legislature’s response is pretty interesting. By making a much smaller concession than the Governor, they seem to be signaling that they don’t plan on meeting the Governor right in the middle at $842 million, but that they want the final bill to be closed to their original figure than the Governor’s. If the two sides were to keep moving toward a compromise at the same rate as their first moves, they would meet at around $920 million.

[Budget Commissioner Tom] Hanson said that Pawlenty, who earlier proposed spending $685 million, ultimately wants a bill “in the $725 million range.”

“What that means is the governor wants his bill,” said Sen. Keith Langseth, DFL-Glyndon.

Hanson replied that a $725 million bonding package is the governor’s “current position,” adding, “To come to an agreement we have to agree on size and scope. I’m not foolish enough to think that in the end it’s going to be $725 million.”

Like I’ve written a number of times, the time to spend on our infrastructure projects is right now, when people desperately need to work, interest rates are low, and we can get a good deal on construction costs. I’m hopeful that the Pawlenty administration will be willing to play ball and get us as large a savings as possible.

Politics is about the improvement of people’s lives. It’s about advancing the cause of peace and justice in our country and the world. Politics is about doing well for the people.

 — Paul Wellstone

To hell with that!

 — Minnesota Republicans

I wish everyone agreed with Wellstone that “Politics is about doing well for the people.” Unfortunately, for the GOP over the past decade or so, it’s much more about baseless attacks against their opponents. Like the candidate for the Republican nomination in SD 18, who called army veteran and DFL-endorsed candidate Hal Kimball a “dangerous guy”.

Here’s a suggestion for Tim Benoit, the candidate who made that comment. Either provide some evidence to show that Kimball is, indeed, “dangerous,” or try campaigning like you have something positive to say. You clearly don’t, but just pretend.

And the slightly good news is outweighed by the fact that the budget forecast has actually gotten worse for the next biennium. Including inflation, we will have a $7 billion budget deficit in the next biennium.

Our budget crisis is the direct result of a failure of leadership in St. Paul. Both Republican and DFL policymakers have relied for far too long on one-time fixes and accounting gimmicks to kick the can down the road. Well, they’re not going to be able to do that anymore. As I’ve been arguing for several years now, we desperately need some leaders in St. Paul who are willing to make the tough choices to balance the budget. These are going to be unpopular with just about everyone in Minnesota, but we no longer have any choice.

Some of the things we need to do include:

• Extend the sales tax to cover services
• Increase income taxes on the wealthiest Minnesotans
• Make major cuts to the entire budget
• Rework our human services programs to limit their growth over time

We simply can’t accomplish a long-term, sustainable budget solution with only revenue increases or spending cuts. We’re going to need both, and it’s our misfortune that we have leaders in St. Paul who seem either unable or unwilling to come together and put aside their partisan differences to make real changes.

That’s all I’m going to say here. Go check out the numbers for yourself over at MN Progressive Project.

However you slice it, this flip-flop says something about Seifert and Emmer’s politics. There are a few options, as I see it:

• They support health care for the poor, but they’re not willing to stand up for their principles and oppose the Governor.
• They oppose health care for the poor, but they’re not willing to stand up for their principles and vote against the bill when it has overwhelming support.
• They don’t really give a damn either way.

They can’t possibly explain both votes, and I’m not sure which of these explanations would be worse for someone who would like to be Governor.

That’s why, in every single biennium, and sometimes even in off years like this one, we are forced to find a new budget “fix.” Those budget fixes more often than not rely on one-time funds and new accounting gimmicks, rather than real solutions. A real budget solution wouldn’t just keep us above water for 8 months; it would find the right mix of spending cuts and revenue increases to leave us with a surplus each year instead of a deficit.

Despite his complete failure to propose a responsible budget during his tenure, Pawlenty loves to chide the DFL and call them fiscally irresponsible. The most recent example of that came as Pawlenty, from a hotel in Washington, indicated he would veto the bonding bill. Pawlenty’s action will force the state to delay major projects that could create jobs immediately. More importantly, if he gets his way, we won’t spend the money when we can get good prices and when our state needs the jobs; instead, we’ll do the same projects in two or four years, but they’ll just cost more.

Citing our budget deficit for vetoing a bonding bill is, quite frankly, short-sighted. Bonding deals with improvements to our infrastructure, whose costs are spread over 15 to 20 years. It’s more fiscally responsible for us to get a good deal while it’s available.

There are those who are going to ask how this is going to be paid for. Honestly, I don’t think that’s even an issue here. Again, bonding is paid for over 15 to 20 years, and over that timeframe, the savings we’ll get from doing these projects now will more than make up for the fact that we’re frontloading the costs with a large bonding bill this year.

If conservatives demanded that we find the money in the budget, even though that’s really not how bonding works, it wouldn’t be a big problem. The difference in annual costs — and thus the impact on our biennial budget — is small. By my estimate, it’s about $35 million. There are a lot of ways to raise that money. For instance, Mark Dayton has called for raising taxes on the wealthiest so they pay the same percentage of their income the rest of Minnesotans do. Well, if we implemented his plan, less than one percent of the additional revenue would pay for the difference. Or, we could raise the sales tax rate from 6.875% to 6.927%. The point is, it’s not a lot of money upfront for some long-term savings.