There is no limit to the fiscal fraud the MNGOP is willing to perpetrate in their quest to bestow ever-greater handouts on the rich and powerful. They’ve already put us billions of dollars in debt to keep taxes on the super-rich low. Now they want to increase the deficit even further for yet another giveaway. But it gets even worse. They can’t pay for their new tax cut for the rich, so they’re just planning to commit accounting fraud to “pay” for it:

In the tax bill, Republicans are betting that the economy will continue to improve, which would mean more tax revenue to the state.

The plan directs Minnesota Management and Budget to book higher than expected tax collections from February and March to pay for the changes. Typically, lawmakers rely on the February revenue forecast as they make tax and spending decisions, not the partial information that comes from monthly tax reports….

The bill would also pit tax cuts for businesses against school funding. That’s because current law says any surplus money from the November forecast would be used to pay back a K-12 school payment delay. This bill short-circuits that process by capturing tax revenue that hasn’t been recorded in the forecast yet.

This is just insane. Minnesota Republicans are out of control. No wonder they’re being evicted — they should never, ever be trusted with our state’s budget again. 

I don’t know about you, but I find late-night and weekend votes at the Legislature absolutely unacceptable. This happens every year, no matter who is in control of the Capitol — legislators frantic to finish their work have marathon sessions that can sometimes run until midnight. There’s very little room for transparency in a midnight vote.

I think we need to reform the Legislature works, and in the process, this practice should be strictly limited. The reforms could be modeled after a bill already proposed by DFLer Ryan Winkler of Golden Valley.

Winkler’s bill would ban closed door meetings and meetings between midnight and 7 am. I would encourage limiting meetings even further, perhaps limiting meetings after 9 pm. It’s hard to imagine many bills that are so urgent that they can’t be postponed until the next day.

However, I can imagine that it might happen on occasion. Because there may indeed be occasional urgent matters that need immediate attention, I don’t think late-night meetings should be banned. However, they should be of sufficient importance that most legislators agree about the urgency. After 9pm, all bills should require a two-thirds majority to pass.

For work that is either urgent or uncontroversial, late-night sessions may still be possible. But controversial bills that require public debate must always be accessible to the general public.

Late last week, Mitt Romney has another one of the very-frequent moments when he reveals what a privileged life he has led:

At a “lecture” for students at Otterbein University in Ohio today, Mitt Romney told students that, his friend, Jimmy John, started a business by borrowing $20,000 from his parents at a low interest rate. Romney suggested anyone in the audience could do the same:

This kind of devisiveness, this attack of success, is very different than what we’ve seen in our country’s history. We’ve always encouraged young people: Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business.

Yeah, just borrow $20,000 from your parents! No problem.

As always, Romney seems completely oblivious to the fact that not everyone in America has these sorts of opportunities. This time, though, I think the gaffe reveals more than just how out-of-touch Romney is. In fact, Romney’s casual assumption that anyone can just borrow $20,000 from their parents is related to the central fallacy of the Republicans’ economic policies.

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There are a lot of big issues to be resolved before the legislative session can come to a close, such as passing a jobs bill and finally resolving the fate of the Vikings stadium. But according to the Star Tribune, the MNGOP’s top priority is a tax cut for the rich:

“It is our highest priority — to get that tax reform to Minnesotans as soon as possible,” said Sen. Julianne Ortman, R-Chanhassen, chair of the Senate Taxes Committee and the Senate’s Deputy Majority Leader….

The bill is to come to the floors of the House and Senate on Monday. It was not negotiated with DFL Gov. Mark Dayton, who has objected to tax cuts that would add to the deficit in the next budget cycle.

Yes, you read that right — the MNGOP is proposing new tax cuts that would add to our already sizable budget deficit. Here’s what the MN Budget Project says about the proposed tax cuts:

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Lambasting Federal grants for ridiculous-sounding scientific research has become a favorite trope of politicians railing against earmarks. There’s a new litany every year, but most famously, Sarah Palin ridiculed “fruit fly research in Paris, France.”

I get it. Attacking these absurd-sounding studies is an easy way to score cheap political points. But this lazy rhetoric wrongfully villanizes truly important work. Take Palin, for example — while she smugly clucked her tongue over the apparent idiocy of funding fruit fly research, she was apparently unaware that fruit fly research has made major contributions to the study of autism.

That’s why it’s great to finally see someone coming to the defense of unfairly-maligned science:

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) believes it is time the sex life of the screwworm got its due.

On Wednesday afternoon, Cooper rose to the defense of taxpayer-funded research into dog urine, guinea pig eardrums and, yes, the reproductive habits of the parasitic flies known as screwworms—all federally supported studies that have inspired major scientific breakthroughs. Together with two House Republicans and a coalition of major science associations, Cooper has created the first annual Golden Goose Awards to honor federally funded research “whose work may once have been viewed as unusual, odd, or obscure, but has produced important discoveries benefiting society in significant ways.”

Federally-funded research of dog urine ultimately gave scientists and understanding of the effect of hormones on the human kidney, which in turn has been helpful for diabetes patients. A study called “Acoustic Trauma in the Guinea Pig” resulted in treatment of early hearing loss in infants. And that randy screwworm study? It helped researchers control the population of a deadly parasite that targets cattle—costing the government $250,000 but ultimately saving the cattle industry more than $20 billion, according to Cooper’s office.

It’s so easy to make these studies sound like outrageous wastes of time and money by focusing on a few surface details and remaining intentionally ignorant of the real purpose of the work. We should demand better of our politicians. There’s so much important research to be done — it needs our policymakers’ support, not their derision.

As Obamacare inches toward full implementation in 2014, its benefits are already being felt, more and more strongly with each passing year. Yesterday, we got some news about the impacts of Obamacare’s “medical loss ratio,” which is the common-sense policy that requires insurers to pay a minimum percentage of their premiums toward actual medical care:

Today, we have a first look at how this provision has affected the industry. Health insurance companies will pay $1.3 billion in rebates for 2011, according to a new analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation…. [emphasis added]

Importantly, we’re not just saving money. Insurers are also spending more money on medical care, as evidenced by the fact that the 2011 rebates are less than they would have been in 2010, had the medical loss ratio been in effect last year:

Insurers aren’t squirreling away an extra $700 million somewhere. They’re doing what the federal government wants them to do: Spending that $700 million on medical costs. Obama administration officials have repeatedly emphasized that, in an ideal world, there would be no rebates, which get messy and administrative. Instead, they want to see all of that $1.3 billion put into medical costs. And, while insurers aren’t quite there yet, they do appear to be inching in that direction.

These are two of the benefits of Obamacare that conservatives want to take away from us. In its place, they want… absolutely nothing. Costs will rise, millions will lose health care, and the Federal deficit will increase. They have no ideas — so why not stick with a program that’s already proving itself?

The Violence Against Women Act passed yesterday by a vote of 68-31. All 31 no votes were cast by Republicans.

But the GOP would like to remind you that there is no War on Women.