MNpublius

Wither Klobuchar?

Mon, 21 May 2012 16:42:24 -0500

Over at MN Progressive Project, Joe Bodell has a similar reaction Kurt Bills’s endorsement as I had — it doesn’t really matter who the MNGOP nominates. He then asks an important question: Will Klobuchar play a larger role in the 2012 elections here in Minnesota than just cruising to a second term?

So what to do in the meantime? Well, there is the question of that Legislature, and Amy Klobuchar could have a lot to do with whether the DFL gets it back. Will she sit back in cruise control and rack up endorsements, money, and favors with an eye toward 2016, or will she run up the score in a serious way, running hard statewide, and be the tide that helps raise all DFL ships at all levels across the state, helping put the current form of the GOP in history’s dustbin?

I’ve been wondering the same thing. While we know that Klobuchar has to approach her campaign seriously, the fact is that she’ll have resources — both money and time — to spare. What will she choose to do with it? Will she, as Joe puts it, “sit back in cruise control?” Or will she use her political capital to help take back the legislature and defeat the marriage discrimination amendment?

Republicans make up a new metric that prioritizes cuts for the poor

Mon, 21 May 2012 14:56:02 -0500

Over the last two years, Republicans have voted for tax cut after tax cut for the rich, while insisting on sharp cuts to programs for the poor and middle class. Without a trace of self-consciousness, they have insisted that this is all in the name of fiscal responsibility, all the while ignoring that their giveaways to the rich far outweigh their petty and vindictive cuts for the rest of us. Surely, sooner or later someone had to call them out on this hypocrisy, right?

That’s why, as a preemptive measure, Speaker John Boehner has invented a brand-new metric by which Republicans will now measure the deficit. Boehner’s new metric is “spending-driven debt,” as reported by Ezra Klein:

I got a weird e-mail from John Boehner’s office yesterday. “No Reason to Wait,” it said. “Let’s Address Spending-Driven Debt Now.”

So what’s “spending-driven debt”? I’m not exactly sure. But there are a whole lot of references to it in my inbox. Later that same day, I got another e-mail from Boehner’s office about “the spending-driven debt that threatens job creation and economic growth.” And on May 4, I got an e-mail from Boehner’s office saying “those looking for work can’t find it because ObamaCare, our spending-driven debt, and the threat of tax hikes are making it harder for small businesses to hire.”

What is “spending-driven debt?” That’s easy. It’s a way for Republicans to measure success only by how much they can cut from programs that benefit the poor and middle-class, while absolving the super-rich of any responsibility to make sacrifices themselves.

The GOP will approve hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the super-rich without batting an eye, but they’ll fight tooth and nail to make sure programs like affordable student loans are “paid for.” They view programs for the 99 Percent as a zero-sum game, in which help for some must be offset by pain for others. When it comes to the 1 Percent, though, there are apparently unlimited funds.

This has been the standard Republican policy since George W. Bush took office. After more than 10 years, though, people are starting to ask why the 1 Percent never need to sacrifice. Boehner’s “spending-driven debt” is an effort to re-frame the debate to get us to stop asking that question.

Bills wins GOP endorsement for Senate, but it doesn't matter

Mon, 21 May 2012 11:57:58 -0500

Over the weekend, Kurt Bills won the MNGOP endorsement to face Amy Klobuchar in the 2012 Senate race. With Bills’s endorsement, the November match-up is now most likely set. But I’ve never seen a less dramatic race. All Bills’s endorsement really means is an answer to the question Who will be crushed by Amy Klobuchar?

Klobuchar’s approval ratings are sky-high, and she regularly polls at 55 percent against any challenger — including Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann. Throw in her enormous cash advantage, and she looks practically invulnerable.

I know I shouldn’t treat Klobuchar’s victory as a foregone conclusion, and in her defense, she has signaled that she’s not taking this race for granted. Klobuchar has always been a formidable campaigner, and she’ll be working hard against Bills, so don’t take my confidence as reflecting on Klobuchar and her campaign. But let’s be honest — it would take a major, major surprise to even make this campaign competitive.

So congratulations, Rep. Bills. You get the honor of being creamed by Senator Klobuchar.

Bill Clinton has the right solution to the deficit

Fri, 18 May 2012 12:01:24 -0500

Over the long-term, a large deficit is a problem. Right now, however, it is not a problem — in fact, more government spending will help the economy to improve. The right has been arguing for three years now that we need to prove to the markets that we’re serious about deficit reduction, or “bond vigilantes” will wreck our economy. So far, there has been absolutely zero evidence that they’re right.

Still, short-term economic stimulus and long-term fiscal responsibility aren’t at all incompatible. That’s the point Bill Clinton made in an interview on Tuesday:

Go ahead and plan for deficit reduction, Clinton said, but trigger it to actual improvements in the real economy. You want your deficit to temporarily go up in recession to make up for the fact that consumers and businesses aren’t spending enough. Then you want it to come down when the economy is really picking up. But pivot to deficit reduction too soon, and you’re asking for trouble.

That’s exactly the right approach. Convinced that we need to prove we’re serious about the deficit? Fine — let’s pass a budget that will automatically reduce the deficit once the economy comes back.

Someone should really listen to Bill Clinton. I don’t think any of us would object to returning to an economy that works like it did throughout his presidency.

GOP bigwigs must be nervous about Chip Cravaack's seat

Fri, 18 May 2012 06:59:01 -0500

Republican leaders are already hard at work for Chip Cravaack:

Top Republican leaders in the U.S. House are pitching in to help first-term U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack try to hold onto his seat ahead of what’s likely to be a tough campaign.

House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and other GOP leaders attended a fundraiser just a few blocks from the Capitol Thursday afternoon to help Cravaack and four other House Republicans representing potentially swing districts. Attendance cost a minimum of $5,000 per political action committee present.

They must be getting nervous. Cravaack is going to have his hands full defending his seat in a high-turnout year, and he’s going to need all the money he can get. It’s a good thing he’s got party bigwigs to raise cash for him, because he’s way out of touch with the voters in his district.

Everything the Tea Party says about Barack Obama is a lie

Thu, 17 May 2012 13:10:45 -0500

Who is Barack Obama? He’s a practicing Muslim who pals around with terrorists. He was born in Kenya and his birth certificate is an elaborate conspiracy. He’s a socialist who has presided over the largest expansion of government since the New Deal, with soaring taxes and exploding deficits to match.

These are all lies the Tea Party tells about Barack Obama. The trouble is, only the first two are treated as the lunatic conspiracy theories they are, even though the facts disprove all three. The fact is that spending, taxes, and the deficit are all lower today than when Obama took office.

I know the Tea Party Republicans hate Barack Obama, and nobody is going to change that. But it doesn’t matter if they feel like taxes and spending are going up; the fact is, they aren’t. That’s just one more way the Tea Party tries to rationalize their baseless hatred for our president.

What’s really sad is that our economy would be better off if Obama would actually do the things the Tea Party Republicans accuse him of. More government spending is just what we need right now. And since everyone seems convinced that Obama’s a big spender, it would be nice if he would actually push for higher spending. Right now, he has the dual disadvantage of being blamed for high spending, without the economic benefits of actually doing said spending.

Will the Poll Tax Amendment mean the end of absentee voting?

Thu, 17 May 2012 07:01:59 -0500

Have you read the bill that put the Poll Tax Amendment on November’s ballot? The final version sets a strict standard for identifying potential absentee voters. In fact, it’s so strict that I wonder how absentee balloting would possibly work. Here are a couple of relevant excerpts (the full text is here):

(b) All voters voting in person must present valid government-issued photographic identification before receiving a ballot….

(c) All voters, including those not voting in person, must be subject to substantially equivalent identity and eligibility verification prior to a ballot being cast or counted. [Emphasis added]

Voters not voting in person “must be subject to substantially equivalent identity and eligibility verification.” I can’t help but wonder — how in the world will that work for absentee voters? And even if it can be made to work somehow for most absentee voters, how will it work for soldiers serving oversees? At least some of them are going to lose their right to vote.

It seems to me that only way to provide “substantially equivalent identity and eligibility verification” to presenting a photo ID in person is to appear in person yourself. But voters who are voting absentee often do so because they can’t appear in person, like our military oversees. How will these voters be able to exercise their constitutional rights?

Ending absentee ballots is just one of many far-reaching consequences the Poll Tax Amendment will have on our elections. It will strip thousands of their right to vote, end same-day registration, and end absentee balloting. On top of that, it will cost millions to implement. We can’t afford this radical change that would deprive thousands of their right to vote.

We'll never know just how much our public subsidies add to the Vikings' bottom line

Wed, 16 May 2012 11:56:45 -0500

It’s amazing the sorts of things you discover after a sweetheart deal like the Vikings bill is shepherded through the legislature:

One provision would shield “any financial information” from the team from public eyes. Critics say the blanket protection goes beyond current state law, leaving taxpayers in the dark on one of the state’s biggest public works projects. Minnesota law already allows businesses that get state money to avoid disclosing trade secrets, business plans, tax returns and other financial data….

That means the public won’t be entitled to find out how much the team makes on stadium naming rights or parking or how much team owners Zygi and Mark Wilf put in themselves.

I guess the legislature was in too much of a hurry to get our money into Zygi Wilf’s hands to stop and read the bill carefully. This is just another indication of how we got rolled. Legislators could have played tough and extracted some concessions from the desperate Vikings. Instead, even though they had all the power in the negotiations, they went out of their way to appease Wilf and the Vikings.

I wonder what other gems we’ll find in the bill now that it’s too late.

Ellison sues the Senate over filibuster

Wed, 16 May 2012 07:02:23 -0500

Throughout Barack Obama’s tenure as President, Congress has been held hostage by a minority party that has used unprecedented abuse of the filibuster to turn the Senate into a mockery of itself. Americans are sick and tired of Congress’s ineptitude, and GOP’s perversion of the filibuster is more than a little responsible.

So it’s great news that Common Cause and a handful of other plaintiffs — including our own Keith Ellison — are suing the Senate, claiming that the filibuster is unconstitutional:

At the core of [Plaintiffs’ lawyer Emmet] Bondurant’s argument is a very simple claim: This isn’t what the Founders intended. The historical record is clear on that fact. The framers debated requiring a supermajority in Congress to pass anything. But they rejected that idea….

In the end, the Constitution prescribed six instances in which Congress would require more than a majority vote: impeaching the president, expelling members, overriding a presidential veto of a bill or order, ratifying treaties and amending the Constitution. And as Bondurant writes, “The Framers were aware of the established rule of construction, expressio unius est exclusio alterius, and that by adopting these six exceptions to the principle of majority rule, they were excluding other exceptions.”

That should be a particularly persuasive argument for conservative justices, who base their small-government interpretation of the Constitution on a very similar argument — the enumeration of certain government powers means that those not mentioned must be unconstitutional by default. It’s hard for me to see how they would defend a sudden flip-flop from their laser-like focus on that particular rule of construction.

The beauty of this lawsuit, though, is that in many ways it’s a win-win proposition. If the courts rule against the plaintiffs, it’s likely to be on the basis of language in the Constitution that gives both houses of Congress the power to set their own rules. In other words, even if the courts uphold that the filibuster is constitutional, they’ll also be upholding the very rule that would give the Senate the power to eliminate the filibuster.

It’s high time for the filibuster to go. Elections have consequences — we need a return to majority rule.

MN United for All Families releases a powerful video featuring...

Tue, 15 May 2012 12:01:41 -0500

MN United for All Families releases a powerful video featuring Republican John Kriesel

Dayton vetoes irresponsible MNGOP tax bill

Tue, 15 May 2012 07:02:17 -0500

Once again, Mark Dayton is looking out for Minnesota taxpayers while the MNGOP plays financial games in a desperate attempt to retain control of the legislature. Republicans proposed an irresponsible tax bill that would pilfer from our budget reserve to provide a tax giveaway to corporations, and after a bit of soul-searching, the Governor thankfully vetoed it:

DFL Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed a GOP-led package of business tax breaks that would have blown a $100 million hole in the state budget in coming years.

“It ignored my requirement that any future spending must be paid for and avoid adding to the next biennium’s projected deficit,” Dayton said in the veto letter….

Dayton said the GOP wrongly targeted cuts to business property taxes when individual property taxes have risen much more.

The GOP keeps doing things like this. They know that Minnesotans are furious with them for causing a shutdown to protect the super-rich. So they’re trying to buy their way back into office with borrowed money. First, it was pretending to pay back the school shift, when in fact all they would have done was shuffle our debt around. Then, it was a corporate tax giveaway “paid” for by depleting our budget reserve.

At every step, the Governor has been there to demand fiscal sanity. Thank you, Governor Dayton, for protecting us from the MNGOP’s horrendous fiscal failures.

SurveyUSA poll: A majority of Minnesotans support equal marriage

Mon, 14 May 2012 14:10:47 -0500

SurveyUSA released a new poll today that focused heavily on the new Vikings stadium. I’m sick of talking about the Vikings, but if you’re interested, TonyAngelo has some analysis of that at MN Progressive Project.

I was struck by one of the few questions that wasn’t about the stadium. It shows that a majority of Minnesotans support equal marriage:

President Obama says that same-sex couples should be able to get married. Do you agree with the president? Or disagree?

Agree 52%

Disagree 42%

Not Sure 6%

This is a big deal, in light of the anti-marriage amendment that will be on the ballot in Minnesota in 2012. A majority of registered Minnesota voters support equal marriage. Of course, we should take this result with a grain of salt, especially since the SurveyUSA poll has a pretty small sample size. On the other hand, the 10-point spread is outside the poll’s fairly large margin of sampling error, so it may very well be accurate.

What’s more, the poll may actually understate opposition to the anti-marriage amendment. It seems reasonable to me that there will be some in Minnesota who oppose equal marriage, but will also oppose the anti-marriage amendment for various reasons.

I recognize that this poll doesn’t really square with a few other polls that have been released previously showing a slight edge in favor of the amendment. Maybe it’s the wording. Maybe it’s the sample — cell-phone respondents, for example, support marriage by a nearly 3-to-1 margin. But maybe, just maybe, it’s a sign that Minnesotans will stand up for all families in November.

Dayton signs bonding bill, which is the smallest in 2 decades

Mon, 14 May 2012 07:02:40 -0500

Governor Dayton signed the bonding bill last week, which is a good thing. Anything that will create jobs in Minnesota is a victory. Unfortunately, it should have been a much bigger job creator. The bonding bill sent to Dayton for his signature was the smallest in two decades.

Signing the bonding bill was the right thing for Governor to do, since the legislature had already adjourned and $500 million is much better than nothing. The Republican legislature that produced the bill, though, should be ashamed for passing such a weak jobs bill.

While the legislature spent months working on a giveaway to one particular billionaire, they skimped when it came to helping Minnesotans. Minnesota needs something to jumpstart our economy, and the GOP utterly failed to provide that.

Dayton unsure whether to sign GOP tax bill

Sat, 12 May 2012 07:40:19 -0500

Over the last week or two, I’ve been following the MNGOP tax bill closely. The original tax bill was an irresponsible corporate giveaway that would have increased our already out-of-control deficit, and which the Republicans only pretended to pay for with fraudulent accounting tricks. Fortunately, the Governor vetoed it.

The most recent version, passed after Dayton’s veto, is much smaller but still increases the deficit and takes money from our budget reserve. Session Daily reports that Dayton is unsure whether or not to sign it:

As for the omnibus tax bill (HF2337*/ SF1972), Dayton said there are many provisions he likes, but that he’s still concerned about the impact of the bill’s “tails” on the state’s budget. A second package of mostly technical tax changes (HF2690*/ SF2136) is also a concern to Dayton, because he said it contains local government aid formula changes that would hit certain cities hard. He said he plans to study both bills in detail before he decides whether to sign or veto them.

Governor Dayton, I would urge you to veto this bill. Remember, despite improvements in the economy, we’re still facing over a $1 billion deficit in the next biennium. Not only that, we still owe our schools over $2 billion — a debt we need to begin paying down. Given our still-precarious budget situation„ we can’t afford to increase our deficit and raid the state’s budget reserve.

Federal tax policy: The richer you are, the more we cut your...

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:52:18 -0500

Federal tax policy: The richer you are, the more we cut your taxes

Alliance for a Better Minnesota launches "A Better Legislature" campaign

Fri, 11 May 2012 06:53:16 -0500

With the legislative session officially over, the Alliance for a Better Minnesota is already ramping up its campaign to take back the legislature:

Minutes after the gavel went down on the end of the 2012 legislative session, the Alliance for a Better Minnesota went live with a new website that will serve as a landing pad for the liberal group’s campaign for Democrats to take back the Legislature.

“A Better Legislature” is “an online and paid media campaign to hold legislators accountable for their misplaced priorities and to make the public aware of the negative impacts of Republican leadership on Minnesota,” a press release on the new website states.

A video on the new website dramatically reviews the Republicans’ failures during their two sessions in charge of the legislature, from their failure to pass a budget, to their draconian budget cuts, to the sex scandal that will cost Minnesotans hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in legal fees.

ABM played a major role in securing Mark Dayton’s victory in the 2010 election, and I’m glad to see them turning their attention to the legislature in 2012. The one thing that’s missing in the video, that I hope we’ll hear more about as the campaign progresses, is the GOP’s unwavering commitment to protecting the super-rich, even as they fought for brutal cuts to education, health care, and local government aid.

The Republicans’ control of the 2011-2012 legislature was an utter disaster. I’m glad to see ABM working to make sure Minnesotans remember just how bad it was, and I hope others will join them.

Disclosure: ABM is currently an advertiser on MNpublius. Editorial content on MNpublius is not influenced by advertising, and this post was not paid for or requested by ABM.

MNGOP proposes smaller tax bill, still can't pay for it responsibly

Thu, 10 May 2012 10:59:54 -0500

I’m surprised and grateful that Republicans didn’t try to hold the Vikings stadium or bonding bill hostage to try to force Mark Dayton to sign their irresponsible corporate tax giveaway. That means we’ll escape this session without the MNGOP adding $2.3 billion to our deficit over the next 14 years.

Still, that doesn’t mean they’re giving up. Yesterday, Republicans passed a stripped-down version of the tax bill. As it turns out, though, they still won’t properly pay for it:

The cost of House File 247′s tax cuts in the next biennium is less than in House File 2337. But it still creates a $73 million hole in the next biennium’s budget – and this bill does not identify which revenue increases or cuts in services would be used to fill in that hole….

In this budget cycle, $28 million of the cost is covered by drawing on the state’s budget reserve. The other $18 million is not specified in the bill, but is described as being covered by savings elsewhere in the budget.

The Republicans are up to their same old tricks, marred by the same fiscal incompetence.They just don’t get it — our budget reserve is not a slush fund, it’s an important tool for our state’s fiscal health. Minnesota, we can’t afford another two years of being governed by a party that doesn’t understand the difference.

Obama on marriage: Better, but not good enough

Thu, 10 May 2012 09:01:26 -0500

Yesterday, Barack Obama continued his “evolution” on gay marriage, which has always been his way of saying that he supports equality but doesn’t want to say so for political reasons. He took a big step yesterday, but not a big enough one:

The president stressed that this is a personal position, and that he still supports the concept of states’ deciding the issue on their own. But he said he’s confident that more Americans will grow comfortable with gays and lesbians getting married, citing his own daughters’ comfort with the concept.

I guess I should be happy he’s taken even this step, but I’m tired of settling for “good enough.” I’m tired of Democrats playing cynical political games, trying to follow the polls, and always behaving as if they need to trick Americans into voting for them. I want leaders with the courage to stand up for their convictions and convince the American people that they’re right.

Instead, Obama waited to “evolve” until the polls showed a slight majority in favor of equality. Even worse, he’s still partially ducking the issue, saying it should be up to the individual states whether to make gays and lesbians second-class citizens.

We have an obligation as a nation to extend equal rights to all our citizens. We should never hold a vote on which groups of Americans are deserving of full citizenship and which are not. If the president truly supports equal marriage, he needs to go farther than saying that he supports it personally but is totally fine with individual states denying their citizens equal rights. This is too important an issue for that cop-out.

Conference committee report raises Vikings share of stadium costs by $50M

Thu, 10 May 2012 05:43:59 -0500

I’m glad to see that our legislators are at least working to reduce the cost of the stadium boondoggle for Minnesota taxpayers. Now, instead of giving a billionaire $548 million in free public subsidies, we’ll be giving a billionaire only $498 million in free public subsidies. The Vikings have agreed to the increase, and to hear them tell it, Zygi Wilf is now some sort of martyr for accepting “only” half a billion dollars in free public money:

Vikings spokesman Lester Bagley, capping a day of private meetings at the state Capitol, said early Thursday that the team had agreed to the new plan. “The Vikings and [team owner Zygi Wilf] have stepped up,” said Bagley, “and made a huge commitment to Minnesota.”

No, Mr. Bagley, Minnesota has made a huge commitment to you. Wilf is doing what you’re supposed to do when you own a business — making a capital investment in his business because he believes the increased profits will be worth the investment. Except the state is actually giving him the lion’s share of the money he needs, because that’s apparently what we do for billionaires.

You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t have much sympathy for him paying an extra $50 million when he’s receiving massive public subsidies for his private business. Wilf has approached this entire process with the sense of entitlement of a spoiled child. Where’s his gratitude for our exceedingly generous gift of half a billion dollars?

The Vikings have their stadium in the bag now. The House has passed the conference report, and the Senate will follow shortly. It would be nice to hear a word of thanks from Wilf and Bagley, instead of grousing over their small share of the costs.

More evidence that austerity is killing the economy

Wed, 09 May 2012 15:29:40 -0500

On Monday, I showed that as the private sector jobs has been adding jobs, the public sector has been losing them by the hundreds of thousands. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that without public-sector austerity, the unemployment rate would be a full percentage point lower:

The Labor Department’s establishment survey of employers — the jobs count that it bases its payroll figures on — shows that the government has been steadily shedding workers since the crisis struck, with 586,000 fewer jobs than in December 2008. Friday’s employment report showed the cuts continued in April, with 15,000 government jobs lost….

The unemployment rate would be far lower if it hadn’t been for those cuts: If there were as many people working in government as there were in December 2008, the unemployment rate in April would have been 7.1%, not 8.1%. [Wall Street Journal, via Jared Bernstein]

And yet the Tea Party Republicans have spent the last four years screaming that government is too big and demanding that we lay off more and more teachers.

Thanks, conservatives! Your disconnect from reality, extremist ideology, and insane knee-jerk hatred of everything President Obama touches have prevented our economy from recovering — just like you wanted.