For all the talk about how government needs to be run like a business, Tim Pawlenty has done anything but. He only seems to get one side of the income and expense equation. He cuts expenses with wild abandon. Of course there's only so much you can cut essential services without causing other, more expensive problems down the line. Cities are starved, schools have closed, bridges have fallen -Republican dis-investment has been going on for years now.

Now, he should be looking at the income side of the books but, of course, Pawlenty will not even think of asking the wealthiest 10% of Minnesotans pay as much as the other 90% of us do in taxes.  Greed is rewarded in Pawlenty's world and any utterance to the contrary is heresy at best, unpatriotic at worst. He also has his eye on the White House and he needs to cater to the Tea Partiers -heck for all intents and purposes he is a Tea Partier.

Today's more extremist Republicans have no practical solutions for any of our crises. They have no plan for runaway health care, they want no regulation of the banking and investment industry that got us into a global economic meltdown and they think that since cutting greenhouse gasses will cost companies money therefore global warming can't be real. They have no solutions and "No" is all they say here or in Washington.

Now Minnesota faces a three billion dollar deficit. By some projections, maybe even a 5-7 billion dollar deficit. Our own Audrey Britton, running for house in 43A made a very interesting point in an e-mail last week; a point that that does not seem to be reported much in the media: the Governor is required by law to submit a balanced budget -and he has not done so.

I suppose we can all sympathize with his plight. If your only solution is to cut expenses and you are ideologically opposed to raising revenue you only have one option -borrow. It would not be surprising if this was Pawlenty's plan all along. After the Bush Administration spent like drunken sailors they found the perfect solution -put the bill off on someone else -our children and children yet unborn.

It will be interesting to see what Pawlenty does. He's backed himself into a corner; if he does put our children further into debt, he risks the voters finally understanding the insanity of his approach -and this could seriously hurt his chances to go to Washington. On the other hand, if he does not put the bills on our kids credit cards it's hard to see how he could deliver a balanced budget (assuming he intends to). Stay tuned.

 

 

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