commentaries

Government's (federal, state and local) inability to manage finances resides on all sides inability to adhere to the "Constitutions"principles of limited government. Government, at all levels cannot and should not be all things to all people. Until politicians can adhere to this principal, fiscal hocus pocus will continue.

The governor and legislature couldn't agree so "fixed" the current budget with borrowed money and one time revenue that will not continue into the future. There is plenty of blame to go around, but Lori is right to ding those that are touting fiscal responsibility.

Good to see that Lori is back to her DFL mouthpiece ways.

Republicans may overstate the turnaround, but both the state and our pocketbooks would be worse off if Dayton and his buddies had their wishes. We can not fix our problem of overspending by raising tax rates. The spending problems must be addressed directly, and Republicans at least acknowledge this. The Democrats seem to believe that raising tax rates guarantees more revenue, and this has been proven false. Raising tax rates will result in an even slower economy - likely resulting in less state revenue.

"The Democrats seem to believe that raising tax rates guarantees more revenue, and this has been proven false." Actually, raising tax rates doesn't raise as much revenue as a straight calculation might indicate. However, cutting tax rates for the wealthy doesn't raise more revenue at all—this trickle-down idea is what's been proven false.

chazzbo - JFK and Reagan both proposed tax cuts, and in both cases revenue increased. Certainly this is not a guaranteed result, but it does happen. The opposite has also been tried. I've heard people lament the fact that we no longer tax the rich at a rate of 70% or higher. Problem is, when this was done, the rich simply disappeared. Nearly nobody paid this high rate, they simply moved their money or their whole lives elsewhere.

We should start with a discussion of what do we want state government to do? Then we could put a price on it and tax everyone to pay their fair share and get about what we want state government to do. See how simple it is? Wonder what's getting in the way?

Another item that is not mentioned but needs to be is the situation with unfunded pension liabilities for state employees. This number is so large that they can't even get it into a dump truck. The politicians often tell us that we should not worry because it will be covered by future revenues. Well, they though that way 20 years ago too, and for those shortfalls, today is the future, and the unfunded liability has grown exponentially. Think about it fellow taxpayers.

"That's what allows Downey et al. to claim with almost straight faces that they've engineered a $1.2 billion surplus. School IOUs are now excluded from forecasted expenditures."---- Nice reporting Lori. Now, please dig in to why the unemployment rates have been doctored by NOT counting certain people, so your new headline for next week can state; "About that unemployment rate: It's really a mirage."

thecynic5712--I should add since you won't do your own research is that the biggest public pension liability is with the leglislators retirement fund. Go check it out. Certainly they won't address that because they don't want to stop the gravy train. Come up with a useful argument that elected officials do more work than those that actually provide some service for the state and I'll show up. But since there in no argument, SKOL.