A few thoughts on events that have transpired in the last 24 hours on breakdown of budget negotiations.
When all is said and done, Republicans and Dayton are not that far apart on the numbers. We should be able to work this out. However, it was very surprising and troubling to me that Republicans would try to negotiate social issues back into the budget debate after Dayton had vetoed many of these proposals.
Here's the confidential Republican proposal to detailed social issues.
That just doesn't seem like a reasonable strategy.
Dayton is showing himself to be formidable governor in terms of using the bully pulpit to "frame" the issues.
His use of the phrases that Republicans are "against helping disabled people with personal care attendants" and yet not making millionaires "pay one more dollar," will resonate with a lot of people who are not millionaires - the "one dollar more" phrase in particular.
Of course, the millionaires would pay way more than "one dollar more" but Dayton framed it in a way that will make people really think about this.
He also took out the heavy artillary when he quoted one Republican legislator who said of the millionaires "some of these people are our friends."
Whether you believe it or not, it makes it sound like they're really concerned about their millionaire friends pocketbooks and not their willingness to create jobs.
And it sounds like Republicans are really holding onto their millionaire friends not because they provide jobs (as they continually state), but just because they dont' think they should be taxed at a higher rate (a position that would play out far worse than the job issue framing).
Republicans are doing all they can to blame the shutdown on Dayton. They were in House chamber ready to vote, which played OK, but most media put quotes from opposition higher in stories where opposition called it a grandstanding.
Note to Republicans. If you want to have journalists give you the benefit of a doubt every once in a while, you might not want to continually question their integrity, at least not in public. (CC to Sarah Palin).
On the Republican proposals to add $1 billion in revenue: Most people would not consider borrowing from schools and future tobacco funds as a "conservative" idea.
Finally on tax the rich: Dayton would do better here if he said "tax the rich the same as the middle class."
If you ask most people if the rich should pay 1) the same rate of tax as the middle class, 2) a higher rate, or 3) a lower rate, the vast majority will say the same or higher.
The Minnesota tax incidence study that both sides have used for their own purposes, shows the rich pay a LOWER RATE than the middle class considering all taxes.
As I've said before, this battle is for the moderate Republicans to win. I've talked to several who would go for more revenue in sales tax, income tax and in a variety of places, but they feel beholden to a party that will impart its wisdom with a stick and not a carrot.
If moderate (and many outstate) Republicans can pull it off, I think they'll be able to maintain control of both houses. If not, it could be all Democrats in 2012 and they will essentially turn back everything Republicans have done, which, incidentally, also wouldn't be good for the state.
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the other thing I can't figure out is the concept of 'more revenue'. why do people think the only way for government to get 'more revenue' is by increasing taxes on a certain minority of the populace? And what proof is there that the amount of revenue the tax increase is supposed to generate actually materializes? Jimmy Carter had a top marginal income tax rate of 70% yet the IRS barely collected any revenue at that rate. Could it be that people change their behavior based on tax burdens? If the answer is 'no, people don't change their behavior' then we should be able raise the $5B revenue on cigarettes and ber by enacting a $50 fee on every pack of smokes and every 6er or 12er sold in Minnesota since no one would change the behavior, we can't expect them to buy smokes and beer at $60 a pack in the same fashion they buy at $5 a pack. And if we sell 100M packs of smokes and packs of beer in 2012, well, there's your $5B. But does anyone really believe we will collect $5B if we raise the fee on a pack of cigarettes and a 12er of beer to $50 on each?
ReplyDeleteWhat is so wrong with pursusing pro-growth policies that increase employment by 200K which does two things - reduce the number of people dependent on government for their livelihood, and provide the state with a more stable source of 'increase revenue' by the virtue of more taxpayers. I can't for the life of me figure out what this is such bad public policy. Perhaps the enlightened at the Free Press can explain.
But, we don't want to pursue pro-growth policies. To be sure, Mark Dayton has spent his entire adult life in government. He has no idea what pro-growth policies are. Since his first run for the US Senate in 1982, he has espoused using the tax code as a tool of retribution against a minority of the population (i.e. the rich) pitting a majority of people against a minority of people which is nothing more than mob rule - the non-rich outnumber the rich, so let's use government to take from the rich to give to the non-rich.
And that is the mark of a warped and sickening philsophy which Frederic Bastiat called 'legal plunder'. I would go to jail if I stole money someone, but if I hire my government to steal it for me, I am virtuous. My God, what have we come to in this state and this country when legal theft is public policy?