Republican chairman on leadership request: "illegal"

In another very surprising development, Rep. Bob Gunther told The Free Press in a story published Saturday that he was kind of forced by Republican leadership to submit his budget, which took $60 million from an Iron Range taconite fund that was collected instead of property taxes.

Gunther said the move was probably "illegal." This was raising Republican eyesbrows and ire, no doubt.

 Excerpt from our story:

As head of the Jobs and Economic Development Committee, the Fairmont Republican put together the budget bill that slashed several jobs and housing programs by 30 percent and took $60 million from an Iron Range fund, moving it to state coffers.

“Very upset,” Gunther said of the reaction by Iron Range lawmakers. “And they should be, and it’s probably going to be deemed illegal. What we did to them, I think it’s an illegal thing. It’s their property taxes.”

Read the full story.

Dayton lays out ground rules for negotiation.

Gov. Mark Dayton sent a letter to Republican House Speaker Kurt Zellers that laid out terms for negotiating a final budget deal that called for both to, above all, use the same objective numbers from the management and budget office.

In recent budget bills, Republicans have gone to  using private consultants who work for a fee, and rejected the management and budget numbers on fiscal notes for bill put together by them, a standard practice.

In the letter, of which I received a copy of Monday, Dayton says even Pawlenty used the nonpartisan, objective management and budget office. In fact, Mr. Showalter, who heads the office, worked for Pawlenty as well.

He said he doesn't even look at the analysis his assistants do. They put together their numbers with the aid of the agencies, those who should know the ins and outs.

Of course, the critics are saying Republicans can't balance the budget without revenue, and therefore are going elsewhere to "make up the numbers."

I can't say that's true because I haven't analyzed the numbers, but it seems if previous Democrat and Republican administrations have used management and budget office crew, there is no need to change up the facts now.