Secrets of the City

Unallotments are fine when done out of necessity. This winter Pawlenty had to do some unallotments in order to balance the budget. The budget did not line up with what the legislature had projected and items had to be cut. That’s fine and responsible.

What he is doing now is not fine and responsible. He purposely didn’t balance the budget so he could use unallotments. The legislature sent him a balanced budget and he approved all the expenditures, aside from GAMC, but not the money that went with them. He did this so he could have his way. This is anti-democratic and immoral, but probably not unconstitutional.

In a lighter mood I could imagine HRH T-Paw the first as a swaggering wanna be Qaddafi minus the bizarre all female bodyguard squad or late stage Mobutu Sese Seko complete with bad hair and leopard skins. Awesomeness.

But seriously, the guy has never won anything more than a plurality of Minnesotans, so why would we expect him to represent the majority of Minnesotans?

So when is the hour of reckoning? I’d like to know just how much more I’ll hate that man by the end of the day.

That PIM article is interesting. I’d bet that the GOP is going to treat it as permanent. Then, when the inevitable attempt to restore funding to current levels occurs, let alone making up for “lost time”, they’ll start screaming about massive increases in spending.

I don’t know, KC, seems to be there’s a pretty good argument for his actions to be unconstitutional. It certainly violates the intent of the process, which was to allow a mid-budget shortfall to be expediently dealt with.

There’s no unexpected shortfall: the forecasts were given to everyone in time for them to incorporate them into their budgets. And as you said, the legislature sent him revenue bills that dealt with accounted for them.

One question: Are current taxes automatically carried over to the next budget period? Because if King P vetoed all of the revenue bills, under what authority are they still collecting revenue?

It sounds like he’s trying to get some folklore built up for his presidential run.

He will make the call at 2 p.m., Bixby. MPR is covering his news confrence live — I think Jason’s Station may as well.

mnblrmkr- my understanding is that we have tax code in law that lasts forever. The legislature tried to change that tax code and the tax code changes were vetoed. So current rules stand.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Let’s say he makes the unallotment and there is a lawsuit filed (which will happen.) There will be layoffs throughout State Government and programs will be cut. If the lawsuit rules that the unallotment is unconstitutional, so what? People will still be out of jobs and programs still will be cut. If they are undone, then we have unbalanced budget, which is also unconstitutional. And since the governor vetoed the budget bill, we can’t just enact it, because that would be unconstitutional too. It is a total clusterfuck.

And the Uptake will have it live too.

My friend Joe Loveland put this together, to the tune of “Camelot.”

“Don’t let it be forgot That once there was a spot,

 For one brief, shining moment

That was known as Unallot…

“Unallot! Unallot!

I know it gives a person pause,

But in Unallot, Unallot

“In short, there’s simply not

A more congenial spot

For happily-ever-aftering than here

in Unallot!”

Those are the legal laws.”

And the Uptake will have it live too.

That goes without saying — but I’m glad you did, kc.

kc, I assume that if the court rules that the King can’t use unallotment this way, and they are struck down, he would have to call a special session.

Either that, or he’d have to shut down the entire state government.

Today is a banner day for the limited-government movement — you can’t shrink any smaller than one person.

Whatever happens, this is a total mess. I get to sit here at 2:00 to find out, via the internet, if my co-workers and I will have jobs based on what one man thinks is right for the whole state. I’ll find out if my city is fucked, if my neighbors will lose services, and if my clinic will have to cut staff. That is way too much power for one person. One person who will not be held responsible by the voters for his actions.

Today is a banner day for the limited-government movement — you can’t shrink any smaller than one person.

Hopefully Pawlenty won’t take Grover Norquest’s famous quote too seriously, and drown himself in a bathtub….

Hopefully Pawlenty won’t take Grover Norquest’s famous quote too seriously, and drown himself in a bathtub….

That’s not what I’m thinking…

@kc!: Maybe we need a Twitter revolution here, too?

The legislature sent him a balanced budget…

they spent $34 billion when only $31 billion was available.  they had no intention of submitting a balanced budget.  the legislature is getting exactly what they hoped for today.

i don’t agree with all the cuts, either.  and some concessions should be made via tax increases.  but the legislature holds some accountablility here, too.

So, the legislature cut as much as it thought feasible, and it still was $3 billion above the projected revenue. They were completely unwilling to cut any more. Further, the negotiation stance of HRH Pawlenty was “no raising of taxes.” So, what exactly was the legislature supposed to do?

FOX will be livestreaming the event through what seems like a sort of annoying technology: http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/minnesota/WILD_JUNE_16_2009

I’ll let you know if anybody else is providing live online coverage of Unallotment Day.

It isn’t true that only $31 billion was available. They had a tax bill that increased the amount they had to $34 billion. They offered a balanced budget to Pawlenty.

He broke the law by accepting all the appropriations but not the increased revenue. HE is the one that didn’t balance the budget, putting himself into the position of unallotment. He had plenty of other options, such as line item veto or full bill vetos. He chose not to use them.

The semi-official Twitter hashtag for the 2 p.m. unallotment press conference is #mncuts

why isn’t kevin up in here telling everyone how/why they are wrong? is he, like, working?

The Uptake will be live-streaming T-Paw’s Unalottment announcement: http://www.theuptake.org/

Oh, he’s working all right…Here’s a tweet from a few minutes ago:

@kwatt @PoliticsMN I predict sky-is-falling rhetoric mixed with amnesia relating to their own failures. And prolly something about 2012.

One person who will not be held responsible by the voters for his actions.

We could egg his house.

Alternatively, we hold the remaining GOP politicians  responsible for the King’s actions.

How wise is it for kwatt to be using twitter? GOP operatives seem to have a nasty habit of using it to tweet racist bile.

If people are unhappy about the way the unallotments go down, they could certainly dedicate themselves to campaigning against him when he makes his bod for president.

but the legislature holds some accountablility here, too.

I vote for the more mature answer: TP his house. Yeah!

Yes, I said his bod.

Here it goes, via: http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23mncuts

The cuts are in via a press release. $200 million from LGA to cities and townships. #mncuts

100 million from LGA to counties. $67m from “reductions and other payments”. #mncuts

$236 million from human services, $100m from higher education, $33m from state agency operating budgets. #mncuts

$1.77 billion in education paymnt deferrals and adjustments. $169 million from “additional revenues through admin actions.” #mncuts

The list (PDF): http://minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2009/06/budgetcuts.pdf

Actually, I take that back as the smell of eggs might anger the neighbors.

eh, don’t know if that would bother me. Unlike Norm, I suspect most of the King’s neighbor’s actually voted for him.

Wait? Is this the Tiny Tim thread???

On the downside of egging Tiny Tim’s house — wait — no — King Tim’s house is that there are no funds to clean it up. Or is that an upside?

Okay, so could someone please summarize his most ridiculous cuts? I’m busy at work and don’t have time to read through stuff.

Upside, Douglas.

Although, it could backfire on us as King Tim would most likely turn it into a wonderful PR moment of “Look at me, everyday man that I am, cleaning up the TP mess that those liberal, hateful, wasteful, money-means-nothing-to-them, give-everyone-a-lift-up socialist evil-doers left behind.”

I just the wind out of my own sail. Damn, I hate it when I do that.

edit: I just took the wind out…

Sheesh.

C’mon deferrals and adjustments? That means we still foot the bill eventually. That is pure accounting gimmickry. Sheesh. At least the dictatorial class has the good sense to rob the citizenry to pay for their lavish lifestyle. All we get is penury with bad hair.

T-Paw has done it again! Cutting LGA and K12 leaves the financing of those gaps in the community’s hands. Delegating responsibility is what a good leader does.

lunch- if you are on GAMC, on MA or MinnesotaCare and need dental services, get a renter’s credit, give to the policitcal fund, need emergency help with your rent or utilities, or pay property taxes it isn’t just deferrals or adjustments.

And if your wife or I lose our jobs, that won’t be gimmickry either, will it?

And HEY, isn’t reducing the Renters’ Refund just RAISING TAXES.

OOOOHhhh, T-Paw raised taxes! I’m telling.

How wise is it for kwatt to be using twitter? GOP operatives seem to have a nasty habit of using it to tweet racist bile.

Because kevin isn’t that kind of person. He is a decent and smart person who has passed the “character test” here and elsewhere many times.

Kevs was busy watching the tweets roll in along the back wall of the room, which was packed. kwatt was to my right, Ron Carey was on my left.

Somebody explain all the Twitter cracks about buses to the zoo.

I just hope that at least *some* of the revenue local governments generate via increased taxes goes to finance a bowl of dicks for Pawlenty.

/*I* can’t believe I just went there.
//This is so messed up.
///Is this going to be another long, drawn out court battle for MN?

Somebody explain all the Twitter cracks about buses to the zoo.

I assume they’re referring to the new shuttle bus service that  Como just introduced this spring. It was a post here a couple of weeks ago.

I thought the Como shuttles were being paid for with Federal money.

How can anyone be surprised. ALL of them are running for a higher office than they hold. This whole session is political pandering. M. Anderson pushed her agenda and Timmy pushed his. In the end we once again ended up with nothing new. I am glad he cut spending and I do not think the sky is falling because he cut some programs that needed trimming. No one has yet proposed a reasonable alternative. Raising taxes is what the Democrats mantra is but no one ever states who will pay and on what good or service the tax increase would be paid on. It get old. The right thing to do was to cut spending and raise some taxes but both parties played out their hands and this is what we get. Now the cry-babies from the liberal side will come out and point out how harsh it is to cut poor so-and-so’s welfare. Timmy will beat his chest and tell his Rep. pals how tough he is. All we can do is hope for a third party to put someone up for Governor, one can only hope.

swandog,

If the right thing to do was both cut spending and raise taxes, well guess what: the DFL budget did exactly that.

if you were paying attention, you also would have noticed that the DFL proposal did provide the details on what taxes were going to be increased.

I guess I sorted out that they were talking about busses that went to the zoo. I just didn’t know (and still don’t know) what that has to do with anything.

again, I’m assuming that they consider it frivolous spending that can be cut to preserve more critical services.

Kwatt snarked about the bus when it was posted too.

They bitch about keeping parks clean and attractive and they bitch about ensuring a collapsed bridge is replaced with something halfway attractive.

I can only assume that they (those that bitch and snark about parks and cultural spending) will not be happy until our environment is reduced to something along the lines of the soul crushing Soviet era Russia, at least, for those who can’t afford or lack the connections to have a dacha.

“I can only assume that they (those that bitch and snark about parks and cultural spending) will not be happy until our environment is reduced to something along the lines of the soul crushing Soviet era Russia”

And this month’s Tony Award goes to…..

if you were paying attention, you also would have noticed that the DFL proposal did provide the details on what taxes were going to be increased.

You would have had to been playing really really close attention.

They didn’t even use the words “tax increases” until late March (session started on January 6) and that was only because we received a copy of their proposal and gave it to the press, forcing DFLers to finally say it.  

Then we sat around for another month waiting for the exact details.  IIRC, they came out on a Monday.  The following Saturday they passed after a DFLer switched his vote at the last minute.  That was later April.

Then two days before the fishing opener, I sat in Room 15 of the Capitol at 11:30 pm to get the details on their next tax increase.  A week later I was back in the same room at 10:30 pm – 90 minutes before the end of session – awaiting the details of their next tax increase.  It passed with 7:08 left in the session.   

So yes, we did know the details, but only because someone slid a copy of them under my door and because we stayed up late at night. 

Oh and thank you @justplainbob for defending me against a rather ridiculous personal attack. Bob has clearly seen and/or read Angels & Demons and knows that matter and anti-matter should not come into contact.

I’m sorry if you felt that was a personal attack.

Thanks.

“Kevs was busy watching the tweets roll in along the back wall of the room, which was packed.”

Are you trying to imply that he was masturbating? To the cuts?

Rybak takes T-Paw to task: http://themayorblog.com/2009/06/16/balanced-budgets-and-job-creation/

Supporting my theory that T Paw is hoping to create folklore of tough, prudent, against-all-odds governance for the 2012 election is the amount of twitter chatter that suggest a number of people already believe it.