Category: Kurt Zellers

by Dave Mindeman

The legislative session has ended. Not exactly with the results we would want or expect. In fact, our Governor and his cabinet are preparing for a shutdown of government on July 1st.

What are the Republican legislative leaders doing?

Why, they are flying around the state.

Is this a "victory" lap? Usually, those fly arounds are reserved for touting accomplishments. I'm not sure what this one was for. Certainly they are not counting putting that marriage discrimination amendment on some kind of major accomplishment list....are they?

Instead of fixing the budget, they are explaining the rigid stances they have taken. They say they took those stances for us...for Minnesota. But I don't see anybody giving them high fives.

I think we need a little less explaining and a little more searches for answers. This is not some ideological game. It affects Minnesota. It will put 20,000 to 30,000 state employees out of work. It will close state parks. It will put Metro transit in shutdown mode (although in the last shutdown, they were allowed to run without funding for awhile), and it will take longer to get to the state service you need.

But more importantly, it will cost the state more money. The last shutdown was for 8 days and it cost the State, $2.7 million. Add the cost of a special session at $40,000 per day and you have an expensive venture into our foray of "living within our means".

Yes, if our Republican leaders are worried about money, they have an odd way of showing it. Instead of flying around the state, maybe they should be toning the rhetoric down and start to actually fix this problem by talking to the Governor that has to sign their bills.

No sir, this session was not much to brag about.....Oh, I forgot, they put the marriage discrimination amendment on the ballot. Maybe that was worth the fly around.

Category: Kurt Zellers

by Dave Mindeman

Question: What's the difference between a special session and overtime?

Since I don't have a punch line for that, you better ask Kurt Zellers because he seems to be the only one that knows of a distinction.

As a sports metaphor, it would seem to indicate that the first one to score wins. Sudden death, any score will do. Except when it comes to budgets, the Governor and the Legislature have to end this thing at the same time. With an agreement. Crossing the goal together.

Overtime?

Nah. This smells more like government shutdown.

What is so foolish about all this is that it could be fixed so simply. The governor has compromised to the point that only $1.8 billion is left to account for. And since cuts have been draconian enough, I believe everyone, except the Legislative GOP freshman, are ready to end this thing with some kind of revenue increase.

And when I say everyone, I mean the Democrats, the Governor, the majority of newspapers in the state, 63% of the electorate, and dare I say it, the House and Senate leadership are getting pretty darn close it.

No, all that's left is those penny wearing characters who think government cannot operate unless it is done the way they say it should. Government by dictate. Government by Tea Party. Government by rigidity.

"Overtime" might be acceptable if the two sides were close. But this is a philosophical and ideological difference and that is often set in stone. We will not get anywhere, not now, not in June, not in July, not ever, unless there is some kind of compromise coming from the penny ante crowd.

They may have the Tea Party egging them on, but how will that play with the majority of Minnesotans?

I'm thinking not too well.

Category: Kurt Zellers

by Dave Mindeman

It is hard to negotiate with rigidness but it is also hard to deal with people who have a cavalier attitude toward the facts.

Speaker Kurt Zellers was on MPR this morning and was confronted directly about his assertion .."it's also troubling when families have had a 30- or 40percent pay cut and you see a college professor get a 20- or 30-percent increase in pay."

That was a Zellers quote from another MPR appearance.

The News Cut blog on the MPR site mentioned Zellers response to a direct question about the professor remark:

"Usually, we Republicans are the first to complain about headlines being misleading, but looking at the headline and looking at the bonuses (headline?) , the bonuses were for staffers; they weren't necessarily for professors. I guess Brian (the caller) can say I was a little close to misinformed and what I was talking about from a family's perspective was my neighbor. He has had his wages cut 40 percent," Zellers said.

Zellers doesn't apologize for the remark. He tells us that he "was close to misinformed".

Misinformed? Apparently it was MPR's fault that Zellers didn't bother to read the article and jumped to his own conclusion on the headline. Yet, Zellers used this "misinformation" to advance a policy idea.

The GOP continues to hold its ridiculous budget position which is based on suspect data and unproven assertions. And even the data they bring forward is misrepresented.

How do you negotiate with that? How? Can we trust anything they say?