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Health & Fitness

State GOP: No Compromise. No Surrender.

The budget battle in St. Paul tells you a lot about the voters who put the political players in office.

No one is more surprised that Mark Dayton is a great governor than I am. I had no idea what to expect after the way his U.S. Senate career ended. It was weird and unpredictable.

That is what makes his steadfastness in the budget standoff with the GOP legislature all the more impressive. The GOP wants to close the state’s budget deficit using spending cuts only.  No compromises. Never mind that the budget shortfall is in large part caused by falling tax revenue due to the Great Recession. Governor Dayton insists the fix must be a mix of spending cuts and tax increases.

The Michele Bachmann clones in St. Paul have really got to get a hold of themselves. Do they honestly believe they don’t have to compromise with the governor? Maybe if they’d nominated someone halfway acceptable to independent voters they wouldn’t find themselves in this pickle. But, alas, to their great regret, they nominated Tom Emmer.  

When speaking of political compromise, President Obama recently said, “Have any of you ever been married? Do you always get everything your way? I mean, come on.” The legislature is married to Governor Dayton, heart and soul, whether they like it or not.  Their budget has to cross his desk to become law. If they think they can stomp their feet and force him to accept a budget that is 100% spending cuts and 0% compromise, it looks like they are sadly mistaken.

And that’s not to mention the fact that they can’t even get their budget numbers right. The Minnesota Management and Budget agency has said the numbers in their legislation don't add up. This is the agency in charge of estimating and crunching the numbers in budget legislation. It has long been standard practice for both parties to use the agency’s estimates.  Governor Dayton even appointed Tim Pawlenty’s own budget director, Jim Schowalter, as the commissioner of the Minnesota Management and Budget agency. And it still isn’t good enough. The Republican legislature doesn’t like the estimates this time and thinks they can completely disregard the Management and Budget agency along with its Republican commissioner.

But, this is pretty much what you can expect from republicans, and that’s not just my opinion, that’s the opinion of republicans—at least according to the Pew Poll data on this subject. In a nationwide poll, only 17% of self-identified “staunch conservatives” want elected officials to “compromise with those they disagree with” while the majority of conservatives, 79%, “prefer elected officials who stick to their positions.” So, I guess if all the legislature cares about is catering to their base voter instead of actually doing the hard work of governing, they should keep going full steam ahead.

Conversely, the other interesting nugget from the Pew Poll, 70% of self-identified “solid liberals” want elected officials who “compromise with those they disagree with.”  

Bullet, meet foot.  

It is a good thing Governor Dayton is uncompromising in his effort to force a compromise.

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