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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/02...c1_lnk2%7C75075- ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Minnesota lawmakers headed home for a long holiday weekend, bracing for likely public anger as some of them meet constituents for the first time since a failure to reach a budget agreement forced a government shutdown.
The reception they get starting Saturday, and during 4th of July parades around the state, could go a long way toward determining how long the shutdown lasts. Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and GOP leaders had no plans for new talks before Tuesday, five full days after the shutdown started.
Minnesota's second shutdown in six years was striking much deeper than a partial 2005 shutdown. It took state parks and rest stops off line, closed horse tracks and made it impossible to get a fishing license. But it also was hitting the state's most vulnerable, ending reading services for the blind, silencing a help line for the elderly and stopping child care subsidies for the poor.
The shutdown was rippling into the lives of people like Sonya Mills, a 39-year-old mother of eight facing the loss of about $3,600 a month in state child care subsidies. Until the government closure, Mills had been focused on recovering from a May 22 tornado that displaced her from a rented home in Minneapolis. Now she's adding a new problem to her list.
"It just starts to have a snowball effect. It's like you are still in the wind of the tornado," said Mills, who works at a temp agency and was allowed to take time off as she gets back on her feet – but after the shutdown also has to care for her six youngest children, ages 3 through 14, because she lost state funding for their daycare and other programs.
Minnesota is the only state to have its government shut down this year, even though nearly all states have severe budget problems and some have divided governments. Dayton was determined to raise taxes on the top earners to help erase a $5 billion deficit, while the Republican Legislature refused to go along with that – or any new spending above the amount the state is projected to collect.
Here, as in 21 other states, there's no way to keep government operating past the end of a budget period without legislative action. Even so, only four other states – Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Tennessee – have had shutdowns in the past decade, some lasting mere hours
much more
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Who will I break next? 15000+ posts
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November 6th, 2012: Americas new Independence Day.
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That's precisely my point in posting it. It's a one-sided liberal-propaganda spin of the Minnesotsa shutdown. It gives like six words of quoted Republican counterpoint opinion, soundbyted to the point it makes no logical argument. Against about 3,000 words of liberal spin. If AOL wanted to prove their liberal bias, they could not have done a better job than to link all its news from the radical-left HuffingtonPost.
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In other words, nut jobs on either side are the same.
November 6th, 2012: Americas new Independence Day.
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The shutdown was rippling into the lives of people like Sonya Mills, a 39-year-old mother of eight facing the loss of about $3,600 a month in state child care subsidies. Until the government closure, Mills had been focused on recovering from a May 22 tornado that displaced her from a rented home in Minneapolis. Now she's adding a new problem to her list.
"It just starts to have a snowball effect. It's like you are still in the wind of the tornado," said Mills, who works at a temp agency and was allowed to take time off as she gets back on her feet – but after the shutdown also has to care for her six youngest children, ages 3 through 14, because she lost state funding for their daycare and other programs. Translated: The shutdown was rippling into the lives of people like Sonya Mills, a 300-pound parasitic welfare queen 39-year-old mother of eight facing the loss of about $3,600 a month in state child care subsidies. Until the government closure, Mills had been focused on recovering from a May 22 tornado that displaced her from a state-funded rented home in Minneapolis. Now she's adding a new problem to her list.
"It just starts to have a snowball effect. It's like you are still in the wind of the tornado," said Mills, who works at a temp agency and was allowed to take time off as she gets back on her feet – but after the shutdown also has to care for her six youngest children, ages 3 through 14, because she lost state funding for their daycare and other programs.
No liberals supporting further unsustainable entitlements and opposing the shutdown ever questioned why this lady had 8 children with no financial ability to support them. In a fiscally responsible society expunged of liberal irresponsibility, her children would be taken from her and put in foster homes where they would be raised with responsible values, and not grow up to be another generation of state-fed bottom-feeders.
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The Swizzler.... 6000+ posts
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The Swizzler.... 6000+ posts
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HAHAHA @ previous comment! Is Minnesota still shut down?
I just wish Congress would not raise the debt ceiling but would find a way to reduce spending and pay off the trillion dollar debt that has been aquired during the Obama presidency.
I mean what would happen if every American were allowed to constantly raise their limit so they could spend more? We sure couldn't keep spending that's for sure!
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if every American were allowed to constantly raise their limit so they could spend more? We sure couldn't keep spending that's for sure! I agree. I've often thought that what our federal government is doing is the equivalent of a person having an interest-only home loan, who is borrowing money just to make the monthly payments, *AND* withdrawing an additional $1,000 a month in cash advances every month. That is unsustainable. And likewise, so is our national situation. Even what the Republicans are offering is just to reduce (not eliminate) the annual deficit. Which, using the same metaphorical home loan example, is like continuing to borrow to pay the interest-only loan, and reduce the monthly cash advances to $300 a month. Which is still unsustainable. Whereas the Democrats want to do the equivalent of borrowing to pay the interest-only loan, while raising our cash advances to $1,600 a month. We need a president, senate and congress who say we only spend what we have revenue for. And bring our deficit to zero. Not in 3 or 5 or 10 years, but this year. And beyond that, begin paying down our debt. The interest alone on the current debt exceeds 400 billion a year.
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Here's a report from PBS News Hour from Tuesday, that gives some perspective on both sides. It's hard to find a news report outside of FOX News that doesn't blatantly demonize the Republican side.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/minnesota-shutdown-drags-on/2011/07/05/gIQApzjtzH_story.html  I wish the "astro-turf" protests of the teacher unions and SEIU would have the decency to wear their union t-shirts. At least they still all wore matching-slogan shirts, so the puppet-strings of the group who bussed them in to project fake outrage are still visible.
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Minnesota shutdown seen to be lengthy, costly saga-
By David Bailey
Reuters
July 8 2011
MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota entered its second week of a government shutdown on Friday with no new top level budget talks scheduled among political leaders, and some experts said the impasse could last a month or more.
With a Democratic governor and Republican-controlled legislature, party polarization in Minnesota has virtually made compromise a four-letter word. In the meantime, the shutdown -- which has furloughed thousands of state workers and closed down revenue-generating operations like the lottery -- is seen taking a toll on the state's economy.
The impasse between Governor Mark Dayton and the Republican legislative leaders echoes similar differences in Washington and in other states and has dragged Minnesota into the national spotlight.
Still, Minnesota is the only state where the government has shut down. Large parts of the government were shuttered when the new fiscal year started July 1 without a budget deal to address a $5 billion deficit.
"I think it is going to go about a month because I don't see at this point any political forces that are driving them to the bargaining table to compromise," said David Schultz, a Hamline University professor and expert on Minnesota politics.
After meeting daily up to the end of the last fiscal year, the governor, House Speaker Kurt Zellers and Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch did not meet over the Fourth of July holiday weekend and had two short meetings this week.
The government shutdown is much broader in scope than a nine-day partial closing Minnesota endured in 2005 when Tim Pawlenty, now a Republican presidential candidate, was governor.
The impasse may have been all but ensured by the election last November of a Democratic governor and majorities in control of the state Senate and House majorities who believe they were mandated to close the budget gap with new spending or cuts alone respectively.
But Minnesota often has had divided executive and legislative branches that forged compromises, and the roots of the impasse run much deeper and defy easy solutions.
INTRACTABLE POSITIONS
"What we are seeing this year is not just sort of a small bump in the road, it is part of something broader that is going on in Minnesota," Schultz said. "It is about the fact that for either side, compromise becomes tantamount to capitulation."
Lawrence Jacobs, a University of Minnesota professor and political scientist, said conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans have been worn away by party polarization that has accelerated the last few years. Past Republican leaders would have negotiated a compromise that raised revenue a little and cut spending more, but not now, he said.
"If Amy Koch brings in a compromise that raises revenue, she is going to have a revolt in her caucus," Jacobs said.
The differences in positions remain stark. Dayton this week proposed increases in income taxes or cigarette taxes along with healthcare surcharges and delayed school aid payments to close a roughly $1.4 billion gap between his budget proposal and the $34.2 billion plan Republicans have proposed.
Republican leaders have said that a tax increase of any kind was off the table. Both sides also have acknowledged they have education and health policy differences to negotiate.
The impasse drove former Democratic Vice President Walter Mondale and former Republican Governor Arne Carlson to form a bipartisan panel to map a third budget plan to try to end the shutdown.
The panel proposed a budget much closer to the governor's spending plan than to Republicans' that included a broad income tax increase and increased cigarette and alcohol taxes. It gained no support from Republicans.
Measuring the economic drag from the shutdown can be hard, but Schultz estimated the furlough of 23,000 of some 36,000 state workers and the impact on private vendors would raise the state's unemployment rate by a full percentage point.
All but critical state services such as prison staffing, police patrols and spending on nursing and veterans homes have been cut back during the shutdown.
Dozens of road construction projects have been halted, state parks closed at night, and the state has suspended its lottery, fee collections for high occupancy vehicle lanes and the tax auditing functions among other services.
"It is going to be a drag on the economy and getting worse as it goes on," Schultz said. "As the economy still is not great, it certainly doesn't help the state of Minnesota."
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I didn't read any of those.
November 6th, 2012: Americas new Independence Day.
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