Time to Get a Spine & Get Tough
February 18th, 2010 at 9:53 am By John Van Hecke
I think that AFSCME Council 5 Executive Director Eliot Seide is on to something.
Standing before a Labor rally on the Minnesota State Capitol steps, shaking a model human backbone, Seide demanded that state legislators “get a spine.” He cast his challenge in partisan terms but the challenge extends, I think, to all state public policy leaders and not one particular party.
Governor Tim Pawlenty has, in policy terms, had his way. Legislators have almost entirely yielded to Pawlenty’s direction. No amount of insistence changes that observation. The conservative legislative minority has supported Pawlenty, preventing a veto override, clearly leaving the majority frustrated. However, after repeated budget cuts, particularly reinforced by Pawlenty’s “unallotment” initiative and his proposed $1.2 billion budget deficit spending plan, I’ve reached a near-sputtering frustration.
In the film, “Apocalypse Now,” loosely drawn from Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” the Kurtz character asks his executioner, Willard, “Are my methods unsound?” Willard replies, “I don’t see any method at all, sir.”
Minnesota cannot cut its way out of the budget deficit anymore than it can cut its way to prosperity. It’s time to raise state revenue. Enough forcing property tax increases on cities; let’s start with a $1.2 billion new revenue target. Communities, counties and school districts have repeatedly raised their property taxes and cut program outlays, adjusting for repeated unilateral state revenue sharing cuts. State leaders need to do the same.
We shouldn’t be surprised at Seide’s frustration; he speaks a shared sentiment.
Tags: AFSCME, Budget, Governor Pawlenty, Minnesota Legislature
Video clips from the rally: http://bit.ly/aXl4Jh
Yes, I agree that the MN House & MN Senate should get a spine. With a spine, the DFL controlled House & DFL controlled Senate would have addressed the $1.2 Billion budget shortfall BEFORE passing any Bonding Bill. Fortunately, Gov. Pawlenty has a spine and will veto the Bonding Bill until the budget shortfall is addressed!
I can’t understand how, with majorities at both the state and national levels, the Democrats are sitting on their hands.
WE didn’t elect Republicans. We voted for the Democrats expecting them to follow the basic DFL values of managing a once-well-off state and knotting a safety net for almost everybody. No spine? Too much money? Fear, of what, if so?
I think both Congress and our own legislature suffer from such little respect because they don’t act in the interests of the people who elected them. I think if they’d ACT, they would be more popular and have more votes on their side.
Not all Republicans have been infected with the anti-tax/anti-government/anti-poor people disease, but those in the Minnesota House and Senate (and the national Congress) have bought into the warped belief system they share with Pawlenty.
Somehow, those that have escaped this infestation must Get Spines and vote to override each and every Pawlenty veto. The Dems have a majority, but not enough to override without their help.
If you are shocked and dismayed by the Pawlenty cuts and are represented by a Republican in the state legislature, please let him or her know exactly how you feel. AND tell him or her you will work hard against their re-election in November.
There is a third way out of these huge budget problems – put Minnesotans(and all US workers)BACK TO WORK! That can be done by requiring employers to simply “Use or Return” employee inventions! What?
Continued from my earlier truncated message:
Large employers commonly claim blanket ownership of employee inventions (as a condition of employment), but with no oblgation to actually USE (or return) these claimed inventions. This missing obligation gives the employer awesome power to control (read SUPPRESS) employee creativity by claiming and then “sitting on” UNWANTED employee inventions indefinitely(without cost or effort). This widespread practice “keeps the brakes set” on our economy! It’s like expecting good performance and efficienty from your car without releasing the parking brake.
We have introduced a NO-COST “Creative Freedom Act” into the Minnesota legislature in one form or another over the past 20 years (currently, SF 687 – HF 907). This initiative would require employers to simply “Use or Return” employee-submitted inventions. But it has always been “shot down” early by lobbyists led by the powerful Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, the High Tech Assn. and other violators of creative freedom for their employees.
To illustrate how important this issue is, over 20 major American firms rejected the basic Xerox copier invention, but fortunately none of their employees invented it or most likely the employer would have quietly ABORTED that precious invention (by simply filing it away and forgetting it)! (These employers don’t want their employees working on unassigned inventions and this is a good way to control these “loose cannons”).
Fortunately again, this unselfish employer RELEASED this unwanted invention back to his creative employee as “worthless”! Once freed from the normal corporate “strangulation”, this “worthless” invention spawned a huge $50 BILLION entirely new xerographic industry creating 500,000 (yes, 1/2 million) new jobs! (Wall Street Journal May 23, 1989)
Conversely, my former employer has refused to use or return one of my inventions for over a decade now, which I estimate has cost Americans as much as $250 MILLION in unnecessary medical costs — so far!
I urge all Minnesota citizens to pressure their legislators to CHAMPION this Creative Freedom Act into law! It promises to be worth BILLIONS of dollars in new products, business, jobs and huge amounts of STATE TAX REVENUE – all without raising taxes on anyone!
To Robert:
I admire your creative ability to invent. However, if I might ask, why would you ever share your ideas with a current employer without being legally represented? I sold an idea to a past employer who compensated me for that idea while I continued to work there. Do not EVER trust an employer with your ideas or inventions unless you are protected!
Many Democrats these days are too afraid to offend somebody. Some Democratic leaders 3 or 4 years ago advised DEmocrats to get a spine. Nothing has changed despite a majority. I for one believe in the basic Democratic principle of looking out for your neighbor. And, I don’t mind paying a couple of hundred extra dollars in taxes to make sure that happens. Too many people these days don’t look any further than beyond their property lines and their own small little worlds.
You don’t need to use the government to redistribute your wealth to your neighbors, Rick. I think you’d do a much better job of it if you did it yourself.
The legislature seems to be dominated by Democrats who are obligated to special interest groups and would rather let Minnesota sink like California than make any spending cuts and risk upsetting those special interest groups. This session does not look like it will be any different than the last. Here is the likely sequence of events.
The Governor will present his budget.
The DFL will do nothing but berate the Governor.
At the last minute they will pass a tax increase.
The Governor will veto the bill.
His veto will be upheld.
He will balance the budget.
Once again the DFL will breathe easy knowing that they did not have to make any tough decisions.
There may be hope. Yesterday after the knee jerk veto of the carefully crafted yet minmalist bipartisan rewrite of GAMC legislation, sensible republicans may be realizing their vulnerability. Listening to Cal Ludeman, Pawlenty’s Commissioner of the Department of Human Services, support the veto that blows up a sensible and cost effective program central to the function of the department he leads and implore the state’s poor to be “ingenius” in finding solutions that don’t exist to their health care, the disconnect of our Governor from the State he serves has never been more stark. Add to that the nearly billion dollars of federal money Wisconsin will get to develop high speed regional rail becasue their executive leadership provided a context in which legislators could support planning and funding and you have the real results of Pawlenty’s disinterest in the future of his state or the well being of Minnesota’s citizens. If the DFL will stop trying to make nice and put on the gloves to inform Minnesota of the consequences of Pawlenty’s extreme ideological shift that does not allow his participation in any legislative discussions the public will withdraw support for him. This should allow clear thinking repubicans (even Seifert voted for the new version of GAMC) to follow their conscience and not the threats of an ineffectual governor. Legislators can start with demanding that Commissioner Ludeman apologize for his insensitive and unworkable comments about the necessity for “exercising ingenuity” by our State’s poorest and least able residents to procure health care. Is this the Pawlenty solution to our health insurance problems?
Why not have Cal Ludeman go out where the people are and use HIS ingenuity to figure out how they might find ways to get health care? Or a job? I think we should REQUIRE any elected and appointed official who must decide on these issues or implement them to go out and spend a week with a family on welfare; spend time with the homeless; spend a week in our public schools–don’t go to Edina, though, go to some of our inner city schools–and teach a class for a week. Go to a state unemployment office and talk to people trying to find jobs. Or visit someone whose home is about to be foreclosed and talk to them and their neighbors.
I’m sure it would be eye-opening. But they would need to spend enough time in each place to really understand the issues–it can’t just be a drop-in at the local school for a couple of hours. It should be required after they are elected or appointed but before they are sworn in.