Last week, Republican legislators thought they were pretty cute, adopting mean girl tactics when it came to solving the state's budget problems. The Strib reported:
The Legislature took a testy turn on Thursday as Republican legislators packaged up DFL Gov. Mark Dayton's yet-to-be-finalized tax increase proposal and then resoundingly rejected it.
Dayton dismissed the move as "juvenile political theater" and, at a brief news conference outside his office, sternly criticized Republicans who control the Legislature for ripping his budget without offering an outline of their own. "That's the hard part," Dayton said. "That's the part they are avoiding. That's the part they don't want to face up to. I feel like back when I was teaching ninth-graders. Recess is over, time to stop playing games."
Yesterday, the New Ulm Journal's editorial board gave the episode a thumbs down:
THUMBS DOWN: With a huge state budget deficit, now $5 billion, staring them in the face, one would hope Minnesota legislators would be hard at work developing a plan to close that gap. Instead they are still playing political games.
Republicans in the House and Senate brought Gov. Mark Dayton's income tax proposal to floor votes this week, tacking them on as amendments to other legislation. The Republicans have no intention of voting for this plan, but apparently wanted to see how many DFLers they could sucker into voting for the tax hikes, which would make some nice political ammunition.
Gov. Dayton quickly sent a letter to the DFL caucus, urging them to also vote against the amendments, calling this "juvenile political theater." So they did, all except one state senator.
Legislators should quit monkeying around and get to work.
image: Still from "Rejected."
The New Ulm Journal isn't exactly a hotbed of Internationale singers, either. Wonder if we'll soon see Minnesotans exhibiting the same buyer's remorse over their new GOP legislature that Wisconsinites are showing with theirs?
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | Mar 06, 2011 at 02:26 PM