By now, Arne Carlson is probably taking a victory lap for undercutting the Republican Party. Earlier today, Carlson, Dave Durenberger and Vice President Mondale proposed a panel consisting of 5 people.Here are the people they want serving on the commission:
Carlson, a Republican, and Mondale, a Democrat, told reporters they won't serve on the panel and their involvement was limited to assembling it. It will be co-chaired by two former state lawmakers, Republican Stephen Dille and Democrat Wayne Simoneau.
The commission also will include Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton's budget commissioner, Jim Schowalter, who was assistant commissioner under Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Other members include experts chosen for their bipartisan records, including former finance commissioners John Gunyou and Jay Kiedrowski.
Based on the commission's composition, I could write the report this afternoon. There's little doubt that they won't recommend reforms. There's no doubt thatcommend a major tax increase of some sort. There's little doubt but that they'll ignore whether any of the things we're currently spending money on are worth spending money on.
As big-government-loving liberals, once something is funded, it's forever deemed as worthy of funding. Questioning the wisdom of funding a program or agency or whatever is unthinkable to liberals.
In that respect, the motions that this group will go through will be more about appearances than it's about thinking things through, having brainstorming sessions and challenging each other to think outside the box. With Gov. Dayton's chief political operative in charge of pseudo-economics being on the panel, there isn't a chance that he'll let the discussion get beyond what Sen. Bakk and Rep. Thissen will permit.
In the morning of Shutdown Thursday, Gov. Dayton sent an offer to the Republicans that didn't include his request for raising taxes. It included a shift in school aid from a 70:30 split to a 50:50 split. It included a $50 per pupil increase from the previous offer. It would've restored funding of the Department of Human Rights Trade Office. It didn't include a tax increase.
When Republicans returned 45 minutes later with a counterproposal that only changed the school aid shift from a 50:50 split to a 60:40 split, Gov. Dayton told them that he'd withdrawn his no new taxes offer. The only thing that'd changed from their initial trip to Gov. Dayton's office other than Gov. Dayton's reneging on his offer was that Sen. Bakk and Rep. Thissen had entered the picture.
It isn't a stretch to think that they told him the couldn't support the no new taxes bill. Gov. Dayton clearly had an abrupt, dramatic change of heart.
What's sad, other than the fact that Sen. Bakk and Rep. Thissen persuaded Gov. Dayton to sabotage the real progress made Thursday morning, is that Sen. Bakk and Rep. Thissen don't care about Gov. Dayton. Let's remember that they were campaigning for Speaker Kelliher a year ago at this time. Does anyone think that they've got Gov. Dayton's best interests at heart? Isn't it more likely that they've got the DFL's special interest allies' best interests at heart?
Besides the fact that Gov. Dayton's chief economic political operative is part of the panel, this panel shouldn't be taken seriously because Arne Carlson isn't a Republican. Last night, I spoke with Rep. Mike Beard about some transportation issues.
After we finished talking about those issues, we talked about the panel. I told him that I thought the report was a joke. After that, Mike said the panel's creation had triggered a campaign memory from 2008. Mike said that he'd gotten a call from a pollster asking him questions about whether knowing this or that tidbit of information would make it more likely or less likely to vote for Al Franken.
When the pollster finished with that line of questioning, the pollster asked about Mike's opinion "of Democrat Arne Carlson" as a senatorial candidate. Mike quickly pointed out that he wasn't saying this push poll was authorized by Arne Carlson. He was just highlighting the fact that the push polling company didn't refer to Carlson as a Republican.
While mainstream Republicans haven't thought of Gov. Carlson as a Republican in years, the Twin Cities media have trotted Gov. Carlson out whenever they need someone to malign real Republicans. The reality is that Gov. Carlson hasn't endorsed a Republican candidate for governor since he retired.
This is a publicity stunt by Gov. Carlson, likely because his ego frequently needs the attention. This isn't about doing the public a great service. This says everything we need to know about the seriousness of this panel:
Carlson told reporters he hopes the panel will finish the proposal and present it by Friday because of the urgency of resolving the budget stalemate.
How useful can this panel be if they're publishing their report within 72 hours? These people were introduced as experts. How much expertise will find its way into the final report? In fact, this panel is being touted as a welcome assist to jumpstart a failed process. They aren't. They'll be lucky if they have time to skim a tiny portion of one agency's budget in the next 72 hours.
It'd be a mistake to take this panel seriously. There's no need to rip this panel. It's sufficient to just question the panel's impact.
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