Politics as Usual

Just back from St. Paul where I attended the 09 Session Priorities briefing and dinner hosted by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. Nearly 1500 business people and legislators attended the briefings and dinner programs.

A small contingency of folks from Marshall were there. Our group was joined for dinner by House Minority Leader Marty Seifert and Senate President Pro-Temp Dennis Frederickson and his wife Marge. Our region really enjoys some very influential state legislators. Need to make certain that we don't take that for granted.

We listened to issues outlined by the State Chamber, heard the Governor's assessment and priorities for the upcoming session, and we watched the Legislative Leadership discuss the session in a panel format.

Here are a few of the highlights and impressions I took away from the event:

*Most in the banquet hall were astounded when Senate Majority Leader Pogemiller essentially called Marty Seifert a liar. Yikes! "I don't know if that's true or not or if it even happened," the Senator reponded to a recent experience that Marty had just shared with the audience. One could almost feel the air leave the room as the audience made a collective gasp.
*Governor Pawlenty wants to target 490+ Public and Charter School Districts across Minnesota to "encourage" them to consolidate some of their back office operations. Collective purchases, duplication of services, etc.
*The $4.8 billion projected budget deficit represents about 17% of the state's budget. Statute prohibits the State Government from deficit spending. The real debate and focus will be where the cuts in the state budget will be made. For some reason, 17% sounds much more achievable to me than $4.8 billion.
*The Legislators and Governor mainly agree that K-12 funding would be least likely to receive any budget cuts.
*The State Chamber predicts that Health Care issues will dominate budget cut debates as it represents over half of the State Buget.
*Cap-and-trade policy, (it's an environmental thing) will be hotly contested. The State Chamber and others suggest that this is a Federal issue rather than a state or regional one.
*Both Governor Pawlenty and House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher encouraged the crowd of 1500 to consume a glass of wine or two last night and then asked them to email suggestions of how to fix the budget. For those of you who want to do so, here's the link to send your ideas and suggestions (the wine is up to you to find):

tim.pawlenty@state.mn.us

-and-

www.house.leg.state.mn.us/budgetsuggestions.asp

Those are my opinions. How about yours?