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1. Do you support passage of a bonding bill in 2010?
If “YES” what is the maximum dollar amount you would support?
Pat Anderson:
No
Under the current state guidelines, the "3 percent rule" limits annual debt service payments to 3 percent of the state's non-dedicated general fund budget. Using the forecast estimate for future capital budgets, Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Tom Hanson projects appropriation for debt service will exceed the 3% guideline, effectively making the maximum size of the 2010 bonding bill $0.
Because securing capital projects for the home district is so important to legislators in an election year, and the Democrats have the economically unsound idea that government can create jobs simply by redistributing tax dollars, there will be pressure to revise (or ignore) the debt service guidelines to enable passage of a bonding bill in 2010. That pressure must be resisted.
The answer to Minnesota’s economic woes will only be solved by creating a job-breeding private sector business environment by lowering personal income taxes, eliminating the corporate income tax and broadening the sales tax clothing (NOT food) and some services. A healthy private sector produces a healthy public sector – not the other way around.
Leslie Davis:
No
Bill Haas:
No
David Haan:
No response
Phil Herwig:
NO! Somehow, we as both Minnesotans and as Republicans have got to drop the idea that we can push our responsibilities into the future and onto future generations. The Governor and the legislature have exhibited no responsible behavior when it has come to spending current funds. They now want to spend future receipts.
Example: When I moved to Minnesota in 1973, biennial expenditures for the state's general fund were $2.5 billion. Now the same fund has biennial expenditures of $37 billion. Forty percent of this increase occurred in the last seven years, during the administration of a "conservative" Republican governor!
A simple can of Pepsi provides a striking illustration of this explosion in state spending. Let me explain:
In 1973, I could buy a can of Pepsi for 25 cents from the pop machine in the little town of Pease, Minnesota, less than a mile from my farm. Today, in the same pop machine, a can of Pepsi costs 50 cents. If we use the state's general fund expenditures as a measure for the same period, we would have to put almost $4 into the pop machine for the same can of Pepsi!
My prospective on the whole bonding issue is that we have no choice but to cut deeply into state spending now. I recognize that this will, for the near term, cause much distress in some quarters.
We have rolled the dice too many times. We are now out of cash. Do the financial wizards like our governor and others think it is time for another roll of the dice, funded by a loan on the farm?
We have been lead and governed by fools, who, like the compulsive gambler, are convinced that with just one more roll of the dice, things will be okay.
Cut spending, cut taxes, allow revenue to increase and use the resulting extra income to the state to be used to buy back the bonds we have outstanding. We could then lift the burden of our current carrying charges off the taxpayers’ backs. This would improve our bond rating and ultimately reduce our revenue obligations.
I could say more, but I think you now understand where I'm coming from.
Marty Seifert:
The debt limit is broken, so I am not supportive of a bill. I have always preferred basic infrastructure over pork. If an emergency like a tornado were to strike, we need to be practical.
Tom Emmer:
No response.
2. Do you support Governor Pawlenty’s recent proposal for a constitutional amendment to limit expenditures in the next biennium to no more than the revenue received in the last biennium?
Pat Anderson:
Yes
The first question is whether setting an expenditure limit is a legitimate constitutional issue. The answer to that question is “yes.” It is an operational statement and therefore very much a legitimate constitutional addition.
The second question is whether or not it is a good idea. As a budgeting tool, the Governor’s methodology has much to recommend in practice. It would virtually guarantee a budget surplus year-to-year. It would also have the advantage of forcing the Legislature to pass a tax increase two years in advance of any significant spending increase. No more last minute spending bills passed in the dead of night on the last day of the session. Government taxing and spending will be significantly more transparent to taxpayers.
The trade-off is less “flexibility” for the legislature to deal with immediate, perceived, spending needs. However, the governor’s proposal negates much of that concern by allowing spending increases for true public health and safety emergencies and other defined contingencies. Bottom line, the legislature will no longer be able to increase spending by elevating everything to a “crisis.” The Governor’s plan will impose a fiscal responsibility on state government that as the next Governor, I would welcome.
Leslie Davis:
No
Bill Haas:
Yes
David Haan:
No response
Phil Herwig:
I could not disagree with the Governor more! I suspect he is proposing such measures for purely political reasons. My opinion is this is being done because he wants to be President and he is trying to make himself appear attractive to conservatives. It's a shell game! Gov. Pawlenty will not have to deal with the financial mess he helped create, when the new governor takes office after next year's elections.
To me he is running away from Minnesota. Look at what he has left us with after seven years in office. In the upper midwest states we are the highest in income taxes, property taxes, business taxes, sales tax, and workman's comp rates. In workman's comp, his administrator, the former House Speaker Steve Sviggum, is alleged to preside over a walking, breathing, living mess, with no improvement of the situation in sight.
What we need is to cut spending, cut taxes and a constitutional amendment to require a supermajority vote in the legislature on all tax bills.
These elected officials have got to stop playing games with our money and our lives. They are not sent to St Paul to rule over us. They are sent there to serve us!
Marty Seifert:
Yes, I plan to support this and vote for it.
Tom Emmer:
No Response |
