"While it is true that the GOP is sweetening the pie by adding dollars to the overall K12 budget, they are still refusing to consider increasing revenue. This means, the additional dollars for K12 will need to be taken from another part of the state budget. Their largesse in adding K12 funds is built on the premise that K12 advocates will grab the money and not care where it comes from. I have a much higher opinion of Minnesotans and simply don’t think that’s true! The Governor has certainly made it crystal clear that he will not sign a budget that pits Minnesotans against each other. So—the impasse continues."Parents United 17Jun11 Update
Dayton Press Release via Parents United
38 comments:
I think the budget shift from HHS to K-12 will need to be larger if teachers are to get a raise next year. It would be more fair to take subsidized health care from all the poor people in MN rather than just some. Maybe they could shift some of that money to higher ed as well, to save me some $ on the proposed U of M tuition hike.
So what do you think, is it a good trade off to kick 10 more people off MN care to keep the French teacher in the local high school?
Doesn't the notion of "taxing the rich" strike anybody as "pitting [us] against each other"?
Lost in all of this is the craziness of the idea that government cannot perform "essential services" for one penny less than what it WANTS to spend. I have to ask how much more EDUCATION is going to be delivered for the additional K-12 dollars being spent? I know of no promises made, let alone guarantees, which there OUGHT be, given the horrendous state of far too many MN schools. There is absolutely no relationship between per-pupil spending and student achievement, so why we keep pumping more dollars into a failing system is simply unfathomably stupid.
J. Ewing
I don't think Mary apparently addresses the issue of true happiness at all.
I am not sure if Mary has given as much thought to the pie metaphor as I have, but I found her "sweetening" comment interesting and effective. That's what the GOP did, they sweetened the pie, but they didn't make it bigger. And the size of the pie, not how much sugar is in it, is the issue in dispute.
I have also given a fair amount of thought as to how negotiations work in the abstract. Parties at the negotiating table have things upon which they agree and on which they disagree. Focusing on those issues on which the parties agree, while not entirely useless, does little to advance the process. Dayton and the Republican majority have never been that far apart on overall education funding. By pretending that is where the dispute is, the Republican majority is engaging in public posturing while worsening the atmosphere for the real, substantive and painful negotiations which must take place sooner or later.
--Hiram
"I have to ask how much more EDUCATION is going to be delivered for the additional K-12 dollars being spent?"
The reason for the increase in the K-12 budget is that the number of students in Minnesota has increased. And just because the money is in the Republican budget at this very early stage in the process doesn't mean that funding at these levels will be in the final deal. If Republicans prevail on overall spending, if they cap the budget at 34 billion, I don't have much doubt that there will be severe cuts in the education budget.
--Hiram
I just watched a bit of Almanac and as a result I thought I would expand a bit more on the pie metaphor, and how it applies to the state budget.
The state does two things, education and health care. Effectively, it divides the pie into two parts. It's a binary kind of a deal. A decision to take one piece out of the pie is also a decision about the size of the other piece. We can't responsibly make a decision about how large one piece of the pie, how much we should allocate to one element of the state budget, without giving the same consideration to the other piece, the other element of the state budget.
Does that make sense?
I was amused by DeJournett's Mom's logic notion that we should settle this issue one step at a time. I think your average mom knows that when she bakes a pie, that portions need to be divided so that all the kids get a piece, or else there will be trouble. Am I wrong about that?
--Hiram
I am guessing that Mom knows that each family member should have a piece.
Now should the 2 yr olds piece be is big as the Fathers or the 16 yr old Sister?
If the pie is responsible for meeting the needs of the family. Do the family members all get a smaller share so that some non-family member can have some?
And if Mom only has enough pie supplies for the normal sized pie. Does she run down the street and plunder that wealthier neighbor's pantry so that she can make a larger pie?
All this talk of pie is making me hungry....
As for offering French, the question I have is that the only foreign language or the 5th one being taught???
If it is the only one, the MN Care folks had better start looking for better jobs. If it is the 5th, the French students better start looking for the positive side of learning Spanish or Japanese.
Unfortunately the Parents of the one family that I know who is on MN Care are 2 of the least motivated people I have ever met. It is hard to be too empathetic for them.
Now if they were each working 40-60 hrs per week and struggling to make it... I would be more empathetic...
"Now should the 2 yr olds piece be is big as the Fathers or the 16 yr old Sister?"
Depends on the situation.
"If the pie is responsible for meeting the needs of the family. Do the family members all get a smaller share so that some non-family member can have some?"
Minnesota doesn't have a foreign aid policy that I am aware of but many families do provide for outsiders or member of their extended families in many ways.
"And if Mom only has enough pie supplies for the normal sized pie. Does she run down the street and plunder that wealthier neighbor's pantry so that she can make a larger pie?"
She does a lot of things. Sometimes she gets a job. I rarely hear talk of plundering from the wealthy, when they are asking for help from the rest of us. When we are underwriting the education that proved to be the source of their wealth, or paid for the institutions that were crucial in creating or preserving it.
It really is time, I believe, to get away from this rhetoric that equates our constitutional processes with organized theft. To the extent that people believe that, it dishonors us. Taxes weren't invented by Barack Obama.
--Hiram
Government taking money from one citizen to give to another is not constitutionally sound, economically wise or morally right. The majority have voted, over time, to declare that "public education" is a public good to be funded by general taxation. Someplace along the line we also decided that basic food, shelter and medical care for the "poorest of the poor" was also something that we as a society owed ourselves, and chose government (foolishly) to provide that.
For years now those have been settled questions, but the great argument has arisen over the correct and proper COST of these things. The cost of public education has tripled, with no increase in achievement. The cost of Medicaid/MNCare has exploded as well, beyond even the increase in medical costs for the privately insured. The proposed GOP budget increases spending over the last biennium by about 10%, almost all in these two areas. Therefore, any attempt to further increase such spending is simply foolishness compounding stupidity. We could cut both budgets back to last years and not lose anything important.
J. Ewing
"Government taking money from one citizen to give to another is not constitutionally sound, economically wise or morally right."
Where does it say that in the constitution? What you are describing is Social Security. I think it's good and economically sound for old people to have money. It's in their interest, and it's my interest, and we as a community have made the decision to create that program. I just don't see the moral or economic issue at all.
--Hiram
Sorry for stating with brevity those things which ought to be obvious. "Government taking money from one citizen to give to another is not constitutionally sound, economically wise or morally right" is a completely true statement, whether you WANT it to be true or not, and that is our problem. Liberals among us want to deny what is true because their fantasy world is, they believe, more pleasant. But back to reality.
The federal government has no constitutional authority to take from one citizen to give to another. There wasn't even an income tax until 1913, and it wasn't until FDR that redistributive mania set in, in the 1930s. It was all hung off the "general welfare" clause, when the phrase didn't and still does not apply to individual welfare-- treating one citizen's welfare different than the "general" population's welfare. Your Social Security payments don't come to me, they aren't in the interest of MY welfare. They aren't in the interest of the general welfare, either.
These transfer payments are economically unwise because they are counterproductive. That is, people consume wealth without producing wealth by working. Most retirees go on a permanent vacation. To the degree they're spending their own accumulated wealth, let them enjoy it. To the degree they are spending Social Security and Medicare above what they paid for over the years, they are consuming the wealth that belongs to others.
And that is not morally right unless it is voluntary. One thing you simply cannot say about taxation is that it is voluntary, and that is where all morality lies, in voluntarily choosing to do the "right" thing. Yes, I might think it good for old people to have food and such, and if I choose to donate time and money to Meals on Wheels or whomever doing such service, I have made a good moral choice. Tax me to pay the Social Security of some old lady in St. Augustine and I have no choice at all, let alone a moral one. Taking from one person, by force, to give to another is theft, pure and simple. It doesn't matter what a thief does with the money, including giving it to the poor old widow, it is still theft.
J. Ewing
"The federal government has no constitutional authority to take from one citizen to give to another."
Where does it say that in the constitution? Governmental powers with respect to Social Security and Medicare are based in the interstate commerce clause.
"That is, people consume wealth without producing wealth by working."
Social Security recipients paid for the benefits they received during their working lives. Lots of people consume wealth without working, and the economy seems to get along fine.
"And that is not morally right unless it is voluntary. One thing you simply cannot say about taxation is that it is voluntary, and that is where all morality lies, in voluntarily choosing to do the "right" thing."
Taxes are not voluntary, but they are not immoral. They are the results of a political process we have all voluntarily engaged in. Since we all receive the benefits of constitutional government, is it immoral to expect all of us to pay for them? People who don't like paying taxes always have the option of moving to countries that don't have them.
--Hiram
This notion that taxes are illegal, unconstitutional and/or immoral, just isn't grounded in any law or morality that I am familiar with. We have all entered into a covenant to be bound by the decisions of government whether we agree with them or not. It is as simple as that.
--Hiram
Here is something important and basic to understand about the U.S. Constitution. It's not a policy document. There was no intent among the founders in Philadelphia in 1787 to make decisions for their remote descendant with respect to circumstances they could not possibly foresee. Issues like health care, and social security simply didn't come up and the convention, and weren't decided there.
I am not one who mindlessly venerates the founders or the constitution created. They were politicians not that different from those of today. They were not of one mind. The notion that there is an "original intent" that they all shared is a fiction. The document is the result of a series of compromises, which like all compromises, meant different things to different people. Among other things, the document is morally compromised in that it accepts slavery, among the greatest and most unmitigated evils of our history. It was poorly drafted in some respects. The provisions for the election of a president proved unworkable, the moment a presidential election was actually contested. And, I often argued, the constitutional system ultimately failed, leading as it did to the Civil War. But the one brilliant insight the framers had was that they understood they were creating a government, not engaging in government. That decision reflected their genius, and as much as anything is the reason this constitutional government, with all it's flaws, has survived.
--Hiram
I noticed this conflict a couple of years ago, that the welfare has grown so much that it now clashes with education at the public trough. What the educrats don't seem to realize is that welfare is winning. Legislators know that they can buy more votes per dollar supporting HHS than K12, largely because they know the K12 interests still won't talk to Republicans, who might insist on some results. Remember the knockdown dragout over the relatively small $ for GAMC last session or two? K12 doesnt't come close to that fever pitch anymore.
"What the educrats don't seem to realize is that welfare is winning."
Is it a contest?
But the country is getting older, and that's reflected in our policy and politics. Health care is an issue now in a way it wasn't in 1961, Tim Pawlenty's year of choice when the majority of the population was under 25. But it's also important to bear in mind that a large portion of that welfare goes to children.
--Hiram
"We have all entered into a covenant to be bound by the decisions of government whether we agree with them or not. It is as simple as that."
You keep saying that, but I don't remember EVER voluntarily entering into such a "covenant." The only thing binding on government decisions and unstoppable government growth is the Constitution, and it has been ignored of late. Look at Obamacare, as an example, already ruled unconstitutional but Congress didn't pay any attention at the time. Social Security and Medicare are read into the commerce clause, yes, but by what sorcery of wordsmithing or perambulations about original intent?
I would set such concerns aside if someone could convince me that the dollars being expended were somehow achieving their stated purpose at the lowest possible tax on the private economy, but everywhere I look I see the dismal failure of such.
-Government has spent trillions of dollars in the "war on poverty" and the poverty rate today is higher than it has ever been.
--Governments have spent trillions of dollars to improve K-12 education and kids today are LESS educated than those of 50 years ago.
--Government has PROMISED to spend about $80 Trillion more on Social Security and Medicare than what those taxes will bring in. The seniors didn't and won't chip in enough for this, and then non-seniors CANNOT POSSIBLY pay enough to fund this. How can we have entered into a "covenant" which is impossible? And when is somebody going to accept the truth of these massive overpromises and utter failures?
J. Ewing
"You keep saying that, but I don't remember EVER voluntarily entering into such a "covenant.""
Covenants aren't entered into voluntarily, at least not in the usual way. It is assumed when you accept the benefits from it. The framers signed the constitution, so you don't have too. We haven't voluntarily agreed to abide by laws of the land in the way we agree to a contract. We do that by simply living here.
Medicare, Social Security, Obamacare are all constitutional in my view. I have already discussed my views about original intent, which are basically, that 60 or so people with wildly divergent backgrounds, histories, views and interests don't ever share one. The constitution is the result of a multitude of compromises, each and everyone of which can and was spun differently by the parties involved.
I don't know if America can afford to grow old, although other countries seem to manage it. But I know that's a difficult position to take, while at the same time, extending Bush era tax cuts which are largely responsible for the mess we are in.
We are a country that is in danger of becoming institutionally unable to deal with most serious issues that confront us. Maybe I watch too much Glenn Beck, but I view this as serious, even apocalyptic terms. The very legitimacy of our constitution and our constitutional processes is under attack, not by marginal figures of the extremes, but within our institutions themselves. I think our nation is dying, and at times I wonder if it is already dead.
--Hiram
Again, the solution lies in binding government back to the limited role envisioned by the Founders, even allowing for a few small differences among them. They agreed to a very limited federal government which is NOT what we have.
The obstacle to the solution is politicians who live in the fantasy world where they can spend as much as they want, on whatever they want, without regard for the ability of the nation's economy to support such spending. They survive only by the ignorance of the voters about this fantasy. One wonders what it is going to take, and whether the necessary realization can come before the bankruptcy.
J. Ewing
"Again, the solution lies in binding government back to the limited role envisioned by the Founders, even allowing for a few small differences among them."
I simply do not believe the founding fathers had any limited vision of government or limited vision of the how the nation would repeatedly transform itself. We can't go back to 1787 and no founder would wish us to.
"They agreed to a very limited federal government which is NOT what we have."
They did no such thing, and even a cursory examination of the early history of the republic shows that notion is untenable. And what also is true, whatever the founders intended was superseded by the civil war and it's aftermath.
--Hiram
And yet we survived perfectly well for 150 years without AFDC, Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, Section 8 and SCHIP, and nearly 200 years without ObamaCare, a huge Department of Education, an EPA, and a Department of Energy. Obama has also managed to rack up more debt in 3 years than the entire string of Presidents up to himself. I call that out of step, at least, with our history, and a huge step towards UNlimited government. Even if we do not wish to acknowledge the founder's vision of how limited it should be, or even the limits of previous years, these last few years have been exceptions to that history, in real terms. And this terrible spending exceeds all PRACTICAL limits on government, like the inability to pay for our existing commitments, aka bankruptcy. It has to stop, and the notion that it can go on is simply the soft insanity of unreasonable expections.
J. Ewing
It's just very difficult to make the argument that we cannot afford our commitments while at the same time lowering taxes, as President Obama did as part of the stimulus, and while extending the Bush era tax cuts, which is something the president agreed to.
--Hiram
Let me help with your inability to "make the argument." There is no amount by which taxes can be raised to pay for our "commitments." Under those circumstances, you cut back on your commitments. There are no other choices.
J. Ewing
"There is no amount by which taxes can be raised to pay for our "commitments." Under those circumstances, you cut back on your commitments."
Then let's talk about what commitments we are willing to dishonor in order to keep tax rates on people who make a lot of money low. What sacrifices are we willing to make so that children of parents who are in the top 2% o income earners don't go to bed hungry every night.
--Hiram
hiram, you're being deliberately obtuse. There is no amount by which taxes can be raised to pay for our existing commitments. Therefore, raising taxes to fund ANY of our commitments to a greater degree is the wrong solution. We can debate whether tossing Grandma into the snow or letting little Markie starve is the proper priority, but we have come down to those choices because less drastic choices were not made in the past. We've let our compassion get the better of our common sense, and now it's time to pay the piper, and let some people stand on their own two feet for a change.
J. Ewing
"There is no amount by which taxes can be raised to pay for our existing commitments."
Other countries seem to be able to, why not us? Again, it's just so hard to make the case that we can't afford things like Social Security and Medicare, when we just extended the Bush era tax cuts. I freely concede that there might be cuts along the way. But if we have money for tax cuts that aren't commitments or promises, we must also have money to at least partially keep the promises and commitments we have made, and for which we have paid taxes all these many years.
Cutting those taxes at a time when in retrospect we were least able to afford such cuts is what strikes me as pretty drastic.
--Hiram
"There is no way to fund everything by raising taxes" is not a subjective, hyperbolic, nor qualitative statement. It is a quantitative statement based on arithmetic. Take the total debt obligations and unfunded liabilities and divide by the GNP, and you discover that we would need a 121% federal tax rate, on EVERYBODY, for the next 8 years! Now, if you only tax "the rich" at, say, 100%, you actually GROW this debt by some 1/2% per year!
We cannot and should not "fund it all." If we can't have a rational and rapid devolution of government spending and control back to states, localities and private business, then let us have a rational halt to the expansion and a plan for a slow return to sanity.
J. Ewing
"It is a quantitative statement based on arithmetic."
We do two things that are really, really expensive, each of which are a form of living beyond our means. We have kids, and we grow old. We can either deal with these issues, find a way to make the arithmetic work or we can simply ignore them.
To paraphrase Jon Stewart, hypocrisy is the soup we swim in. It is so prevalent, we simply don't notice it anymore. We have politicians and pundits talking hourly about this supposed national debt crisis we are in, without mentioning that it was brought on by huge tax cuts, which those same politicians and pundit fiercely oppose reducing by even one cent.
Other countries do this stuff. Other countries facing the same demographic trends we do, find a way to care for health care without bankrupting the nation. We know the arithmetic isn't impossible to manage. It simply requires a mustering of the national will to do it.
--Hiram
Sorry, but you're not doing arithmetic, you're trying to find a reason for the unreasonable. You admit we've promised more than we can deliver, and then say we need to deliver it. You suggest that tax cuts are the problem when I have explained to you that impossiblly high rates of taxation would barely make a dent.
And in case you haven't seen the news, other countries are discovering that you CAN'T give everything to everybody and still have a working economy. Yes, we have children and we grow old. Maybe we ought to be allowed to put some money aside for those things, rather than bailing out those grasshoppers who didn't.
J. Ewing
Have I admitted that we have promised more than we can deliver? I don't quite think that, and I certainly think we can deliver an adequate amount if not quite the moon. I know we can afford to do more to keep our promises because we had no problem in extending Bush era tax cuts. That was a statement from our elected officials that the debt situation while of concern, was manageable. And that they were confident that they could keep their legally binding promises in the area of health care and Social Security. And of course, could pay America's debt as required by the Constitution, in no uncertain terms.
--Hiram
Of course politicians would never lie when the truth would upset somebody, particularly old people who vote, and the liberal media that would happily lie to these old folks to gain votes for Democrats.
Republicans are not talking about changing old age benefits for those already on them, but that's what Democrats SAY they are doing. No, Republicans are telling the truth that those benefits CANNOT be paid under any possible tax rate, and therefore anyone vowing to "preserve Medicare" is lying. The sooner we talk sensibly and responsibly about the unpleasant choices we must make, the less unpleasant they will be. Just "fund it all" is not making any choices. Even now, we are funding things that we should not be funding at all, and thereby jeopardizing the things we SHOULD be funding.
J. Ewing
Other countries manage their health care costs. It's not impossible.
==Hiram
And how do they do that? Rationing...
I am test driving my brother in laws druid to post this.
G2A
I meant droid... that auto spell check is a mixed blessing...
Other countries manage universal health care in a number of different ways. There are a number of models to choose from if only we have the political will to do it.
--Hiram
None of those systems "manage" without the multitudinous and tragic failings inherent to government-run systems. That is why Dayton is wrong to insist upon continuing the status quo in government services.
J. Ewing
"the multitudinous and tragic failings inherent to government-run systems"
Every system has it's problems. In this as in so much else we let the best, and even just the better be the enemy of the good. It's perfection or nothing.
I do find this frustrating. After maybe 60 years of pushing for it, we are finally taking the first real steps towards universal health care, and I can tell you it was an enormously difficult thing to do, and probably can't ever be done again. It isn't perfect, it needs to be improved, but it's there. And then along comes Republican proposed Ryancare. Now let's first bear in mind that in the early years of the last decade, when Republicans controlled the White House and the Congress, they didn't take advantage of the opportunity to enact the version of universal health care they now propose. If they return to power, what are the chances they will enact any form of universal health care then? And the thing of it is, Ryancare and Obamacare just aren't that different. If we started over, either of the two systems would be ok with me, recognizing both are imperfect and need to be improved. But the facts on the ground are that enacting any such health care plan is virtually possible and that more specifically, if Obama care is repealed there is no chance that Ryancare will be passed to replace it. It's current supporters will find the same faults in it, that they do with Obamacare. So what's the point of getting rid of the flawed system we have? When we will have nothing with which to replace it?
--Hiram
An excellent question, that. "If Obamacare is repealed what will replace it?" The answer, I fervently hope, is "nothing at all." Actually what I would wish for is "less than nothing at all." I would prefer that the federal government would, as rapidly as possible without breaking promises or going bankrupt trying not to, exit the health care business altogether. Kill Obamacare now. It has already had numerous terrible effects on our overall health care system before delivering a single benefit. The Ryan plan of replacing Medicaid with a "voucher" system should be implemented immediately and the strings on what Medicaid must include should be eliminated (as soon as education of the recipients can be done). THEN Medicare should be made into a voucher system on a voluntary basis. That is, if you are receiving Medicare and think you can get better care with those same dollars (and you CAN--studies prove it), you should be allowed to do so.
Which proves the more fundamental point, that government-run health care costs more and delivers less, just as you think it should. So why do you think the real world is otherwise?
J. Ewing
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