From the Star-Tribune:
…Did Dayton intentionally try to provoke a shutdown? We can only say that if he had wanted to, he would have acted precisely as he has in recent months.
Throughout the budgetary process, Dayton refused to give legislators the details they needed to take his priorities into account in crafting their own budget bills. He refused to negotiate on individual bills until he had seen them all.
The Legislature sent its bills to Dayton six weeks before the session ended, but he frittered away the time for negotiation. He vetoed all nine bills at the end of the session, so legislators had no chance to rework them to address his concerns.
As shutdown loomed, Dayton refused to resolve small differences and sign major portions of the budget, such as K-12 education, judiciary and public safety, on which agreement was close. The Pioneer Press called this “hostage taking,” not “compromise.”…
But, as the linked article goes on to note, this budget fiasco could make excellent anti-GOP campaign material next year – “those mean, horrible Republicans stopped education so they could provide tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires”. It is an article of faith in Democrat circles that the 1995 federal government shut-down is what won Bill Clinton a second term – the Republicans were cast as lousy obstructionists bent only on serving the rich while Democrats were the moderates who just wanted to get the business of America done.
It wasn’t quite like that, of course – a thumping economy (courtesy of GOP policies), a weak GOP Presidential nominee (Bob Dole), a third party splitting the GOP vote (Perot) and a slavishly devoted MSM in those pre-New Media days gave Bill Clinton a victory, while House and Senate Democrats went down to defeat. But, Democrats believe it was the shut down – so now they are always going to see a shutdown as a political winner.
We’ll see if it works – we’ll see if the people of Minnesota buy it in 2012. If they really believe that the GOP is just currying favor with the rich while Democrats are fighting for the little guy, then they’ll elect a Democrat legislature to go along with their Democrat governor…and then they’ll get all the massive spending and tax hikes a liberal can want with no chance of a government shut down. If that is what the people of Minnesota want, then that is what they’ll get…but I suspect the people of Minnesota will see right through this scam.
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