Minnesota Braces for Government Shutdown

[bonnie]

Minnesota Braces for Government ShutdownBy MONICA DAVEY

CHICAGO — With only hours remaining before most Minnesota services will shut down if the state does not approve a new budget, political leaders met behind closed doors on Thursday but emerged again with no deal on a spending plan and no signs of a resolution in sight.

And so, on the eve of a holiday weekend, Minnesotans were bracing for the possibility that the state’s parks and the Minnesota Zoo will be closed, hunting and fishing licenses will not be issued, and the state’s lottery system and racetracks will shut down. By Thursday afternoon, workers were already closing the state’s 84 major rest areas along highways. Thousands of state workers were preparing to be sent home without pay, and contractors were getting ready to walk away from a hundred road construction projects that are underway.

While the budget year begins on Friday in many states, Minnesota was one of several that had yet to seal a deal by Thursday afternoon, but was one of the few in the nation making immediate preparations for a shutdown. The last such standoff in Minnesota came under an entirely different set of leaders in 2005, but involved the shutdown of far fewer services and lasted a matter of days.

Since early this year, the politicians in St. Paul have been locked in a battle over how to solve budget woes under a divided government. Republicans, who took control of both chambers of the Legislature last fall, urged sharp cuts and a cap on spending to the $34 billion that the state expected to take in over the next two years. Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat elected in the fall, called for collecting more in income taxes from the highest earners to solve an anticipated $5 billion deficit and to spare cuts in services to the most vulnerable.

For days, even as leaders on both sides have met under what the governor’s spokeswoman described as a “cone of silence,” no progress has been reported.

“It’s a very sad day for Minnesota,” said Lawrence R. Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota, which is not expected to close. “It’s a state that had a well-earned reputation for being well governed where, at the end of the day, politics were done in a fair and efficient manner. And it’s now on the cusp of ungovernability. There’s a new ethic here that compromise is weakness.”

The list of state services expected to close is lengthy: all sorts of state offices, including dispatchers in the twin cities who monitor traffic jams and accidents and try to keep rush hours moving along. Certain crucial services will stay open, like state patrol work, prison operations, courts and schools.

Some Minnesotans said some sort of deal still seemed possible. Some observers have suggested that Republican leaders might agree to some sort of increased revenue — though not the $1.8 billion that Mr. Dayton has sought and not from a permanent income tax increase. But even a different source of revenue and a smaller amount might have trouble clearing the full Legislature; some among the new crop of Republican lawmakers promised while campaigning last year to cut spending in the state and to hold the line on any new revenues.

[Dr. Shane]

Raising taxes is a sure way to stop economic recovery.

[bonnie]

Raising taxes is a sure way to stop economic recovery.

Mark Dayton is the worst thing to happen to MN.

He freely admits he was a terrible senator,as senator they found him hiding under his desk after sending all his staff home,he is a "recovering alcoholic" who falls off the wagon from time to time,he is a manic depressive and does not always take his medication and suffers from depression.

We should have a great mess going by the time he is done.