Reelect Govenor Pawlently

[krosch]

Its Election time again and the economy has constantly improved since Govenor Pawlently has taken office. He inherited a downsurge that while largely nationwide had some to do our own state spending. Now in part because of Pawlently Leadership Minnesota continues to better itself.

Now I am always a bit skeptical of Goverment impact on economics. But Minnesota has gone from the 2nd highest taxed state in the country to the 9th highest taxed state under Govenor Pawlently. He has kept his no new taxes pledge with the sidenote of increasing some user fees (which stink I agree) but still has managed our budget wonderfully without slicing out all of the State Programs Democrats claimed he would destroy.

I am proud to say that I sat until 4 am nominating this man to be the Republican Nominee for his first run at the highest office in the State. He went on to win and has done the state very well as our Leader. He has impressed even the very liberal Duluth City Council about how he has handled meetings and working with city leaders.

Let's reward this great 4 years of effort by putting Governor Pawlently for 4 more years.

Pawlenty again touts monthly job figures
The governor highlighted record annual job growth in Minnesota as an outgrowth of the state's high-ranking quality of life.

Conrad deFIEBREcdefiebre@startribune.com
Minnesota government and businesses added a state record 79,250 jobs over the past year, continuing an economic surge that Gov. Tim Pawlenty touted Tuesday with a news conference for the third month in a row during his reelection campaign.

"This is an extraordinary positive development," the governor said at his State Capitol office. "Obviously we're on a really good clip."

Pawlenty critics said that despite the job growth, Minnesota's labor market remains weaker than it was five years ago.

Still , job creation in Minnesota continued to account for 10 percent of the national total in July, according to figures released by Pawlenty's Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). All sectors, including relatively lagging manufacturing, mining and construction, contributed to the growth, but government jobs, mostly in education, comprised half of it.

Meanwhile, Pawlenty and acting DEED Commissioner Ward Einess characterized an uptick in Minnesota's jobless rate -- from 3.6 percent in June to 3.8 percent in July -- as an indication of economic strength that has drawn more people back into the labor market.

The labor force grew by 6,100 in July, the first increase since February, DEED said. That offset the withdrawal of 9,000 job-seekers from the market in June, which largely accounted for a dip in the unemployment rate then.

Seasonally adjusted employment in Minnesota reached 2.8 million in July, up 11,600 from June for the 13th straight month of job expansion, DEED said. For the past four months, the state has added jobs four times faster than in 2005 while U.S. employment growth has fallen by more than 30 percent.

Pawlenty labeled the figures "a continuing measure of the good quality of life in the state," but added that a looming national economic slowdown "will eventually catch up to Minnesota."

Rose-colored?

Pawlenty, a Republican, took office in 2003 at the tail end of a recession during which Minnesota lost more than 50,000 jobs and state government budget forecasts fell more than $4 billion in the red.

In response to the governor's news conference, the liberal America Votes Minnesota noted that the state hasn't yet fully rebounded from that downturn. Since 2001, the share of working-age Minnesotans holding jobs has fallen from 73 percent to 70 percent, the group noted.

"Governor Pawlenty is hoping Minnesotans will wear rose-colored glasses when looking at the state's job growth numbers," America Votes Minnesota director Josh Syrjamaki said. "Minnesota deserves a governor that is open and honest, not one that simply claims credit for good news without telling the whole story."

[UMD TSAR]

Gotta say, he's been impressive. Doesn't seem slimey like Coleman, nor partisan like Wellstone, and more polished than Ventura.

It doesn't appear that he looks for the Republican solution, so much as he looks for the solution that is good for Minnesota. And he seems to have done a fine job playing mediator between our oft-gridlocked legislature.

As a guy who pays Minnesota taxes but only lives there a month a year, I gotta say I like him drawing a line in the sand with taxes, too. It hurts to see my paycheck $100 less than 80% of the rest of the guys around here.

Sure, maybe the Universities are trying to pin "rising tuition" on him, but we all know the schools have a problem keeping thier exploding budgets under control.

[krosch]

Also Pawlently has proposed larger tution grants for High School students in the top 30% of their graduating class in G.P.A. There are some other possible factors too but ultimently getting students even more of a helping hand in a state that already gives much more of a hand then most of the country.

[Xenolith]

He's cut taxes, only to have those taxes passed on to house owners (property taxes). As a result, the housing market sucks right now. Contructions jobs are taking a hit because of this... we'll see this trickle through the Minnesota economy here shortly. Pawlenty and the legislature need to take action on this soon.

[Anti_Liberal]

He's cut taxes, only to have those taxes passed on to house owners (property taxes). As a result, the housing market sucks right now. Contructions jobs are taking a hit because of this... we'll see this trickle through the Minnesota economy here shortly. Pawlenty and the legislature need to take action on this soon.

Construction is taking a hit because the 5 year boom is over, not because of property taxes.

[Anti_Liberal]

Sure, maybe the Universities are trying to pin "rising tuition" on him, but we all know the schools have a problem keeping thier exploding budgets under control.

I agree, high tuition is a result of the large amounts of government money handed out, not because of republicans

[UMD TSAR]

Aren't property taxes set by the City, anyways? I didn't think the State had a hand in property taxes...

[krosch]

He's cut taxes, only to have those taxes passed on to house owners (property taxes). As a result, the housing market sucks right now. Contructions jobs are taking a hit because of this... we'll see this trickle through the Minnesota economy here shortly. Pawlenty and the legislature need to take action on this soon.

Yes some local property taxs have been raised by local city, county and etc. goverments some for good reasons because they had a budget crunch due to a small cut in money funneled to city goverments. But also some simply because they can't balance a budget easily and have little desire to reduce their budget.

But the tax turden study takes into local taxes not just statewide taxes so while property taxes have raised a little in some areas the statewide cut in taxes and spending still outpaces those raises.

[Xenolith]

To compensate for a drop off in state money going to k-12 education and other local stuff, counties and cities had to make up for the shortfall by raising property taxes.

[Flying Dutchman]

As a guy who pays Minnesota taxes but only lives there a month a year, I gotta say I like him drawing a line in the sand with taxes, too. It hurts to see my paycheck $100 less than 80% of the rest of the guys around here.

Dude, if you're paying Minnesota taxes on your military pay, you're getting screwed. If you're on active duty serving outside of Minnesota, you shouldn't be paying taxes on that income (link).

[gribble]

Pawlenty is a weak governor. We need someone who can whip the legislature into shape. Pawlenty basically has no opinion on anything that might get him in trouble politically. He needs to take a fucking stand on something. He has no leaderhsip ability, and at the state level it is very important to have somebody who will put the legislature in its place. Veto has a purpose and its purpose is to threaten asshole legislators who think they know what's right for the state but really only know how to lick peanut butter out of their own asses, into taking a fucking vote and not just sitting around arguing about who uses the word 'tax' better in a sentence.

[krosch]

There are State, County, and city/township taxes on property. (Likely federal as well but I don't own property so not certain about federal taxes)

Well Gribble on things Pawlently had stood strongly for and taken a lot of heat for.

Will not raise taxes
Support Death Peanalty
Support more harsh punishment for sex offenders.
Holding the line on budget increases
Tax Free Zones in Minnesota
Concel/Carry

Gribble do you have a single example of how he has been wishy washy? I mean sure he has moderate opinons among his stands but what exactly are you talking about? I mean you just made general unhelpful comments that really don't have anything useful included. So how about a few examples so your comment can be discussed and debated not just a pointless unsupported rant.

[gribble]

You've gotta be kidding me krosch. Those are real tough issues to take a stand on. Like they're really politically touchy issues. As if there is strong opposition to any of those. Fucking christ, give me a break. He has nothing to say about the budget, ever, except 'I refuse to raise any new taxes and I'm cutting all of these taxes, therefore, you the legislature can bitch and squabble amongst yourselves as to what benefits we're going to cut out of the state budget.' He never says, 'I think we should cut this program', because that would make five people upset and 'I would lose their votes'. The state shutdown last year was entirely his fault because he left everything up to the legislature to decide. He has no leadership ability. He's an asshole. It isn't that he has moderate opinions, it's that he has no opinions whatsoever. Take for instance the Twins' stadium bill. It's the same on every fucking issue. He refuses to say anything about it except that if the legislature passes it he'll probably sign it. He cops out of every debate. He never takes a position unless there's already a clear-cut winning side. It's ridiculous.

[Dhirvish]

"Taken a lot of heat for"? Who the hell would give him heat about supporting harsher punishment for sex offenders? Theyre the lowest of the low, even freaking criminals can't stand them. And if he supports the death penalty I sure hope he's taken heat. Less than 1% of police chiefs in the U.S. support it as a deterant, it's more expensive than life in prison, and dozens of later proven innocent people have been put to death, and we're the last industrialized country in the world to still use it. I mean its just stupid. Not even going to address the morality, there's no right or wrong answer there. There's no logical reason to use it. It's just another stupid issue politicians use to rack up support from people incapable of using rational judgement in regards to our penal system.

I'd have to agree with Gribble, I haven't seen a single impact that he's made since he's been in office, aside from not doing anything at all. Tuition has raised double digits for what, 5-6 years now? And that bastard had the NERVE to say "if he was elected again" that he would do something about it? He could do something about it NOW. What is now too soon? Does he get super special powers when he's elected twice? Another political spin promise which will go unfulfilled. Whoopie, he can "not" raise taxes. Good for him, he's good at not doing things. Fix my roads, which are in terrible shape, with that non money he didn't collect. The Duluth school district has lost over 200 teachers in the last 3 years, hell, one high school lost 2 math teachers one year because of cuts. MATH teachers do NOT lose their jobs, they're as difficult to find as good heart surgeons in the medical field. I talked to one teacher, he said it was the first time in 30 years they've had to let go of 2 math teachers because of budgets, thats how bad it was. St. Paul and Minneapolis lost 400 teachers just this year. This is just 3 districts. All the while promoting the president's horrible no child left behind program, which is just a rehash of programs that swept the nation and failed miserably in the 60's-70's. Standardized testing is one of the worst ways to evaluate what a student has learned. Thats what your wonderful governor has done. He's allowed our students at the high end of education to leave school with record debt and done damage to our young students by increasing class sizes, which is statistically the most substantial impacting factor in a child's ability to learn in a classroom. You can keep your candidate thanks.

[krosch]

You've gotta be kidding me krosch. Those are real tough issues to take a stand on. Like they're really politically touchy issues. As if there is strong opposition to any of those. Fucking christ, give me a break. He has nothing to say about the budget, ever, except 'I refuse to raise any new taxes and I'm cutting all of these taxes, therefore, you the legislature can bitch and squabble amongst yourselves as to what benefits we're going to cut out of the state budget.' He never says, 'I think we should cut this program', because that would make five people upset and 'I would lose their votes'.

Well thats a nice layman never been involved in politics opinion. Can you name a politican in Minnesota recently who has called for any kind of cutting of programs let alone a full scale cutting? He doesn't say a whole ton on the budget for a really simple reason he kept it line and cut a little from a lot of different places rather than just eliminating programs. Something that has to be done when you only control the house and not both houses of congress heck even when you do hard to get your whole party in line to do anything no matter what the issue is so you need crossover votes.

The state shutdown last year was entirely his fault because he left everything up to the legislature to decide. He has no leadership ability. He's an asshole.

Ummm well obviously he has no political inside knowledge heck its not even inside knowledge anyone who bothered to look knows that Pawlently was very involved in the process and his staff become very frustrated with the legislature because they debated in committee and then on the floor so long. They delayed passing even the first parts of the budget packages until right before the session ended and caused all the problems in the first place.

Also I hate to be partisan about it but a stragety the Democrats were using is that they contoled the Senate which is only elected every 4 years to put harder pressure on the GOP for their demands. Because when a shutdown happened it would hurt the GOP house much more because they had more seats and were the only ones up for reelection.

Not sure how you can say Pawlently was unactive in that process (esp coming from the house) especially when you contrast that with Ventura who refused to even have input with the houses of congress because simply "thats not my job thats their job I veto or sign things into law".

It isn't that he has moderate opinions, it's that he has no opinions whatsoever. Take for instance the Twins' stadium bill. It's the same on every fucking issue. He refuses to say anything about it except that if the legislature passes it he'll probably sign it. He cops out of every debate. He never takes a position unless there's already a clear-cut winning side. It's ridiculous.

Again you are a victium of not knowing what you are talking about. If you followed the stadium issue closely you would know that back in about Decemeber of last year Pawlently started touting a Twins Stadium and Gopher Stadium as good capital projects. He meet with University management and with Twins Ownership and worked out details he thought were acceptable then proceeded to work with house and senate leaders to . Pawlently was a very key part of that debate and he was very public about it. Your attack on him he did nothing just underscores how little you actually followed the issue.

"Taken a lot of heat for"? Who the hell would give him heat about supporting harsher punishment for sex offenders? Theyre the lowest of the low, even freaking criminals can't stand them.

Well a good deal of it was because of the "disparity" of minorities that might be covered by harsher standards. Also there was a lot of attacks on him by civil rights groups because his suggestions at higher standards for releasing them from prision/hospital even after they served their terms and better home detnetion pushiment.

And if he supports the death penalty I sure hope he's taken heat. Less than 1% of police chiefs in the U.S. support it as a deterant, it's more expensive than life in prison, and dozens of later proven innocent people have been put to death, and we're the last industrialized country in the world to still use it. I mean its just stupid. Not even going to address the morality, there's no right or wrong answer there. There's no logical reason to use it. It's just another stupid issue politicians use to rack up support from people incapable of using rational judgement in regards to our penal system.

Hey I don't like the death penatly either but a majority of Americans do support it. Where the heck did you get that %1 stat something tells me you just made that up but I will eat my words if you can cite that to anything resembling being creditable

I'd have to agree with Gribble, I haven't seen a single impact that he's made since he's been in office, aside from not doing anything at all. Tuition has raised double digits for what, 5-6 years now? And that bastard had the NERVE to say "if he was elected again" that he would do something about it? He could do something about it NOW. What is now too soon? Does he get super special powers when he's elected twice? Another political spin promise which will go unfulfilled. Whoopie, he can "not" raise taxes. Good for him, he's good at not doing things.

Yep the double digit increases have happened depsite increased in state money given to colleges in part health care but also because colleges refuse to hold the line on many types of spending. I know it was over a decade ago but that $100,000 desk at U of M Twin Cities is still an interesting purchase.

Also one thing people fail to take into account that with those double digit increased Pawlently increased personal student grants and loans massvily. Most of it went into grants but low interest loans are also very helpful so that students could use that money to pay for whatever college they wanted to go to. Which contry to many public schools statements has not hurt them because prior to Pawlently fin aid was already skewed so that if you went to a more expensive college your fin aid was based on how much you could pay and the gap to tution not just a flat number.

So while tution did increase and Pawlently did get more money to the State College System (there were no state cuts to education in any sector during his term). He also increased the amount of money student got in aid to pay for college rather than just giving the colleges a bigger check like many govenors have done in the past.

The Duluth school district has lost over 200 teachers in the last 3 years, hell, one high school lost 2 math teachers one year because of cuts. MATH teachers do NOT lose their jobs, they're as difficult to find as good heart surgeons in the medical field.

Would you care to cite that somewhere? I also am curious whether its losing teachers or losing positions because those stats are sometimes vastly differnet.

Also I find your analogy a bit stretching but it is cute and also I would like to add that k-12 education got the biggest increase in funding of any part of the state budget. Duluth Schools on top of that got a voter approved increase in property taxes yet they still can't get their budget in line I might agree with you that possibly the State has some to do with that but it seems to me the School district has some problems running a budget properly.

They maybe should have taken Harry Welty's advice and possibly closed a school to save some money and retain more teachers. (This is not my personal position I don't know enough about the internal money situation of the school to say for certain but if saving a building or saving teacher's jobs I think the choice is clear.)

He's allowed our students at the high end of education to leave school with record debt

I agree huge problem do you have a soultion? If you have one please step up the the plate we have a National Goverment and 50 state goverements that could use your wisdom on how to solve this problem. Because all of them have failed to fix it. So sure blame Pawlently for it but then if Hatch wins blame him too because as yet no matter what goverments have done it has gotten worse.

and done damage to our young students by increasing class sizes, which is statistically the most substantial impacting factor in a child's ability to learn in a classroom.

Umm are you sure about that? I know early in his term they passed a bunch of funding to lower classroom sizes. I also know historically that pre Ventura a record setting funding bill was passed to lower classroom sizes that did not have any kind of effect. An aduit by Ventura's admin found the extra money got lost in admin costs, new equipment, and some teacher raises but little was spent on funding the new positions it was earmarked for.

But again I guess I don't recall anything about classroom sizes getting bigger in the last 2 years after reducing slightly in the previous 2 years do you have a source on that?

[Anti_Liberal]

Yep the double digit increases have happened depsite increased in state money given to colleges

what do you mean "despite" increased government spending? this is one of the reasons tuition has seen double digit increases over the years.

[krosch]

That is an arguement that can be made but one I would disagree with whether or not the goverment gives the University more money or less money I personally believe that doesn't affect their effective budget keeping either way. Obviously they may have to tighten their belt, go into debt, or raise tution or invest in whatever depending on the cash they have. But whether they have more of less of it shouldn't affect their ability to be frugal or not. If its done well and you have more money being frugal helps you do more things or get more teachers etc. Not being frugal has other effects as we see.

[Anti_Liberal]

I agree with that, there is too much waste in schools and government in general. but until there are major reforms, school vouchers, accountability, getting back to the basics of education etc. we will put up with more bitching and whining and property tax increases courtesy of our education system resulting in little or no improvement to our schools year after year after year.

[Anti_Liberal]

And if he supports the death penalty I sure hope he's taken heat. Less than 1% of police chiefs in the U.S. support it as a deterant, it's more expensive than life in prison, and dozens of later proven innocent people have been put to death, and we're the last industrialized country in the world to still use it. I mean its just stupid. Not even going to address the morality, there's no right or wrong answer there. There's no logical reason to use it. It's just another stupid issue politicians use to rack up support from people incapable of using rational judgement in regards to our penal system.

Hey I don't like the death penatly either but a majority of Americans do support it. Where the heck did you get that %1 stat something tells me you just made that up but I will eat my words if you can cite that to anything resembling being creditable

I'm calling BS on the "dozens" of innocent people killed by the death penalty. Thats a myth, unless you have something to disprove this also?

[UMD TSAR]

And if he supports the death penalty I sure hope he's taken heat. Less than 1% of police chiefs in the U.S. support it as a deterant, it's more expensive than life in prison, and dozens of later proven innocent people have been put to death, and we're the last industrialized country in the world to still use it.

1. It's not necessarily intended for deterrence - alot is about retribution.
2. It's only more expensive than life in prison because of the appeals system - why not reform the appeals system instead of reforming capital punishment?
3. If DNA evidence is proving people innocent, that means PRESENT convictions with DNA are equally proven guilty.
4. I consider China quite industrialized. But regardless, we were ahead of the curve with the Industrial Revolution, capitalism, democracy, and the Information Age. Who's to say we simply aren't ahead of the curve with capital punishment when DNA or eyewitnesses can prove it?

As for Pawlenty taking shit for NOT being confrontational on tough issues - what's wrong with this? Why can't a governor play mediator with the parties of the legislature? It appears every bit as effective as pissing off half of the legislature and having them stonewall you at every turn.

[OctaPochette]

I agree with that, there is too much waste in schools and government in general. but until there are major reforms, school vouchers, accountability, getting back to the basics of education etc. we will put up with more bitching and whining and property tax increases courtesy of our education system resulting in little or no improvement to our schools year after year after year.

You really have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to school.