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April 3, 2011

Dems talk budget with constituents

Vikings stadium, human cloning among topics

By Dan Linehan Free Press Staff Writer

ST PETER — Democrats in Minnesota’s Legislature, unwilling to vote for massive budget cuts, are watching from the passenger’s seat as the House and Senate pass bills above their objections.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t willing to compromise, area democrats told groups in Mankato and St. Peter Saturday. Rep. Kathy Brynaert and Sen. Kathy Sheran of Mankato and Rep. Terry Morrow of St. Peter visited with constituents in Mankato Saturday, while the latter two also met with a similar gathering in St. Peter.

Sheran said many Republican legislative topics of late — including a Vikings stadium deal, human cloning and state worker benefits — are distractions from big-ticket budget issues.

“What is really driving the problem of continual deficits?” she asked rhetorically. She said Republicans are tying to pin the blame for the deficit on government employees and using that as a basis to cut wages and benefits.

Morrow agreed, calling the University of Minnesota human cloning bill a “pitch outside the strike zone” that avoids discussions about tuition cuts.

“There isn’t anyone who’s for human cloning,” Sheran said.

Morrow also said he’s “deeply concerned” about fund transfers from accounts that were set up for a specific purpose.

One example is cutting environmental spending and using Lessard Council sales tax proceeds to back-fill the cuts.

The sales tax money is not supposed to “supplant” existing environmental spending, and Morrow said back-filling cuts violates the voters’ intent.

Even if the legislators consider the Vikings stadium a distraction, attendees in St. Peter wanted to hear their take on the topic.

Sheran said she’d like to see a stadium deal, calling the team an “economic engine” that “defines our state.”

That position elicited a groan from St. Peter resident Olga Carlson. She’s not a sports fan, and figures they should be the ones paying for a stadium.

Even so, Sheran said she doesn’t want to raise fees for a stadium deal if the wealthy aren’t willing to pay higher income taxes.

Morrow had a similar position.

“There are ways to do a stadium that doesn’t take money from schools and health care,” he said. He also acknowledged a possible objection that if a stadium is worth raising fees for, then schools and health care should be worth it, too.

Sheran had a particularly negative reaction to one phrase that has been used to justify cuts — that government must “live within its means.”

First, it rests on the assumption, which Sheran doesn’t believe, that a government’s “means” shouldn’t change, that the wealthy should not ever see higher taxes.

Second, she said Republicans have often relied on gimmickry to reduce the budget, especially shifts to local property taxes, that have only appeared to be an exercise in cost-cutting.

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