Drop Dead, Minnesota: Pawlenty nixes education, health & public safety today
Since the Legislature and Governor Tim Pawlenty failed to reach a deal for the next two fiscal years (fiscal 2010 starts July 1st, 2009), as it turns out, the governor has the arbitrary power to cancel whatever planned spending his mulleted head desires, within some rules. This is called unallotment, and it's about to happen, ten times bigger than has ever happened in the state's history. This happens Tuesday at 2 PM, an attempt to pack the bad news into one day, as TC-IMC noted earlier. [It will be live on TheUptake.]
Unfortunately, his moves will be designed to please national Republican primary voters, a sadistic bunch that want to see lesser classes and identities crushed for grim reasons of the authoritarian psyche. On the block are Minnesota's local governments, higher education and health care - the very things which, over decades, made Minnesota a relevant and formerly prosperous state (due to its socially progressive history).
All this civic investment goes up in smoke as billions of dollars are going to get slashed Tuesday; Minneapolis and St. Paul stand to lose, in particular, because as economic centers, they generate much of the state's jobs and culture -- in the GOP view, this is all from the "subsidy" of Local Government Aid and County Program Aid.
Local governments will also get payments slashed, and property taxes will get hiked (within certain levy limits). This plan benefits rich suburbanites, who may not have to suffer much in property tax hikes, at the expense of the long-term economy, which gets hollowed out from the center. It's the people who need county services, mental health help (as well, as, say, firefighters) who will lose out. As always it'll be a short-term pandering to the upper class, followed by further economic disaster. The challenge for activists is to step in and help the people that are getting screwed.
More links to unallotment news & research below - please add more!
Basic medical assistance programs (besides the General Assistance Medical Care [GAMC] which has already been line-item vetoed for FY 2011), which support Hennepin County Medical Center and Regions Hospital, in particular, are unlikely to get away unscathed.
It's unclear if Pawlenty's likely cuts to MnSCU and the University of Minnesota have already been spelled out, as U budget cuts got recently announced, including 1200 staff positions. (At the U, federal stimulus money is filling the gap for 2 years, and then??) [update: see Frowner comments below for more]
Other rules: Pawlenty can't change the eligibility for certain programs supported by federal stimulus money -- in particular it seems that eligibility for certain health care programs can't get slashed under the rules.
Reference:
House Research PDF: Unallotment (the key to explaining how it works)
MinnPost - Primer on unallotment: How it works and why it's done
PIM FAQ: The ins and outs of unallotment | Politics in Minnesota
More links:
DefendMinnesota.com (by Alliance for a Better Minnesota, a mainstream left/labor coalition)
MnPACT - Minnesota Network for Progressive Action
League of Minnesota Cities: State Budget Deficit Levy limits: State/Local Fiscal Relations
...So these are some sources from the left-mainstream. What do activists, anarchists, the anti-civ set and others have to say about a state where firefighters and health care for poor people are first in line to fall? Sure, the state is coming down, but as always, when it comes down the poor are getting screwed.
Your move, Left.
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UMN cuts
Actually, the federal stimulus money will not "fill the gap" at the U in terms of jobs. President Bruininks has decided that layoffs will happen up front. This is 5% of the workforce at the U, and these jobs will not come back--this is part of the plan to make the U more corporate. Look at all the things the U has lost in the past few years: the General College (which was a point of entry for a lot of folks who were the first in their families to go to college), the reorganization of the grad school program (which weakens it); the Regents' Scholarship program (which has gone from free classes for staff to partial pay, and an extra thousand dollars or so cash up front is something most regular U staff can't afford); and now 5% of our jobs. The U is already limping along after taking on an expensive and problematic new financial system and now we're losing people. But everyone's so desperate that they'll be glad to put in unpaid overtime (and lots of folks were doing that already, especially on the financial management side).
And the research infrastructure! Even though it's going corporate, the U is one of the few places where there's still medical research done (more or less) in the public interest. But since there's no grant money and no back-up from the U, labs are getting closed left right and center--especially the labs that aren't doing research that attracts corporate funding.
This is the disaster capitalism model--use hard times to slash essential services because even in good times it's almost impossible to bring them back.
thanx
i don't know jack about what is going on at the U - appreciate the wisdom on that. send us more
-the writer
Cuts to UMN 20 mill less than expected
It will be interesting to see whether the smaller cuts mean fewer layoffs or whether Bruininks charges ahead with the shock doctrine model. My money is on the shock doctrine. (I mean, I'd be glad to be wrong, but given the current administration's union-busting tactics, I imagine they'll jump at the chance to shed jobs)
college
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