Democrat Governor Dayton Caves to End Minnesota Gov't ShutdownJuly 14, 2011
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RUSH: In a little known, little-reported story: "Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton sent a letter Thursday to House Speaker Kurt Zellers and Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, saying he 'reluctantly' agrees to accept the Republican budget proposal from June 30 if it will end the government shutdown. Dayton said accepting the offer would bridge a $1.4 billion gap between him and the Republican leadership. The governor says he has 'serious reservations' about the GOP plan, but Minnesota’s government shutdown must end. 'If this gets resolved and gets Minnesota back to work in the next few days, then it doesn’t matter what people say about me,' Dayton said."
Look, I don't want to pour salt in the wound here by using the word "cave," but clearly the Republicans in Minnesota, they held firm. This has been going on for two or three weeks now, and the usual threats were being bandied about in the Minnesota press just as they are here in the national press, and the usual accusations and the usual doom and gloom and the usual Minnesota senior citizens are gonna end up ice fishing, nobody is gonna cut the hole in the ice for them, so not gonna catch anything, gonna be disaster out there, and still the Republicans held firm in Minnesota.
Now, if an agreement is in place, Dayton says he's ready to call a special session to end the shutdown within three days, and here are the conditions that he made to make a deal: Remove policy issues, drop 15% across the board in reductions to state employees in all agencies, and pass a $500 million bonding bill. The Republican offer from June 30th, which he says he'll accept now, included a shift in K through 12 school aid payments from 70-30 to 60-40, issuing tobacco bonds to cover the remaining gap, increasing the per-student formula by $50 per year to cover additional borrowing costs, adding ten million more to the University of Minnesota to equalize cuts and to restore funding to the department of human rights trade office.
So that's the headline: "Governor Dayton Agrees To Republican Budget To End Minnesota Shutdown -- Special session could be called within three days." Yeah, tiny little headline, tiny little story. Drudge does have it on his page. Have you seen it anywhere else? Have you, Snerdley? Nor have I. Minnesota, it turns out, was a microcosm of what will happen on the national level after all, and prior to Minnesota, Wisconsin. And at the same time in Wisconsin, Ohio, and then throw Indiana in there. Another thing that this illustrates, folks, the whole concept here of federalism, it means that the states do remain a backstop against whatever the Obama regime tries, all therefore not lost.
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