A State Budget We Can All Agree Upon.

Faithful contra-commenter Jeff remembers the budget proposals in the days of a three-way state government, and how he hated them all except the one he hated last time. This is both funny and true. It's probably going to be a universal condition going forward.

There is a bit of history worth mentioning, however. Jeff states, "none of them could agree on anything," but in case you didn't read the Britt Robson link in the previous post:

Then-Governor Jesse Ventura proposed a series of tax increases and spending cuts to cope with the looming deficit. “But that was when the Majority Leader of the Senate [Roger Moe] and the Majority Leader of the House [Tim Pawlenty] were running against each other for governor,” Kiedrowski notes. “They convinced their caucuses to reject what for Jesse was a remarkable act of responsibility.”

Gov. Pawlenty gets credit for laying the groundwork for the current budget mess, but it's more accurate to say he's perpetuated a bipartisan effort.

No budget deal will be popular, so whatever gets passed will be influenced by what the parties think they can stick each other with in the next election. Pawlenty and the GOP seem ready to go with tax cuts and job creation, which I've already ridiculed. This morning, DFL Chair Brian Melendez came out with:

[The governor's] budget would ensure that only middle-class and working families make the sacrifices, while well-connected special interests keep getting a free ride.

Eventually, he strikes a more moderate tone, calling for all sacrifices to be shared fairly, with all options on the table. But first, some more business bashing:

Minnesota’s tax system is already unfair; Governor Pawlenty would make it even more unfair with tax breaks to corporations so that they can pay bigger bonuses to their executives and buy nicer artwork for their boardrooms — not create the jobs that Minnesota desperately needs.

The artwork and bonus realities for state companies are very, very different than that right now. Even the Wall Street boys are backtracking from past sins a bit.

While it's true that the wealthy pay a lower effective tax rate on their incomes than the middle class, we won't get to a budget solution just by hauling them to the public square and calling them names before we raise their taxes. And some changes like broadening the sales tax will not likely be one of the options the DFL puts on the table, because that will be as easy to mischaracterize as the corporate income tax.

Intricacies of the tax arguments aside, we can look forward to a budget we all hate, even if it's for different reasons.