Lofty goals, modest steps

03/10/2006

Schools, health care, economy — all on agenda as term winds down

BY BILL SALISBURY
Pioneer Press

Gov. Tim Pawlenty envisions Minnesota boasting a world-leading education system, affordable health care and the best business climate and safest streets in the nation.

But in his fourth State of the State address to the Legislature on Thursday, Pawlenty proposed only modest steps toward reaching those lofty goals.

In his speech, the Republican governor hit on themes for a re-election campaign that he has not yet officially announced.

He started by taking credit for a 16-point list of accomplishments and ended with a pitch for a constitutional amendment to bar same-sex marriage, a red-meat issue for the social conservatives who comprise his political base.
His Democratic-Farmer-Labor challengers jumped on the speech, questioning both Pawlenty’s list of accomplishments and his new proposals for the final legislative session of his first term.

“Today the state of our state is strong, hopeful and prosperous,” Pawlenty said. “Our people are working, our students are learning, and our citizens are healthy.”

Looking forward, he said improving education and health care, preserving natural resources and growing jobs will make the biggest differences in Minnesota’s future.

EDUCATION

In his boldest education initiative, he proposed requiring all eighth-graders to take Algebra I and requiring Algebra II and chemistry for high school graduation.

Currently, only 27 percent of Minnesota eighth-graders take Algebra I, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Fifty-nine percent of the state’s high school graduates took Algebra II and 52 percent studied chemistry, according to the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Pawlenty also called for the state to develop Chinese language curriculum to be made available to districts, setting a new “digital literacy” standard so students know how to use technology and providing $7 million for pilot programs to make more rigorous Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs available to all students.

Attorney General Mike Hatch, a DFL candidate for governor, said while those may sound like good ideas, “The state is not the school board. Let’s trust local school boards to do at least some of their curriculum.”

HEALTH CARE

Pawlenty recommended rewarding health care providers for using “best practice measurements” for treating conditions including childhood obesity and diabetes and requiring all providers to tell consumers what they charge for more procedures.

He also requested $12 million to help small health care providers set up electronic medical record systems and $10 million to strengthen the state’s defenses against a possible worldwide bird flu pandemic.

State Sen. Steve Kelley of Hopkins, another DFL gubernatorial candidate, said that while Pawlenty talks about preventing diseases and epidemics, he has cut funding for public health by 30 percent in the past three years.

“A lot of the rhetoric would be fine if it weren’t inconsistent with what he’s done,” Kelley said.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Pawlenty urged the Legislature to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot asking the public to dedicate money for long-term conservation and water cleanup. That money would come from existing tax revenue. To get the water-cleanup effort moving, he recommended a $20 million infusion this session.

He also said lawmakers should require large utilities to cut mercury emissions by 90 percent before a federal deadline and should pass a $200 million outdoors bonding package.

TAXES AND ECONOMY

Once again Pawlenty asserted that holding down taxes is the key to job creation.

“In a hyper-competitive economy, raising taxes is a bad strategy, especially in a highly taxed state,” he said, sparking a standing ovation from the Republicans in the House chamber while Democrats sat silently.

He proposed four tax cuts to spur economic growth. He called for a cap on property taxes, a new way of calculating corporate taxes, an investment tax credit for dairy farmers and eliminating the so-called “marriage tax penalty.”

Property taxes statewide have increased 25 percent — about 2½ times the rate of inflation — since Pawlenty took office in 2003. They are projected to increase 12 percent more by 2008. His property tax cap would be popular with many homeowners but not with local governments or some lawmakers.

“I don’t like to micromanage local city councils and school boards,” said Sen. Bill Belanger of Bloomington, the senior Republican on the Senate Tax Committee. “They get elected, just like I do.”

The corporate tax change Pawlenty proposed would provide a break for Minnesota-based businesses by basing their income taxes only on their sales in the state, rather than taking into account their payroll and property here.

More than 400,000 couples would benefit from eliminating Minnesota’s marriage penalty, according to the state Revenue Department. The change would cost the state about $50 million in the next three years.

SOCIAL ISSUES ARISE

Pawlenty’s 40-minute speech was interrupted by applause 62 times. At least 15 of those interruptions came from Republicans, while Democrats sat on their hands.

The partisan tone of those plaudits was clearest when Pawlenty said, “Let’s define marriage in our constitution as being between a man and a woman.” Republicans gave him a standing ovation; DFLers gave him the silent treatment.
Earlier, when Pawlenty said he envisioned “a Minnesota where the traditional family structure is revitalized and life is protected and respected,” code words for opposing gay marriage and abortion, three DFLers — Rep. Karen Clark of Minneapolis, the only openly lesbian member of the Legislature, Rep. Ron Latz of St. Louis Park and Sen. Becky Lourey of Kerrick — stood up and turned their backs to the governor.

While Pawlenty’s speech won predictable praise from Republicans, he also got high marks from his political rivals for his style and vision — but not the substance of his ideas.

“The guy is a great speaker,” said Peter Hutchinson, an Independence Party candidate for governor. But he was disappointed that Pawlenty asked voters to pass constitutional amendments to fund transportation (by dedicating the motor vehicle sales tax to roads and transit) and conservation programs. Both are policy decisions the governor and lawmakers could make on their own, he said.

“He was asking the citizens to have the gumption that the Legislature and the governor don’t have,” Hutchinson said.
Lourey, a DFL candidate for governor, said she liked many of the promises Pawlenty made in the first half of the speech, “and then in the last half of the speech, he said he wouldn’t pay for it.”

Hatch said the governor was “throwing crumbs at our problems.”

Another DFL gubernatorial candidate, real estate developer Kelly Doran said Pawlenty was only “tinkering around the edges’’ and not solving the state’s health care and transportation problems.

Apparently anticipating such partisan criticism, Pawlenty concluded his speech by saying today’s politics and personalities won’t matter much years from now.

“What will matter,” he said, “is how we lived, how we served and how we made things better.”