Pawlenty vows to match state’s modest economic gains with modest spending

02/27/2007

BY BILL SALISBURY
Pioneer Press


Gov. Tim Pawlenty today guessed it would be "kind of a no-change or small-change forecast."

That means Pawlenty and the Legislature would have around $34.4 billion or a 9.3-percent increase for the next two-year budget — unless they boost taxes, which the Republican governor is unwilling to do.

In a telephone conference call with reporters from Washington, D.C., where he was attending the National Governors Association annual winter meeting, Pawlenty said he doesn't know what the state Finance Department will predict, but he said the fundamental economic indicators on which the forecast is based — including gross domestic product, consumer confidence and corporate profits — have been relatively stable.

He predicted the forecast would be up or down around $200 million from the last estimate in November.

"That sounds like a lot of money, but in the overall scheme of the budget it's not a significant change," he said. "So I would view it as a status quo forecast."

Without a tax increase, that means the state won't have as much money as legislators want to spend on all-day kindergarten, early childhood education, children's health insurance and transportation projects.

But Pawlenty said of his proposed 9.3-percent spending increase, "That's enough. That's faster than the economy is growing. That's faster than most people's paychecks are growing.

"And for my friends in the Legislature who want to spend the state into 12-, 15-, 17-percent spending increases, that's not sustainable, it's not wise, and we're not going to do that."