Whoops!, Pawlenty says, years too late

06/02/2006

Opinion
Grand Forks Herald
June 1, 2006

Buried deep inside a story on his reelection prospects, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty made a startling admission.

“I’m not signing any more pledges for any group for any reason,” he declared.

Better late than never with that realization, Governor. But it’s too bad Main Street Minnesota had to pay so dearly before you found it out.

Pawlenty was referring to his famous “no new taxes” pledge to the Taxpayers League of Minnesota. By the vehemence of his “no new pledges” declaration above, it’s obvious that the governor now looks upon his promise to the Taxpayers League as a mistake.

Most people in East Grand Forks likely would agree. So would most people in Crookston, Thief River Falls and other cities in rural Minnesota - and maybe in the Twin Cities as well, outside of the St. Paul offices of the Taxpayers League.

That’s because Main Street Minnesota suffered terribly as a result of Pawlenty’s ill-considered pledge.

For years, Minnesota towns had relied on state money in the form of Local Government Aid to help pay for police officers, firefighters, libraries and other amenities. Providing these basic services helped keep the towns pleasant and prosperous enough to draw jobs and residents, thus easing Twin Cities congestion and keeping Minnesota’s population dispersed.

In addition, the aid helped equalize the property tax burden across the state. “Consider this,” Larry Bubolz, mayor of Detroit Lakes, Minn., and past president of the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities, wrote in 2004.

“Even with the property tax relief from the Local Government Aid program factored in, the average city tax burden on a $150,000 home in greater Minnesota is $620 this year, while the city tax burden on a comparably valued home in one of the wealthy suburbs is only $364.”

But the 2003 Legislature balanced the state’s budget deficit, in part, by carving $150 million our of Local Government Aid.

“In 2005, the Legislature restored $48 million in Local Government Aid funding,” the League of Minnesota Cities reports. But “even with this restoration, Local Government Aid funding remains nearly 17 percent below the 2003 funding level.”

And as Minnesotans know, the slash threw the budgets of northwestern Minnesota and other communities into semi-permanent turmoil.

There were other ways of fixing the deficit, Pawlenty now is implicitly acknowledging with his Whoops! announcement.

For example: In 2001, the Legislature cut property taxes statewide by almost $1 billion. The owners of high-end homes got their tax cuts directly, whereas small towns saw increases in Local Government Aid.

But while Local Government Aid got cut to solve the 2003 deficit, the high-end homeowners saw “no new taxes,” thanks to Pawlenty’s pledge. Thus, it’s fair to say that the pledge forced the budget to be balanced on the backs of rural Minnesotans.

The first President Bush erred with a “no new taxes” pledge, and now Pawlenty basically has admitted doing the same. Let the regrets of these strong Republicans be a lesson to other candidates when they’re tempted to make such well-intentioned but ultimately destructive promises.