MN Bonding showing its weakness, guys

 These guys are total clowns - they should be recalled.  We don't need another crisis Dec. 1 and we do NOT need a new football stadium.

Minn. burns future tobacco cash for budget fix now

Published: Tuesday, 8 Nov 2011 |

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Minnesota's government is about to give up $1.1 billion in future payments from tobacco companies so it can get about half as much money now for a temporary budget fix.

A new state authority expects to finalize a bond sale late next week that leverages a portion of Minnesota's 1998 tobacco lawsuit settlement. The sale will free up $640 million to patch a near-term budget hole, but the payouts to bondholders, with interest, will add to the budget woes the state is projected to have for years to come.

Minnesota isn't the first state to take such a step. Lawmakers could even go back to the remaining tobacco money if another budget deficit surfaces in a new economic forecast due Dec. 1.

"Once you've already done it, it's something I'm sure everyone will be looking at again," said House Taxes Committee Chairman Greg Davids, R-Preston.

In an interview last week, Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton said he "would be very strongly opposed to it" but declined to take the option off the table.

The arrangement was a key link to a summer budget deal that ended a nearly three-week government shutdown. Both sides cast it as a default option because Republicans refused to raise income taxes and Dayton balked at deeper spending cuts.

But it comes at a high price.

Documents supplied to potential bond investors suggest that the state is actually selling $787 million worth of bonds. Almost $150 million of it is going toward a debt reserve fund, set-up costs and other expenses that limit the amount available for budget purposes.

Similar to a home mortgage, the state receives an infusion of money but will pay bondholders between $65 million and $80 million per year for the next 20 years. The highest annual debt costs come toward the beginning, when the state's budget is already anticipated to be in rough shape.

Under the so-called tobacco securitization bond, the state gives up rights to a big chunk of tobacco payments through 2031. Last year, the state received about $170 million.

The overall cost to the state won't be known until the sale is final because interest rates could still fluctuate. But officials are projecting $1.2 billion in total debt costs, all but about $100 million coming from the diverted tobacco payments. The rest is from the new reserve account.

The major tobacco companies reached settlements with all 50 states in 1998. The goal of states was to recover costs incurred from treating smoking-related illnesses. Minnesota, which was one of four states to negotiate its own deal, was counting on $6.1 billion over 25 years, with payments continuing into perpetuity. So far, state records indicate that Minnesota has collected $3.3 billion.

The National Conference of State Legislatures says about 20 states have borrowed against their settlement money, some more than once.

Democratic Rep. Ann Lenczewski, a former chairman of the House Taxes Committee, voted against Minnesota's tobacco bond sale. She criticized Republican lawmakers and Dayton for agreeing to the arrangement, equating it to a worker giving up future pay for money to pay household bills now.

"You sell your salary to pay for something short-term, two years. The problem is back and now you have no salary," she said. "It's an example of politicians in both parties not wanting to take their medicine. If we would have cut more it would be permanent. If we raise more (taxes) it would have been permanent."

Dayton said he went along to end the stalemate that idled thousands of workers and darkened critical parts of state government.

"We had 20 days of shutdown. It was clear to me they weren't going to agree to a tax increase," Dayton said.

Republicans said it was far from their favored approach. They spoke almost apologetically about it when the bill authorizing the bond sale was approved in July on party-line votes.

"There are 201 of us plus a governor who wouldn't say this is their very first choice about how to proceed," Senate Tax Committee Chairwoman Julianne Ortman, R-Chanhassen, told colleagues at the time.

The bonds carry risks for investors because the future tobacco payments — not the state taxing authority — back up the debt.

According to documents associated with the sale, tobacco companies face more than 10,000 lawsuits. Adverse outcomes would affect the viability of some companies, and could possibly force some into bankruptcy. Public smoking restrictions, increased tobacco taxes and general declines in smoking rates could also drive down Minnesota's settlement proceeds, which are based partly on cigarette sales volumes.

As it stands, smoking rates are expected to drop by 3 percent per year, according to modeling done by an economic forecaster working for the state. It would take a smoking decline above 10 percent, year over year, for bond holders to dip below a break-even point.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Child care reductions in MN State Budget

Cuts to the child care system.  The correct child care funding reductions are:

(in millions)	2012-13 biennium	2013-14 biennium
Child Care Assistance Rate Reduction	(6.6)	(8.3)
Program Changes	(6.8)	(16.4)
Family Provider Rate Reduction	(6.5)	(7.4)
Cancel Unallocated Child Care	(5.0)
Reduce Grants	(1.4)
TOTAL	(26.3)	(32.1)
FOUR YEAR TOTAL			(58.4)

Bottomline: Taking $58.4 million out of the fragile child care system over the next four years is a very tough consequence of the budget compromise, and represents another form of borrowing — borrowing from future human capital.

DFLers let loose with raft of complaints about agreement process

MinnPost photo by James NordThe 12 hour-plus session, which wrapped up after 3 a.m., rushed through each budget bill on largely party-line votes.

By James Nord | Wednesday, July 20, 2011

DFL legislators had a lot to complain about during Tuesday's special session, which passed a controversial budget plan to end Minnesota's 20-day government shutdown.

The 12 hour-plus session, which wrapped up after 3 a.m., rushed through each budget bill on largely party-line votes.

In the process, DFLers griped about everything: cuts, policies, kicking the can down the road and balancing Minnesota's budget on the backs of children.

They said the budget amounted to allowing parents to "sneak into their [children's] bedrooms and steal their piggy banks."

But beside all those complaints, the thing they hated most were the procedures used to arrive at the eventual shutdown solution.

DFLers say they didn't get a fair chance to provide their input in the whirlwind budget negotiations that took place after Gov. Mark Dayton and the GOP leaders reached a tentative deal last week.

They also said the shadowy negotiations and short time for review of the finished bills (often a matter of hours or minutes) didn't do the public justice.

Rep. Erin Murphy

"I'd like to have seen you in the last days [of negotiations]," said DFL Rep. Erin Murphy during debate on the Health and Human Services bill. "I wasn't willing to trade my vote for a seat at the table."

It angered House DFLers — who frequently criticized their Republican colleagues — so much that Rep. Mindy Greiling and Rep. Michael Paymar are sponsoring legislation to prohibit such negotiations from ever happening again.

"To me this is a flawed process and, quite frankly, I think it's something we all should be ashamed of," Paymar, DFL-St. Paul, said outside of the House chambers during one of the many lulls that punctuated the special session.

He offered one of the evening's more impassioned floor speeches. "I've never been more disgusted with a legislative process," Paymar said. "The public doesn't know what's in [the bills]. Most members probably haven't read them."

After the session ended, Paymar said he would drive home and "take a long, long shower to wash the stain of this legislative session off me."

Both Dayton and House Speaker Kurt Zellers have defended the closed-door negotiations, and both sides seemed eager to end the government shutdown, even if that meant short-circuiting usual legislative procedures.

Zellers has said that most of what's included in these budget bills got plenty of public hearings before Dayton vetoed the GOP budget. To some extent, he's correct. In fact, many of the bills' controversial policy provisions were removed as part of the agreement.

Rep. Dean Urdahl

"Heck, we gave them time from 3 to 6 [p.m.]," said Rep. Dean Urdahl, speaking of the GOP's afternoon caucus. "That should've given them time to look them over."

But Urdahl's joke may have highlighted perhaps the most valid DFL argument: Budget bills were posted online for public viewing just hours before the legislative vote. And during the afternoon recess, the K-12 and Health and Human Services bills hadn't yet been made public.

The lack of transparency even angered Republicans. One GOP representative complained to a staffer on the House floor early today that his bill was still being tweaked at 12:30 a.m.

"Part of the problem is that in our desire to end this shutdown quickly … we essentially closed out the public from any oversight and any input in these massive omnibus bills," Paymar said.

On top of excluding the public, legislative Democrats felt the sting of being left out the proceedings. Rep. Thomas Huntley said he hadn't seen the HHS bill until shortly before session commenced, and others lodged similar complaints.

"Even the Republicans didn't know what was in the bills," Huntley said. "The process basically stinks."

Mark Dayton orders Capitol to reopen tomorrow @ 9 am

About bloody time.

Common Cause was gonna sue.

Think my bitching about it worked?  Probably not, but hey!  I tried ..

BREAKING THE TABOO: Minnesota shutdown leaves poor, disabled screwed

[under serious construction]

In January, I went to see both my State Representative and my State Senator.  I explained that I am a disabled senior on SSDI, that I am a long-time activist and union organizer and that Citizens United had me greatly troubled.   I stand against money in politics, graft, corruption and the corporate takeover of the United States and Minnesota in particular.  I have troublesome Post traumatic stress disorder and multiple physical disabilities.  I am not psychotic.  I spent three years in a walker and had PCA services previously.  I am intelligent, generous to a fault, and extremedly determined to press that our democracy ends when we don't FIGHT for it - within legal constraints.

My interest was in seeing that proper legislation got written, said I was happy to do the research.  I left both appointments feeling x-rayed and found wanting.  Yet, the Citizens United information was not known to them.

I approached the Welfare Rights Committee to act as a "citizen lobbyist" for the duration of the session.  Last year, I lobbied for the homeless.   

Once upon I had an outstanding idea:  I suggested that the MN Legislature set up a Commission on the Economic Status of Women.  It was eventually adopted and I went to see the current Director for support.  During the session she got a new job  and was never replaced.  Yeah, right.

How was I supposed to  "take" the FACT that I pay 22.1% in taxes while the billionaire Macmillans pay 7.7% without screaming loudly about it?  How does one impoverished citizen fight against an ALL CUTS budget ?

I thought the answer to the threat of the Tea Party-dominated Minnesota Legislature was to start a true citizen's committee to fight back against cuts that undermined our health and the health of generations to come.  I handed out flyers at the end of each session of the Health and Human Services committee and other committees daily.  I flyered the Democratic caucus rooms repeatedly.  Each flyer highlighted the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council in undermining the health of our state and the health of our citizens in the following areas:  

1. Health cuts that would threaten citizens, rather than  -  getting rid of superfluous bureaucracy, continuing high medication costs flung at the State payers by Big Pharma, the idiocy of putting 15,000 in nursing homes @$80,000 each per year when it costs $15,000 to let them live independently, gutting mental health and addiction services including crisis lines, limiting ways to help our homeless veterans

2.  Cutting the rights of State workers and laying off 15% of the State workforce.   I repeatedly stated that a shutdown/special session would occur and that provisions for furloughing and early retirement be taken seriously.  And note, this takes an economic health hit, too.  We need State workers to contribute to revenue.

3.  Criminalizing voters who don't have IDs as well as denying the poor and student populations the right to vote.  Yet, the GOP proposed a $68 million dollar agency to issue IDs when there is no evidence of voter fraud in Minnesota.  In addition, I attended hearings on redistricting which were exercises in hysterical controlling by the chairperson and gerrymandering.  The Native vote, for example, was chopped up.  Although they contribute millions to the State coffers, they would never be able to get a member of the Legislature elected.  They never have had ONE native legislator.

4.  Tax cuts for the wealthy, loopholes for the corporations, subsidies for those who don't need them are the drumbeat of the Minnesota GOP, led by cynical Tony Sutton.  Yet, nothing was done all session to level the tax rates field.  I'll still be paying 22.1% tax for years to come.  These cuts and the fantasyland idea that trickle down economics creates jobs are still firmly in place at the end of our two-week State shutdown.  I started a blog to show a VARIETY of tax proposals and PROOF that higher tax rates do not lead to the mass exodus of the wealthy in a healthy state. I know that the DFL read it. I see them come and go and know what they read there.

5.  Our public educational system was once one of the treasures of the United States.   Now, our ALEC member who heads the Education Committee has proposed a voucher system, made our University tuition rates SOAR and created one of the worst educational situations in the nation.  Keeping peoples' educational aspirations alive is part of HEALTH.

6.  The Kochs and others wish to pollute our fair State at their whim and discretion, and damn  the cost to our health and pocketbooks.  Environmental protection measures have been

7. The privatization of transport, education, all health care and the introduction of more private prisons is the top of their agenda.  The introduction of more gambling into the State was also troubling .. who is going to get the rights to "work" that ca$h cow?


[more to follow - but right now my heart is BROKEN .. ]

Open challenge to Tom Tom Emmer. Go for it Tom!

I challenge Tom Emmer to debate - in a large public place of his choosing - on topics he raises in his "rant" against Carl Gibson and myself, ASAP.  How 'bout the Saint Paul Hotel ballroom, Tom, where people can come and watch and listen and decide for themselves who is "on the right page" and who is not.  Bring your guests, I'll try to provide a few, too.  Oh, I had a better idea - how about at Keys Restaurant! Man that would be fun.  I don't think too many waiters and waitresses are too thrilled to see you, but we can work around that.

Free publicity as you provided on http://www.ktlkfm.com/pages/davisandemmer.html?article=8789034

is certainly welcome (and hard to come by I've noticed) BUT I am just poor poor poor and would like to point that out to people. You have maligned my friends and shown a lack of courtesy to visitors to our state publically.  Give me a chance to counter your "charges" .  I love to talk about budgets:  Let's talk about mine.

We can discuss anarchism, we can discuss why I worked for Mark Dayton's election, we can discuss why we bullhorn right wingers and have many many choice chants to use to wake people up that the right wingers are attempting to hijack our State. The Koch brothers are here, Tom. Would you like to talk about it with an audience?  Or do you just like to sling mud and be "entertaining" for your "fans" and sockpuppets?

We can "discuss" the 36,000 plus reasons to Stop the State SHUTDOWN and why the budget stalemate is a symptom, not the cause.

We can talk about cognitive dissonance, grief, trauma, homelessness, despair, loss of hope, hunger, enslavement -  and then about the five-star dinners your friends enjoy.  My friends go to food banks, just like me.

I will debate you, Tom - and I will ask you how you feel about the 36,000 retirements and "furloughs" while plenty of Legislators are accepting their pay checks and health benefits.  This while many State employees enter STARVATION level incomes.  They wonder how to feed their kids this summer while they are home from school.  You know, basic stuff.  Food, shelter, clothing - a need to have lives with stimulation.  Lives that are now seeing the reality of austerity.

I will ask you to explain the sense of sending hundreds (12,000) to nursing homes at the cost of $60,000 per year (do you and your friends have investments in them?) when helping them live independently only costs $15,000 per year to the taxpayer.

I will challenge you, Tom Emmer, to tell me just how many Republican legislators in this state belong to the American Legislative Exchange Council and/or swore oaths to Grover Norquist while trying to GUT protections for vulnerable children - and fail teenagers who have been beaten by their dysfunctional families. These are runaways who have no shelter accomodations despite years of attempts by concerned citizens to achieve that simple goal.  The state is failing our young, isn't it, Tom Emmer ?

And you worry about bullhorns?  When everything including prisons are up for the grab of privatization, the perpetual money machines for your PAC people?

I will ask why my friend who is disabled cannot work as an accountant any more because he has not enough PCA help was a "reform" of a "bad" system.

I want to debate you about dog whistle politics, bafflegab, greediness, sourness, lack of compassion and honest shame as well as the robotronics so evident in our MN GOP led by Tony Sutton.

I want to know why the closure of 77 State Parks doesn't bother you - and all the loss of tourist dollars is less important than discussing my friends - friends who stay with me in a State housing grant financed apartment I am about to lose.

I want to know, Tom, why it is that the MN Chamber of Commerce did not complain long and loud about the cutting of the LGA grants and why you kept your mouth shut about it.  Do police, firemen, snow removal, and other "amenities" of Main Street mean less than the allegiance to reckless Wall Street in your playbook of politics?

I want to know why the St. Paul police sent in thousands of dollar$ worth of cops, bicycles, squad cars to cover a demonstration of 35 people in 100 degree heat who merely wanted to say:  "Tax the rich!  Help the needy" and "Money Outta Politics" and "End Corporate Tyranny!"  Maybe you have some forceful ideas about public unsafety.  [pun intended]

Why are YOU allowing the looney right to say GAWDAWFUL things about Mark Dayton, make up websites in other states spouting lies about US Uncut - and then taking them down? Why do you allow YOUR followers to call for the impeachment/recall of Mark Dayton when your party has gravenly, with malice aforethought and nonfeasance RUINED our state for GOD KNOWS how long?

How do you feel about US Uncut MN calling for the recall of ALL GOP legislators?

Wanna have a verbal rumble, Tom?  Wanna get it down on the record? Wanna have it help me get US Uncut and US Uncut Minnesota on the national media where you say it belongs?

Then, hey, Tom!  Take the bait - let's go for the gold here on the press circuit.  I am ready.  I am willing.  I am CHARGED and on fire !  I am sick to death of being treated like a second-class citizen in my own home state. I don't appreciate my friends who come to visit me being chastised in print.  It's a RIGHT for them to come here and express their right to free speech and freedom of assembly - or don't you know that?

We can discuss what is wrong in MN in the media, the indifference of the left and the unions here to promote unity, the mealy agenda of the professional poverty industry lackies who aren't losing their Saabs and Volvos - but spoke for the victims of cuts while the true victims were left UNHEARD.  Tom. Tom.  I beg you to understand why Carl and I give them bullhorns to  be heard above the deafening silence of their plight. The supposed advocates saying:  "We should settle for no new taxes as it's "politically astute."  I keep wondering who "we" is. Sigh.

We can discuss what sane, responsible moderates might do to understand what is going on this State, eh?

We can discuss what cognitive dissonance is, what red herrings are and why you get paid to write drivel and innuendo when you can so easily give me a ring.  My number and email address appears on the lit "SOMEONE" gave you.  Give me a call.  Let's set a date, time, place.  We can elucidate the why, the who, the where, the how, the why.  Would you like "my people" to call "your people" ???

Wanna know where I get my money to promote events, Tom?  Do you want to know if  I ever met George Soros?

I'll bet I can answer your most intriguing questions, Tom.  Let's give it a shot !!

Here's to a MN handy dandy spectacle for the citizen's benefit.

Kiss, kiss, hug, hug.

Virginia Simson, Uncutter Deluxe (who has never ever been an anarchist of any kind)