opinion

There are good reasons to be disappointed by the 2009 Minnesota Legislative session that hung fire in a Three-Card Monte con game involving all sides in the process -- the impotence of the Democratic majority, the reckless refuseniks of the Republican minority and the weirdly detached leadership of Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

But there is no good reason, in the midst of present hardship and future uncertainty, to return to scapegoating the poor for the state's budget problems.

"We've never been able to demonstrate that Minnesota is 'a welfare magnet,'" Demographer Tom Gillaspy says.

The last survey, released a year ago, did not show a significant difference between the numbers of arrivals who received public assistance and the numbers of people on assistance who moved out of Minnesota. It was a wash, and the result was consistent with previous findings, although the deep recession, which began in late 2007, could affect the picture (results of a new survey, based on last year's data, should be available this fall).

According to Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung, the Department of Human Services says almost 14 percent of public assistance seekers were from outside Minnesota in 2007. But that number, without knowing how many public assistance clients left Minnesota, does not make us Welfare Shangri-La.

Here's another thing the governor's retro welfare-bashing overlooks: If the number of Minnesotans on assistance grows, it won't be because the poor are moving here. It will more likely be because an increasing number of Minnesotans -- the unemployed, the underemployed, the foreclosed-upon -- are sinking into poverty.

"We have met the enemy," my favorite comic strip possum, Walt Kelly's Pogo, used to say. "And he is us." Well, we have met the people who need assistance. And they could well be us, too.

The important question of how society -- the public and private sectors, the churches and charities -- should respond to the growing ranks of the poor should not be obscured by debunked canards, whatever value they have as red meat for conservative voters.

"The poor don't vote, and they don't contribute," notes the Rev. John Estrem, the CEO of Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, a major player in the fight against poverty and its effects. "So the poor are an easy group to take a swing at. But cutting the budget on the poor just shifts the cost, does damage to people and doesn't work."

The ambitious Pawlenty seems to be trying hard to impress audiences outside Minnesota. But it's hard to climb to national attention and stay there without demonstrating an independent philosophy that is as open to reality as to rhetoric. At the moment, Pawlenty has painted himself into a tight corner, with his old mentors Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, just at a time when Republican realists like Colin Powell are trying to keep the GOP from obsolescence.

His political future is the governor's lookout. But I don't believe that cutting services to the poorest and reviving discredited stereotypes will help him in the long run, at home or in Washington.

Tim Pawlenty knows better. Minnesota deserves better.

Nick Coleman is a senior fellow at the Eugene J. McCarthy Center for Public Policy & Civic Engagement at the College of St. Benedict/St. John's University. He can be reached at nickcolemanonline@gmail.com.