Each in his own way Tuesday, Republican Tom Emmer and DFLer Mark Dayton reminded Minnesotans that the state budget dilemma that faces the next governor is daunting indeed.
Emmer rolled out the third and likely final glimpse he'll offer of how he will balance the state budget if he is elected on Nov. 2. In large measure, he would do it by ignoring the projected cost of contining today's spending formulas for K-12 education, health care for the poor, aid to cities and counties and a host of smaller programs administered by state agencies. He insists on benchmarking against this biennium's spending, and won't say how he would change formulas to arrive at reduced results.
That wave of the hand allows him to say, for example, that he wants a $500 million increase in K-12 spending in 2012-13 over this biennium's amount. But compared with what schools are owed under the existing per-pupil formula, it's a $500 million cut -- and that's not to mention any repayment of the $1.4 billion IOU the state sent schools last year and this one.That trick makes it possible for him to claim that he's increasing human services spending by about $650 million, when in fact he'd have to shave $2.25 billion off of existing programs to hit that spending target.
Even so, Emmer can't hide the whopping spending cuts he's proposing for higher education, local governments and state agencies -- the very things that have been taking a fiscal beating during Gov. Tim Pawlenty's two terms. If Pawlenty were designing a state budget for 2012-13, it likely would look very similar to Emmer's.
But unlike Pawlenty, who as governor has had to say how he would shrink spending, Emmer ducked reporters' calls for details Tuesday -- with one exception. He said he would ask the Legislature to require cities to use his much-depleted state aid program exclusively for public safety and infrastructure improvements. That would deprive them of the local control over those funds that they've had since the program's inception in 1971.
Dayton, who sharply criticized Emmer's spending cuts, admitted to some budgeting woes of his own. The income tax increase he proposes on high-end earners would raise only $1.9 billion over two years, about half as much as he originally aimed to raise from that source. "These projections show that more work is needed," said the Dayton campaign's Katharine Tinucci. I'd apply that tag line to both big-party candidates' budget work to date.
