Editorial: GOP challenge - make reform real

Star Tribune Editorial

By the numbers alone, the 2012-13 state spending targets that Republican legislative leaders laid out Thursday looked like more of the same -- the same steady squeeze for schools and painful pinch for the poor and sick, colleges and universities, state agencies and local governments that they felt for most of the past decade.

The pattern of proposed cuts appears drawn from former GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty's fiscal management playbook.

Legislators echoed Pawlenty's "no new taxes" mantra, while, as Pawlenty did repeatedly, they proposed spending cuts that would almost certainly lead to higher local and school property taxes and higher tuition for the state's college students.

But the language in which GOP legislative leaders couched their proposed spending limits was different, and more hopeful. It was loaded with promises of change in the way government agencies are structured, government-financed health care is delivered and tax burdens are aligned.

The word "reform" was uttered repeatedly. But its meaning was not spelled out.

Making reform real -- that's the challenge facing the Legislature's new Republican majorities in the next two weeks.

Their best opportunity, and biggest hurdle, lies with the fast-growing health and human services budget. Republicans propose to trim a scheduled 22 percent increase in biennial spending down to about 6 percent.

Without reform, Republicans would be talking about cutting health insurance for thousands more low-income people and damaging the health care infrastructure.

But health care reformers have argued for years that paying providers a lump sum to keep the chronically ill as healthy as possible, rather than paying for the number of procedures performed, would wring substantial savings out of public health care budgets.

Whether that savings can be had quickly enough to help balance the 2012-13 state budget is unclear. But the time to try it has come -- and DFL Gov. Mark Dayton would be wise to give that trial his blessing and assistance.

Dayton is sure to resist aspects of the Republican budget plan that damage the reach and quality of public services. But the more Republicans aim to redesign government, the better the chances for their budget ideas to become law.

The GOP budget targets don't specify how large their cuts to local government will be, but they appear to be at least at a double-digit percentage. The latest Department of Revenue estimates project that for every $1 in state aid cuts, property taxes rise 50 cents.

But reshape aid to cities and counties in a way that directs state help to low- and middle-income property taxpayers, and the governor might be lured to the bargaining table.

That may be the thinking behind the House Republican proposal for a $300 million reduction in (at this writing) unspecified state or local tax reductions for those Minnesotans.

The very deep higher-education cuts Republicans propose are a threat to this state's best economic asset, its well-educated workforce. Minnesota has seen enough erosion of college affordability. But reform could soften the blow the GOP proposes.

Legislators ought to direct a larger share of state higher-education funding to student financial aid, and give more autonomy -- not less, as some Republican legislators want -- to higher-education governing boards to do what's needed to preserve quality in their systems.

There is indeed, if they are to make their version of "no new taxes" more acceptable than the one Minnesotans have seen too much of already. It's showtime.

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