Editorial: Questions remain on budget proposals

Minnesota voters know a little more today than they did a few days ago about how the leading candidates for governor would handle the state fiscal mess that one of them stands to inherit from Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

For that, a modicum of praise is due Republican Tom Emmer, who had been ducking budget questions for too long, and DFLer Mark Dayton, who owned up Tuesday to his original plan's flaws.

But we're sparing in our commendation for them, and also for the Independence Party's Tom Horner. Too many unanswered questions remain about the budgetary intentions of each of the three leading gubernatorial candidates.

This year especially, with a forecast that state revenues will fall a whopping 15 percent short of scheduled spending in 2012-13, voters deserve more than glossy vagueness. They should know not only how the candidates would move the spending and taxing numbers, but also how those moves would affect Minnesotans today and in the future.

The bare-bones budget outline released Tuesday by Emmer leaves the latter question largely unanswered. His list of spending targets in five big budget categories tells Minnesotans that he plans to tighten the fiscal vise on things that have been squeezed hard already in the past decade. Human services, higher education, aid to cities and counties, and state agencies (corrections, public safety, natural resources and the rest) would experience serious shrinkage on an Emmer diet. K-12 education would be treated more kindly, but would still receive $500 million less than the current school aid formula would deliver.

Emmer dropped only a few hints about how he would make those cuts. For example, he'd give health and human services programs an 18 percent whack in 2012-13 by "refocusing" on needy children, elderly and disabled adults. And poor adults? He would "work with the Legislature to reform programs for adults," he said Tuesday. Previously, Emmer has said tax incentives for charity care should replace state-funded health care for the poor.

He also said he would seek new restrictions on how cities could use state aid -- even as he aims to reduce the aid now due to flow to cities and counties by a whopping 33 percent.

The other two candidates, Dayton and Horner, are wise to include a mix of tax increases and spending cuts in their budget plans. But they too have more work to do.

Dayton admitted Tuesday what independent analysts had been saying: His proposal for an income tax increase for the top 10 percent of state earners would not produce anything close to the $4 billion over two years that he sought to raise. He's back to the budget drawing board.

There, Dayton faces both a challenge and an opportunity. He is justified in seeking a greater measure of fairness in the way the combined state and local tax burden falls on Minnesotans. The state's top earners pay a lower effective rate than others and are in a position to pay more. But Dayton has seemed unconcerned about how a higher top income tax rate would affect Minnesota's ability to attract talent and business investment. As he amends his plan in coming days, he has a chance to adjust it to respond to business concerns -- and to demonstrate the adaptability and collaboration that governing requires.

Horner's budget plan relies more on the sales tax to bring state government more revenue, thereby sidestepping some business concerns. But it also books more than $1 billion in "redesign savings" from restructuring programs. Those savings may or may not be available in time to help balance the 2012-13 budget. In addition, unlike Dayton and Emmer, Horner has not submitted his tax proposals to the Department of Revenue for analysis. He should.