Lori Sturdevant: It's his tax hike, and -- bravely -- he's sticking to it

Statehouse scribes enjoy writing about DFL Senate tax chairman Tom Bakk because it gives them a chance to trot out an adjective they rarely get to use: "burly."

As the 6-foot-2 former carpenter from Cook assembles and defends the biggest tax-increase bill in many a legislative session, while at the same time running for governor in 2010, I'll dust off another b-word that we Capitol writers too seldom find apt: "brave."

Other labels also fit Bakk and the situation in which he, with blue eyes wide open, has placed himself -- some of them none too complimentary. His House counterparts on the tax conference committee would call him stubborn. Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the Republican he would like to unseat, would say he's just plain wrong-headed. (After a few fruitless late-night conference committee meetings last week, I bet I could've found a House DFLer or two who agreed with the governor.)

But I'm sticking with Bakk the brave. Add "forthright," too. After wasting many an hour watching DFL candidates for the Legislature and governor dance around on taxes, I find Bakk's unabashed call for a tax hike an uncommon show of political courage and candor.

He went so far as to put his name on a honkin' huge one -- $2.2 billion, all of it in higher income taxes, over the next two years.

Bakk defends that position in everyman terms. A gimmick-free state budget that actually solves the problem requires a big tax increase, he says. The income tax is fair and understandable. You don't pay it if you're not making money.

He calls into question the intestinal fortitude of his tax increase's most prominent critic.

"Clearly, that wasn't sustainable," Bakk says. "Those of us who voted for those cuts ought to be man enough to stand up and say, 'We made a mistake.'"

The Senate tax bill Bakk assembled doesn't quite turn back the tax clock. But it comes close. It restores the bottom and third tax brackets to their 1998 rates, and shaves a few tenths of a percentage point off the 1998 middle-bracket rate. Then it adds the kicker that the business lobby hates: a fourth tier, 9.25 percent on any portion of married-joint filers' incomes greater than $250,000.

That bill faces a certain veto. So does (did? -- it wasn't clear at this writing) the DFL's second shot at putting a tax increase into the next state budget. At $1 billion over the next two years, it's half the size of Bakk's package. But it still includes a temporary income tax fourth tier, with a 9 percent tax rate.

That's not in "soak the rich" territory. It's more like "bring the rich closer to the rest of us."

There's nothing modest, though, about the partisan resistance a fourth tier generates. Nor is there anything understated about the concern voiced for mom-and-pop businesses that might pay more if a fourth tier were in the tax code.

Bakk refutes any suggestion that he's unfriendly to business. He's a union negotiator who learned long ago that management and labor have a shared interest in keeping a business properous. Like the last successful DFL candidate for governor did 23 years ago, Bakk says he intends to campaign on "jobs, jobs, jobs."

It may be no coincidence that Iron Ranger Bakk's thinking about how the state can help grow jobs are a lot like those of the state's only Iron Range governor. Like Rudy Perpich, Bakk believes access to quality education and affordable health care are probusiness. Like Perpich, Bakk is willing to spend state money to help businesses hire. His tax bill includes a raft of credits, exemptions, loans and breaks aimed at producing more jobs.

But it also includes a $330 million increase in the statewide business property tax to pay for those things. That little item might beat out the fourth tier on a list of Taxes Businesses Detest.

Bakk has already taken his ideas to about 20 local chambers of commerce. He says he plans to visit more as soon as the session ends. See what I mean about bravery?