Mike Meyers: All quiet on the class warfare front

Many Minnesotans got battered by the state government shutdown. But a lucky few can rejoice.

Thanks to the heroic exertions of the Republican Party, the 7,700 most prosperous Minnesotans -- those routinely raking in $1 million or more -- shall lack for nothing.

They won't be switching to domestic claret. They needn't economize with a vacation in Tampa when Tuscany beckons. They won't have to confine themselves to a single country club when having one near home, one near the office and one out-of-town is so much more convenient.

Yes, Minnesota lately endured an appalling outburst of class warfare against the moneyed elite. The brief-but-distasteful episode must have inspired distress in the mansions along Summit Avenue and on the well-tended shoreline of Lake Minnetonka.

But who possibly could have guessed the outcome? Once again, fortune smiled on the most fortunate.

Not one more nickel. Not one brass farthing will they pay to pull the state out of a financial abyss $5 billion deep. Reason prevailed thanks to Republican legislators, who raced to the aid of the comfortable. At long last, people with serious money won a voice in shaping tax policy.

The storm passed for the boys with the biggest boats. Congratulations, commodores!

Besides, to echo a ritual incantation of the Republican Party, whose money is it?

The answer, of course, is that the money belongs to those who earned it single-handedly, with absolutely no help of any kind from anyone. We're not all in this together. The rich are islands unto themselves -- sometimes living on real islands.

Whose red ink is it? Clearly, the state shortfall belongs not to the worthies in the top 1 percent of the income distribution. They're not part of the problem; they're the solution. Indeed, they're pushing back against the crass label, "the rich." In the parlance of their Republican protégés, people with big money are ordained as "job creators."

In return for holding the line on their taxes, the affluent have been creating jobs like crazy in recent years. Hasn't anyone noticed?

Hard times are not the moment to raise taxes on job creators. Come to think of it, neither are good times. When the economy is in trouble, job creators should not be deterred from their appointed rounds, advertising openings and hiring long lines of eager applicants. When the economy is roaring, higher taxes would slow the admirable tempo of job growth.

We came to this pass because Dayton held to his principles about taxation based on ability to pay -- for exactly two weeks. The stakes in the stalemate became too rich (pardon the expression) for his blood -- or for his political future.

In any event, all is well.

Thanks to generous dollops of Hollywood accounting, the Legislature is poised to approve a $35 billion biennial spending plan. It won't be an actual balanced budget but an incredible simulation.

The real budget fights will come later, with the expiration of the temporary tricks that will bring 22,000 state employees back to work, reopen state parks to hundreds of thousands of visitors and resupply taverns with the licenses to keep libations flowing.

When the cuts in state spending finally arrive, the well-heeled will feel them less than they would have noticed a state income tax increase -- parting with money better spent with their tailors.

Where to start?

How about holding the line on unemployment insurance? The affluent will have nothing to regret on that count. It's not as if they had a role in handing out pink slips. It's not like they got bonuses or something for paring the company tab for labor.

What about less state aid to schools? Not a problem for the uber-loaded. Crowded classrooms and overworked teachers won't intrude into the lives of their offspring or grandkids. Their education will be private, although state vouchers always would be welcome.

In many other ways, large and small, Minnesota state government will do less for the common good and the common man.

Commoners shouldn't point fingers at their betters, however. Envy is an ugly trait. The "job-creating" class is an industrious, innovative, imaginative lot.