Senate Republicans celebrated passage of all their budget-balancing proposals Thursday by bashing Democrats for failing to offer a plan of their own.
"The Senate DFL has been missing in action from the debate," said Deputy Senate Majority Leader Geoff Michel, R-Edina. "That's worth calling out."
Democrats have spent weeks hammering Republicans who control the Legislature for muscling through a budget plan built, in part, on unproven financial assumptions, possibly illegal actions and deep cuts to DFL strongholds. But Republicans in both chambers reached a milestone early Thursday morning when they finished passing their plan to erase the state's $5 billion projected deficit -- without raising taxes.
While DFL Gov. Mark Dayton is likely to veto the plan, the GOP has painted Democrats as a nuisance opposition with no serious interest in dealing with tough budget choices. They say Democrats have neither offered their own plan nor summoned the political force to advance Dayton's proposal.
So far, Senate Democrats have not introduced their budget for the health and human services department, which gobbles up more than 30 percent of the state budget. Nearly three months into the legislative session, several other key Democratic-led bills have yet to get a hearing.
DFLers note that this is no different from when Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty was in office and Democrats controlled the Legislature. In those years, Republican minorities often sat back as Pawlenty and DFL leaders slugged it out to balance the budget.
This time, however, Democrats have not come out to express unwavering support for Dayton's plan the way Republicans backed Pawlenty.
Senate DFLers say it's a waste of time to draft legislation that simply winds up getting crushed in committee. Instead, they have tried, and mostly failed, to amend Republican budget bills during floor debates.
"We tried our best to offer amendments on the floor," but it didn't work, said Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook.
DFLers are largely leaving their budget hopes in Dayton's hands. Since most of the budget bills were party-line votes, Senate Democrats won't have a seat at powerful conference committees where members resolve differences between House and Senate proposals.
Instead, DFLers have slipped largely into a budget watchdog role, highlighting what they see as problems.
Chief among them? Democrats claim Republicans are banking on roughly $828 million in cuts that can't be proven. They say Republicans booked "phony money" because they can't truly balance the budget without making politically unpopular cuts.
"You can't just make up numbers and then say you have a balanced budget," Bakk said.
All of the political bluster might not mean much. Dayton has significant problems with many components of the Republican plan and has said he would reject anything less than a complete budget package.
That means the two sides will have to scramble to reach an agreement by the May 23 adjournment. There's a lot of ground to cover.
Republicans refuse to accept Dayton's proposal to raise taxes on high earners, but the governor opposes the GOP's desire for steep reductions in aid to counties and cities, particularly for Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth.
"We're excited to have our budgets done," Michel said. "But we realize it's not done."
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