State budget’s future dark

Talk about it

ST. PAUL – For 28 years, Jim Mulder has looked into his crystal ball and predicted how legislators and the governor will solve budget problems.

Now, the Association of Minnesota Counties’ executive director said, that crystal ball is dark. Mulder and other veteran budget-watchers are stumped as lawmakers prepare for the 2009 legislative session that begins at noon Jan. 6.

No one knows how to fix a record state budget deficit that most predict will top $6 billion for a two-year budget lawmakers and the governor must write in the first half of 2009.

Usually as a new legislative session approaches, lawmakers are full of ideas for how to solve problems facing the state and they rattle off a list of other bills they will push. However, when the noon Jan. 6 start of the 2009 legislative session arrives, there will be no answers to the budget question, a question so dominant that few other issues even are being discussed.

For one, Sen. Gary Kubly, DFL-Granite Falls, admits to being puzzled, even after a dozen years in the Legislature.

“I don’t have a clue how to start handling that kind of a deficit when we’ve already used up the easy money,” Kubly said. “I don’t know what kind of revenue increases could be agreed to. That’s part of the bewildering nature this time around.”

Kubly and other veteran lawmakers remember 2003, when lawmakers and Gov. Tim Pawlenty used a variety of budget-balancing tricks with tails that will limit what they can do in 2009.

One thing Kubly and other policymakers know is that upcoming budget cuts “will be deep and painful.”

Or, as Rep. Kent Eken, DFL-Twin Valley, put it: “It’s not going to be a very fun session.”

The problem is simple: The state does not have enough money to cover its expected expenses.

If the state budget continues as is, Minnesota easily would spend more than $37 billion in the two years beginning next July 1. But if the economy continues as is, taxes and other revenues will struggle to reach $32 billion.

Policymakers are left with two options: Cut the budget. Raise taxes.

Everyone agrees state budgets will be cut, although no one in power has decided just how to do that. Most want to keep money flowing to education. Pawlenty also puts a priority on public safety and veteran-related spending. And various types of health and human services spending for the poor, especially, are becoming even more important in this time of economic distress.

Republican Pawlenty says he will not accept higher taxes or fees, but has made vague references to higher revenues.

Legislative leaders plan to ask their committees to evaluate state spending and revenues right after they convene for the year.

Pawlenty must release his budget proposal by Jan. 27, and he makes it clear it will focus on cuts.

A legislative budget plan probably will not come out until well after a late-February economic forecast that many experts expect to show a budget deficit well north of $6 billion.

The budget must be balanced; deficit spending, like done in Washington, is not allowed.

The state constitution requires lawmakers to end their regular session by May 18, but many predict the budget mess is so ugly that a special summer session will be needed to finish the budget.

“I’m not planning on any summer vacations,” said Rep. Doug Magnus, R-Slayton said.

Tags: news, minnesota, budget, legislature, associationofminnesotacounties, deficit