Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

Pawlenty to Legislature: Cut $536 million or I will

The governor bashed DFL lawmakers for cutting only a fraction of the money necessary to balance the budget and frittering away the session on less consequential legislation.

By BAIRD HELGESON, Star Tribune
Last update: May 4, 2010 - 11:32 PM

With less than two weeks remaining in the legislative session, Gov. Tim Pawlenty offered up a new round of potentially painful and politically unpopular budget cuts Tuesday as a hoped-for $408 million federal windfall has failed to materialize so far.

Pawlenty announced the cuts amid a flurry of tough talk that shot like a lightning bolt through the heart of what has been an otherwise sleepy budget battle. The governor bashed DFL lawmakers for cutting only a fraction of the money necessary to balance the budget and frittering away the session on less consequential legislation.

"It's ridiculous; in fact, it's pathetic," Pawlenty said at a news conference. "If they won't do it, I'll do it for them," he said, hinting at a possible use of his emergency budget-cutting power, known as unallotment. He used unallotment last summer to unilaterally balance the budget, an action that has been challenged in court.

DFLers accused Pawlenty, a Republican, of being disengaged as he tests a possible run for president and for throwing "a tantrum" when he didn't get his way on earlier budget-cutting recommendations.

"Bring it down a notch," said Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis. "Just bring it down a notch."

Pawlenty and some legislators had penciled in $408 million in likely federal funding to help plug a nearly $1 billion hole in the state budget through next summer.

Without the federal windfall, lawmakers must slice about $536 million from the budget before they adjourn May 17. Pawlenty proposed resurrecting $405 million in cuts that lawmakers have so far rejected, largely in the form of reductions in aid to local governments and human services. To make up the remaining $131 million, Pawlenty proposed deeper cuts to those areas and reductions in aid for the Iron Range. He spared military, veterans and K-12 schools.

© 2010 Star Tribune

http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/92831664.html [with comments]


=====


State Supreme Court rules against Pawlenty
May 5, 2010 - 1:50 PM
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/92869964.html [with comments]

---

Court upends Pawlenty's solo cuts
May 5, 2010 - 8:55 PM
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/92870524.html