Almanac: At the Capitol

In 2005, then-Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson declared "we have enough money in the system. The general knock on Democrats is that we are 'tax and spenders.' Not if I am Majority Leader, we're not."

Of course, just a few months later the Senate proposed a slew of tax increases, including the highest income tax rate in the nation.

Democrats may not want to be known as "tax and spenders"; unfortunately for them and us, that is what they actually are. When push comes to shove, they push for huge tax increases to keep up with all the spending they want to do.

Democrats have been running away from their tax and spend image for years, and the huge majorities in both houses of the Legislature is built on a fragile foundation of Suburban DFL legislators from traditionally Republican Districts.

Almost to a person these Democrats ran as "fiscally conservative and socially moderate," and suburban voters responded. In the poisonous anti-Republican atmosphere that pervaded the election season, that was enough to get many Democrats elected this time around—in some cases by fewer than 100 votes.

This Legislative session, though, is going to be the acid test of whether there actually IS such a thing as a fiscally conservative Democrat in Minnesota any more.

Here's the scoop: In 2003 Governor Pawlenty was faced with a huge budget deficit, amounting to about 15% of the General Fund budget. Despite enormous pressures to raise taxes, Pawlenty and the Legislature crafted a budget that put the State back on the path to fiscal health without raising taxes.

Now here we are in 2007, with a budget surplus of over $2 billion and substantial Democrat majorities in both houses of the Legislature. You would think that this is political gold for the liberals: they get to increase spending for everything and everyone, all without raising taxes.

Have your cake and eat it too!

But noooooooo.... They just can't help themselves. Over the past 2 months of the session we have seen the Democrats propose a whole slew of tax increases, so far mostly aimed at "solving" the transportation "funding crisis." (Didn't we just pass a Constitutional Amendment to deal with that? Oh well, that was LAST year!)

Just yesterday (February 27th) the Mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul proposed not one, not two, but fully SEVEN new tax increases, plus new mechanisms for going into debt (raising FUTURE TAXES) just to fund this one issue area. That has to be a record! (Isn't there a fairy tale called "seven in one blow?")

And we haven't even touched spending increases for education, health care, welfare, early childhood, and on and on and on....

By the end of this session the Democrats will have done more to solidify their rightful image as 'tax and spenders' than all the Republican rhetoric could do in months of negative advertising. And for a simple reason: Democrats in fact ARE tax and spenders.

Unfortunately, as we found out over the past few years, once they are in power for a while Republicans too fall into the trap of becoming tax and spenders.

All this happens for a simple reason: When you are in government, especially at the level of State Legislators, you actually do precious little OTHER that deal with issues of taxes and spending.

After all, Legislators don't educate; they SPEND MONEY to pay others to educate.

Legislators don't enforce laws, they spend money for others to find and jail criminals.

Legislators don't build or fix roads; they spend money to pay others to do so.

With few exceptions, pretty much all Legislators do is tax and spend. That's why Democrats have traditionally been the party of government: they love to tax and spend.

It's not just a cottage industry anymore — being outraged at something, all the time, has become a way of life for many of us political junkies and professionals.

The logic behind it isn't that hard to discern — if you can get a group of people angry at something those people are doing, it will be far easier to get them to write a check, make some phone calls, or knock on some doors for you and your side. But as I discovered in a recent interview with Nate Garvis of the Citizens' League, this "outrage industry" in and around politics is ultimately a destructive one — it will get some people involved for a while, but ultimately it's only going to turn massive numbers of people off to the political process.

Some may think that's a good thing; I disagree.

I also disagree that it's one side that engages in this encouragement of outrage. The DFL and Republican parties both express incredulity on a regular basis as they demand that the other side submits to their political will. Which, of course, will never happen, and the cycle continues.

In 2007, however, there's an important difference between the things over which the two parties are expressing their eternal outrage. While the Republican legislative leadership in Minnesota waxes rhetoric about not being allowed input on DFL-sponsored bills, the DFL is complaining — rightfully so, I think — about the GOP obstructing an agenda that was pretty clearly endorsed by the electorate last year.

In Congress, Republicans have built years of experience expressing outrage on a litany of topics, including the same "Democrats won't let us have input" whine. On the other hand, Democrats have been outraged at President Bush's conduct of a war, predicated on a lie, that has cost us thousands of American lives and billions upon billions of dollars.

And even in the blogosphere, partisans get outraged with one another — shocking, isn't it? Left-leaning bloggers are outraged at the maneuvers Republican lawmakers engage in to thwart the Democratic majorities, and at President Bush for any number of bungles, screw-ups, mishaps, or demonstrations of gross incompetance. On the other side, righty bloggers rev up their spin machine over minor legislation, Congressional websites not being set up immediately, a popularly-elected Secretary of State's every word, and are aghast that left-leaning bloggers might use a naughty word from time to time. And are fat.

I would demonstrate that I am indeed not joking about these things, but for the fact that I am loathe to link to these travesties. I'm not going to say I'm not a little outraged — that is, after all, part of what we in the political game today do. I can honestly say I'm doing my best to take things in stride and save true outrage for when it's deserved. But it does seem like there's an asymmetry today in the things that cause us outrage, doesn't it? One side worried about a waste of lives and American prestige, the other worried about freedom to poop and fat potty-mouthed liberals.

Interesting.