This article highlights Paul Thissen’s deceit in his quest for the Speaker’s gavel:
On the anniversary of the start of last year’s 20-day government shutdown and on the early side of a critical legislative campaign season, DFL House Minority Leader Paul Thissen blamed Republican majorities for the historic shuttering of state government and asked Minnesotans to avoid a “shutdown sequel” by electing DFL majorities.
Thissen was surrounded by a handful of government workers in a Monday afternoon Capitol news conference, all who said it was Republicans who failed to compromise with Gov. Mark Dayton on a solution to the $5 billion budget deficit last summer. By doing so, Thissen said it was Republicans who drove the state into the longest known shutdown in the state and nation’s history.
“The Republican legislative majorities have shown they are unwilling to compromise,” Jason Moran, a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency employee who temporarily lost his job last year, said in a prepared statement. “They did it once, they’ll do it again.”
Thissen continued, calling out quotes from select Republican House members, several in key swing districts, made during the shutdown last year. “What we need to do to prevent another shutdown is elect people who are willing to work together,” Thissen said, pulling up selected newspaper quotations from freshman Reps. King Banaian, Doug Wardlow and Dave Hancock. “We need folks that are willing to work together and do what’s best for the state of Minnesota.”
Thissen is a deceitful weasel. He’s the co-architect of the shutdown. First, Gov. Dayton did everything in his power to guarantee a painful shutdown. He made sure highway projects were shut down. He refused to sign bills that he agreed with.
Meanwhile, Rep. Thissen joined with Sen. Bakk in sabotaging a budget deal worked out between Gov. Dayton and the GOP leadership in the Legislature.
We don’t people like Paul Thissen lecturing us about working together. We need people who tell Twin Cities elitists that they’ve run the state into the ground with their ridiculous regulations and their animosity towards the mining industry in northern Minnesota.
The thought that socialists like Rep. Thissen have our best interests at heart is nauseating. This quote is nauseating, too:
“The Republican legislative majorities have shown they are unwilling to compromise,” Jason Moran, a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency employee who temporarily lost his job last year, said in a prepared statement. “They did it once, they’ll do it again.”
Minnesotans swept the GOP into the House and Senate majorities with overwhelming turnout statewide. This happened because they actually met with people and got the people to vote for them.
If you strip out the Twin Cities’ monolithic vote, Republicans dominated the rest of the state. From southern Minnesota to central Minnesota to northwestern Minnesota, Republicans ran Democrat incumbents out of office in staggering numbers. Some 15 DFL committee chairs were swept out in the House; another 4 DFL committee chairs lost their re-election bids.
In short, Minnesotans wanted the GOP agenda passed. Only a minority of Minnesotans want their taxes increased. Minnesotans voted for a government that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. They voted for a government that understood that businesses, not debt bills, create wealth and prosperity.
They didn’t vote for a legislature that a) refused to propose a formal budget, b) spent money on redistricting staff but didn’t put together a set of redistricting maps and c) wouldn’t vote for the vast majority of reforms Gov. Dayton signed into law.
Rep. Thissen is a slippery, disgusting, deceitful little man. It’s little wonder why he’s the minority leader.
Meanwhile, King Banaian voted to a) prevent job-killing tax increases and b) reform a Twentieth Century government. Most importantly, King wrote the bill calling for government agencies, commissions and other overbloated bureaucracies to justify their existence. Then he convinced Phyllis Kahn and 11 other DFL legislatores to support the legislation.
Finally, King got Gov. Dayton to sign this important legislation into law.
Now that’s impressive.
Tags: State Government Shutdown, Paul Thissen, Tom Bakk, Mark Dayton, Obstructionists, Tax Increases, DFL, King Banaian, Reforms, We The People, MNGOP
As a well-connected very credible source summed it up for me in 2010: Paul Thissen is a moron. As you’ve again illustrated, trying to perceive competent reasoning or valid motivation in his words and deeds is pointless.
I agree Rex but Thissen and his moronic statements are all the people heard while the GOP hid in the corner not wanting to offend anyone during an election year.