That’s the message from Larry Haws in Larry Schumacher’s blog last Thursday. Here’s Larry Schumacher quoted Larry Haws as saying:

“We will be looking at ways to balance the budget, cut spending, use reserve funds, and close Foreign Operating Corporation tax loopholes, everything will be on the table for consideration.”

That’s rather odd considering how much of the overbloated DFL budget Mr. Haws voted for. Had that passed, we wouldn’t have been facing a $373 million deficit. It would’ve significantly higher, most likely in the billions of dollars range.

Let’s compare Rep. Haws’ statement with Rep. Steve Gottwalt’s statement that got things started:

Steve Gottwalt had just said that we needed to do a better job prioritizing education spending, prompting Larry Haws to say “Maybe we do need to prioritize.”

Why should we believe that Rep. Haws will prioritize cutting spending considering his record in the last session? Rep. Haws voted against 10 of the 12 items on the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce priority list.

Here’s a final quote from Rep. Haws:

“Long-term deficit projections of over $1.2 billion are another matter and will call on us to be innovate and forward thinking as we work to balance the budget and return to investing in education, job creation, transportation, and research and development.”

Rest assured that a Democrat’s translation of innovate is raise taxes. We already know that Democrats plan on refighting last session’s budget fights. At least, that was their plan until last week’s deficit report.

Another thing that we’re certain of is that they’ll attempt to increase spending on education, especially after the amount of school referenda that didn’t pass a month ago. The DFL will be under alot of pressure from EdMinn after that.

I guess Rep. Haws is right that “everything is on the table.” Unfortunately, we aren’t sure if he means last year’s budget or fixing this year’s budget deficit. Hopefully our goalie will come up big again.

Technorati: Larry Haws, Balanced Budget, Deficits, Education, Tax Increases, Education Minnesota, DFL