I just finished reading Rep. Larry Haws’ editorial on the bonding bill that’s about to be debated. Here’s the section that jumps off the page at me:

Rigorous maintenance priority schedules will help guide our choices as we make our way through this bonding year at the State Legislature with a shared commitment to make effective use of tax dollars and ensure safe state building and schools. With this in mind, I carried a number of asset preservation bills: roof repair of St Cloud National Armory, Saint Cloud University repair and replace boilers, roofs, chiller systems, and emergency power systems, and St. Cloud Technical College replace electrical components and roofs. Also, I carried the Department of Correction Asset Preservation Bill. As we drive by our granite wall prison we should note that the Saint Cloud Reformatory, built in 1889, is the oldest facility in the Department of Correction System.

These projects often have a Rodney Dangerfield syndrome… “They get just no respect”. But they need to be put high on the list for they will have, pay back in efficient, safety for citizens and employees, and jobs ready to go.

Saying that doing maintenance is something that will create jobs is laughable on its face. At best, they’re something that will keep people employed. I’d bet the ranch that these projects won’t create any long term jobs. In fact, I’d borrow money, then bet that money & the proverbial ranch that these maintenance jobs won’t create any long term new jobs. Here’s the other part of the editorial that doesn’t make sense:

Overall, in 2008, every project considered for inclusion in the capital investment bill will be looked at in terms of the potential to create jobs as soon as possible. It’s good Minnesota wisdom to fix the old before you build the new.

Thinking that through will give a person mental whiplash. rep. Haws has just said that legislators’ top priority in the bonding bill is to create jobs. Then he says that it’s important to fix the old before building the new. I’d love hearing Rep. Haws explain which economic principles he used in arriving at his opinion that building maintenance creates new jobs.

NOTE TO LARRY: The private sector is the place where new jobs are created. Unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit is the way it’s done. Putting together another public works bonding bill isn’t the way to create long term, sustainable jobs.

I want to be fair so now I’ll pick on Tarryl Clark a bit. Here’s what she said in her e-letter:

On February 28, Minnesota’s Finance Commissioner and the State Economist
announced Minnesota’s projected budget shortfall for the remainder of the 2008-09 budget cycle is a staggering gap of $935 million. That is $562 million more than the $372 million deficit forecast in November 2007 and comparable to the 2002 budget deficit that yielded major cuts to state services. When we left session last May, the state was in the black with a small positive balance.

I couldn’t find out what the deficit figure was for 2002 but everyone who’s followed Minnesota politics knows that Tim Pawlenty inherited a $4.5 billion deficit when he was sworn in. Even Patricia Lopez knows based on this article:

No one expects Thursday’s news to be as bad as the $4.5 billion deficit of 2003. But state officials also have noted that the impact of any cuts would be magnified because the state is well into its two-year budget period, which ends June 2009.

There’s something worth noting in Tarryl’s e-letter. She said that they left the 2007 session with “a small positive balance.” It isn’t that I think she’s wrong about that. It’s that that doesn’t fit with the DFL’s mantra of figuring in inflation. If you figured in inflation, you’d certainly have left with a deficit. In fact, applying inflation to budget surpluses & deficits, you’d have to say that they left with a pretty significant deficit that’s only gotten bigger. Here’s the good news from Tarryl’s perspective:

Since then, the state’s projected revenue has declined over $1.2 billion. To the extent there is good news, it is that state spending is at budgeted levels.

That’s one of the most twisted statements I’ve ever heard. Of course spending is at budgeted levels. If it wasn’t, then they’d be violating the budget signed into law. In & of itself, that isn’t automatically good or bad. It just means that they’re following the law.

Technorati: Larry Haws, Tarryl Clark, Bonding Bill, Maintenance, Job Creation, Budget Deficit, Tim Pawlenty