Rep. Dan Severson, (R-HD14A), has an op-ed in this morning’s St. Cloud Times that needs highlighting. Rep. Severson’s op-ed highlights (surprise, surprise) the DFL’s my-way-or-the-highway governing approach:

After the 2008 elections, legislators understood the clear message from voters for bipartisan solutions. To meet that expectation, we offered dozens of specific proposals for improving the economy, cutting the cost of government and reforming the way your money is spent.

Those ideas were neither Republican nor Democrat, but ideas from Minnesotans who we listen to and represent. They were offered with the expectation they would be judged based on their merits, not partisan politics. That is what the public expects.
Unfortunately, nearly every idea was dismissed out-of-hand by a DFL majority interested in only its own agenda during the 2009 legislative session. This partisan “leadership” led to a historic breakdown of the budget process, which served no one well.

Yet on the brink of the 2010 legislative session, it seems little has changed, as evidenced by these four meeting in one day in St. Cloud. This event, arranged with no input or consultation with Republicans, appeared to be a tightly orchestrated remake of February’s so-called “listening sessions.”

Many of us attended those meetings only to learn that some speakers received advance talking points while honest, everyday citizens were told there wasn’t enough time to speak.

At the St. Cloud stop of the Cherrypicked Testimony Tour, the DFL didn’t even bother hearing about ways to improve Minnesota’s business climate:

The testimony taken was broken down into categories, including segments dealing with education, HHS, the judicial system and county governments.

In short, the testimony was broken down into talking about government. The DFL is so devoted to solving government’s problems that they didn’t bother eliciting testimony on improving Minnesota’s business climate or Minnesota’s economy.

The other thing that’s noteworthy is that the DFL didn’t bother eliciting testimony on reforming how government operates. This is proof that the DFL is the party of the status quo. The only thing that changes year-to-year is their desire to increase spending and increasing taxes.

The documentation on the DFL’s incompetence is substantial. Let’s start with the DFL’s hodgepodge budget that technically balanced Minnesota’s budget for about half a day. Technically, it was scored to give Minnesota a $3,625 budget surplus at the end of this biennium. It was a budget so flimsy that WCCO and KSTP didn’t even take it seriously in terms of eliminating the deficit.

This past session, the DFL’s ‘leadership’, specifically Sen. John Marty, ignored health care reforms that would’ve already been saving us tens of millions of dollars in savings to the taxpayers. Rep. Gottwalt’s Healthy Minnesota Plan received unanimous DFL support in its first committee hearing. That didn’t matter to Sen. Marty. He didn’t even give the legislation a hearing. It should be noted that Sen. David Hann of Eden Prairie was the bill’s sponsor on the Senate side.

I extensively documented the DFL legislature’s intraparty fight on taxes, including here, here, here and here. In fact, Rep. Gene Pelowski’s opposition to raising taxes has ‘earned’ him a primary fight this year.

Here’s another key observation in Rep. Severson’s op-ed:

Those events produced absolutely no progress toward a balanced budget or a better economy. It may have provided a venue for hand-picked testifiers to criticize Gov. Tim Pawlenty, but that only served to poison the relationship between the governor and the DFL-controlled Legislature.

Last winter, many MOBsters wrote about the DFL constantly criticizing Gov. Pawlenty. It’s unfortunate that the DFL didn’t put a priority on having a real discussion with Minnesota on what’s most important to them. A line President Bush used against John Kerry in their final debate fits perfectly into this discussion. After listening to Sen. Kerry whine about what President Bush hadn’t done in terms of national security, President Bush simply replied that “A laundry list of complaints isn’t an agenda.”

When Rep. Tom Emmer highlighted the DFL’s refusal to put out their own budget, Speaker Kelliher suggested that this was just a GOP gimmick:

It happened again Thursday. The Minnesota House was meeting in full session, running through some routine business, when Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Delano, rose, cleared his throat and said to DFLers, “We’ve been here a month; why are we still waiting for your budget proposal?”

There were some head shakes, but no response. The House got back to the business at hand.

Emmer’s question has become the mantra of state Republicans. In every public forum, at least one or two Republican legislators raise the question: If DFL legislators don’t like Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s proposed budget, why don’t they come up with one of their own?

“It’s strategic,” said House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, of the Republican cry. “It’s designed to freak people out on our side, and it takes attention off the governor’s budget.”

Speaker Kelliher’s refusal to offer a substantive plan tells thinking people that the DFL didn’t have an appealing, positive agenda. The DFL’s agenda, other than criticizing Gov. Pawlenty, contained spending increases and tax hikes. Again, a laundry list of criticisms isn’t an agenda. The DFL doesn’t have new ideas. They’re the party of the status quo. That’s why they’re peddling their agenda of tax increases and saying yes to everything on their political allies’ wish lists.

As Rep. Severson and Rep. Gottwalt frequently point out, setting priorities is important in putting a budget together. Living within our means is another thing Reps. Severson and Gottwalt highlight frequently. Clearly, saying no isn’t something that the DFL does. (Perhaps it’s genetic? Perhaps you’ve noticed that their DC brethren don’t seem able to say no to anything on the liberals’ wish list.)

The bigger point in this discussion is that the Minnesota GOP has a long list of ideas, ranging from strengthening Minnesota’s economy to fixing health care by using market-driven solutions to fixing Minnesota’s tax code to education reforms that focus more on educational results and accountability than on increasing funding and raising taxes.

When the DFL took total control of the legislature, Minnesota’s economy was structurally solid. A short 4 years later, it’s in shambles. If voters give our next governor a GOP legislature, Minnesota’s economy will improve both in terms of structural soundness and in terms of creating wealth and sustainable prosperity.

Anything less than that is unacceptable. The DFL won’t improve the economy because they’re the party of ever-expanding government.

Technorati: Editorial, Dan Severson, Economy, Health Care, Education, Taxes, Reforms, Steve Gottwalt, Tom Emmer, Tim Pawlenty, MNGOP, Speaker Kelliher, Loren+Solberg, John Marty, Tarryl Clark, Larry Haws, Larry Hosch, Tax Increases, Gene Pelowski, DFL