This weekend, as with other weekends, I taped At Issue With Tom Hauser. This week’s interview was with Tarryl Clark, who’s running against Michele Bachmann for the right to represent Minnesota’s Sixth District in the U.S. House of Representatives. If not for my ability to replay parts of the interview several times, I wouldn’t have believed what I’d heard. As is often the case, I transcribed a portion of the interview. Here’s a partial transcript of Tom Hauser’s interview of Tarryl:

HAUSER: Let’s talk about why you’ve decided to run. You’ve been representing the St. Cloud area in the State Legislature a couple of terms. Why did you decide to make this leap?

TARRYL: Well, as corny as it sounds, I really tried to figure out where I can make the biggest difference. Washington is clearly not working for the people and, frankly, Michele Bachmann isn’t working for Minnesotans.

I have a long track record. Before I was elected, and since then, I’ve worked bipartisanly. I do believe that it’s important that we work together, not necessarily in front of the lights…It’s time that we got together and got things done.

HAUSER: Some would suggest that you wouldn’t be that great a fit for the whole district because it tends to be more Republican, which means less government and lower taxes and those are things that you have not necessarily been for in the State Senate. How will you counter that?

TARRYL: Well, in all honesty, it’s my opponents who’ve said that and I’ve got a pretty good track record of beating them.

People are struggling. I’ve been listening throughout the district while our congresswoman has been in California. I’ve been listening around the district. People are really struggling. We have the highest unemployment rate and the highest foreclosure rate. Small businesses are really reeling with the cost of health care.

First, Tarryl saying that she’s “got a pretty good track record” of defeating her opponents is questionable if you don’t forget that Dave Kleis defeated her for the state senate seat she currently occupies. Let’s put that aside temporarily since that isn’t really the answer to Tom Hauser’s question. He asked about the 6th District leaning more towards smaller government and lower taxes and how Tarryl would “counter that.”

Based on her answer, I’m betting that she’d pray like hell that some well-informed blogger like myself wouldn’t mention her 2007 Minnesota Chamber of Commerce ratings. That year, the 7 bills that the MCoC rated state senators on focused mostly on tax increases with the only exception being a health care bill and the DREAM Act. According to the MCoC’s chart, Tarryl voted for a:

bill would have created a fourth income tax bracket at 9 percent. The Minnesota Chamber opposed the bill because the personal income tax is a small business tax;
transportation finance bill contained a 5 cent gas tax increase, allowed for a 2.5 cent gas tax surcharge to finance the debt service of bonds, a license tab fee increase, authority to impose a one-half cent sales tax to be divided between roads and transit in the seven-county metro area, authority for greater Minnesota counties to impose a half-cent sales tax, and authority for all counties to impose a $5 or $10 wheelage tax. (The Chamber “opposed the conference committee report because we continued to support a more moderate transportation funding package.”)
bill that “increases the statewide property tax, paid by commercial, industrial and utility property, and increases the tax on Minnesota companies that use the foreign operating corporation structure” and that included “significant and permanent business tax increases [that] more than offset the benefit of the up front exemption and sales-only apportionment provisions”;
another income tax bill that “would have created a new fourth personal income tax bracket at 9.7 percent, the highest state income tax rate in the nation.”

I’d love hearing Tarryl answer Mr. Hauser’s question without slipping the question. Based on the MCoC ratings, it appears that Tarryl voted to raise small business’s property taxes (once) and income taxes (twice). Meanwhile, Tarryl voted for a host of tax increases in the transportation bill that the Chamnber opposed because they supported “a more moderate transportation funding package.”

Implicit in that last sentence is that the bill that Gov. Pawlenty vetoed wasn’t moderate. In fact, we know that since this is what Sen. Murphy said about the bill:

“I’m not trying to fool anybody,” said Sen. Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, sponsor of the measure that would increase funding for roads and transit by $1.5 billion a year once it was fully implemented in the next decade. “There’s a lot of taxes in this bill.”

Based on this objective information, it’s clear that Tarryl hasn’t hesitated in voting for tax increases. This begs the question of why Tarryl thinks she’s a better fit for the 6th District’s voters who prefer low taxes and limited government better than Michele Bachmann. Based on their voting habits, I’d say that Michele Bachmann is the perfect fit for this district.

I’ve been saving the best for last. Here’s another thing that Tarryl said that I simply can’t exclude from this post:

TARRYL: Frankly, there’s times when government can do things but, frankly, there’s times when we just need government to just get out of the way.

Based on her votes, I’m curious if Tarryl has voted to just get government out of the way. I know that Tarryl was bummed out in 2007 about not being able to do “many good things:”

“This is it. And unfortunately I think people have been led to believe that we’re awash in new money and that we can do many good things. I think it’s definitely the wake-up call that we can’t do many good things; not with these kinds of dollars,” according to Clark.

This is the same Tarryl that told Tom Hauser that there wasn’t much fat to be trimmed from the budget:

Hauser: You can talk about reform all you want but reform inevitably ends up meaning that some people that are getting state services now won’t be getting them after this reform, whether it be in HHS, whether it be in education, early childhood, any of those things.

Tarryl: Sure, and an estimate, a good estimate would be that maybe we could figure out how to save about $500 million.

At the time, Minnesota’s budget was approximately $34,000,000,000. That $500,000,000 equalled 1.5% of the budget. Based on her quote, Tarryl thinks that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to find meaningful amounts of waste in Minnesota’s budget.

Based on these things, isn’t it reasonable to conclude that Tarryl’s past votes and quotes betray this weekend’s quotes? Doesn’t it sound like Tarryl is like President Obama in that she’s great at talking like a moderate without voting like a moderate?

Finally, Tarryl said that she’s been travelling the district, listening to people, doing the hard work of finding out what the people want. It’s interesting that she’d mention that after last winter’s listening tour:

From: Gene Pelowski [mailto:Rep.Gene.Pelowski@house.mn]
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 10:13 AM
This Friday, February 20, there will be a bicameral hearing held in our region. Senators and Representatives from both political parties will be in Winona from 3:30 to 5:30 PM, Winona City Hall, 207 Lafayette St. The purpose of this hearing is to get testimony from affected programs in every level of government, education, health care or service impacted by the cuts suggested by the Governor’s state budget.

I am writing you to ask that you or a designee get scheduled to testify. You may do this by going to the House website at www.house.mn and clicking on “Town Meetings”.

We would ask you to focus your comments on the impact of the Governor’s budget including what is the harm to your area of government or program. Please be as precise as possible using facts such as number of lay offs, increases in property taxes, cuts in services, increases in tuition, elimination of programs. To be respectful of the time necessary to hear from a large number of constituents it would be advised to use no more than 3-5 minutes to convey your message. If you choose to provide handouts or printed materials, please plan to bring approximately 25 copies, enough for committee members and media.

Sincerely,
Representative Gene Pelowski
District 31A

Who can forget that not-so-old golden oldie? For that matter, who can forget the night the Misery Tour visited St. Cloud? That’s the night when “a sizable group of people were upset that there wasn’t a segment devoted to cutting spending.” They had time to manipulate the testimony but they didn’t allocate time to suggested cost savings. Now that the TEA Party movement has sprung up, Tarryl’s returned to sounding like a fiscal moderate.

Isn’t it time we rejected politicians that talk moderate and vote for radical tax-and-spend agendas? Haven’t we had enough of that type of politician?

Technorati: Interview, At Issue, Tom Hauser, Tarryl Clark, Tax Increases, Income Taxes, Property Taxes, Small Businesses, Spending Cuts, Fiscal Moderation, DFL, Michele Bachmann, TEA Parties, Conservatism, Election 2010