Still Dishing up the Pork
Governor Pawlenty used his line item veto power to strip funding for some projects in this year’s bonding bill, but left $686 million worth of borrowing in place. That’s a reduction of about 1/3 from the original price tag of about $1 billion.
DFL legislators, who were largely the catalyst for the bloated size of the bonding bill complained about the line-item vetoes. Senator Keith Langseth was quoted in the Pioneer Press as saying the governor “basically massacred the bill.”
Despite that kind of hyperbole, plenty of pork remains. While Rochester-area civic leaders complained that money to expand the Mayo Clinic, build a new civic center and to convert an old school building into the “Potter Center for the Arts” got axed, they did receive $4 million to expand an amateur volleyball facility.
Bemidji found all of their wish-list projects were vetoed, but St. Paul is the beneficiary of loads of borrowed money. The governor left in $11 million for new gorilla cages at Como Park Zoo and $16 million for a 1,100-seat concert hall at the Ordway.
The Minnesota Zoo wasn’t forgotten either. They will receive $21 million for design of a new zoo “master plan,” betterment and improvements to exhibits and a new visitor center.
While the governor did cut several needless appropriations from the bloated bonding bill, several others were left in tact. The Governor’s priorities, which were initially left out of the bonding bill he’d threatened to veto in its entirety, were included, at least in part in the final version. Governor Pawlenty wanted funding for an expansion at the Moose Lake sex offender treatment facility and to acquire land for Vermillion State Park. It seems obvious that some horse trading was done, which probably explains some of the projects of dubious priority that were spared Pawlenty’s veto axe.
Have the governor and legislature already forgotten that Minnesota can’t afford the payments on the debt we already have? The state is broke. The state is broke. The state is broke. This year, there is a budget shortfall of about $1 billion and next biennium, the deficit is projected to be $5 billion or more. Annual payments to service the current debt are in excess of $450 million, which exceeds the traditional limit of 3% of the general fund budget for the first time in over 30 years. The state’s credit card is maxed out, we can’t afford the current payments and our currently elected government is borrowing more money for gorilla cages and parks, when right now we don’t even know how we’re going to continue to fund basic government services.