All Crisis, All Lies, All the Time

Only a month ago, the Democrats in the Minnesota legislature screamed for new taxes (something they do every session) and dedicated most of their newly "found" $6 billion to unneeded toy trains and transit options for the most remote, rural parts of the state. They had the audacity to call it a transportation bill.

To pay for this folly with bonds was immoral they said. Even though what was being purchased for Minnesota was to be used over many decades, Democrats were apoplectic about the notion of paying for the bloated bill with state-issued bonds. Here's a fine example of empty rhetoric from lying fink and Red Wing Democrat Steve Murphy:

“The funding package passed by the Senate provides a real, dedicated investment in Minnesota’s transportation system,” explained Sen. Murphy. “In contrast, the Governor’s funding proposal continues his addiction to debt by using the state’s credit card to pay for road projects. Rather than providing real funding, the governor passes the costs of today’s transportation projects onto our children and grandchildren.”

So it's absolutely immoral to make future generations pay for transportation infrastructure that they will use, but perfectly fine, now a month later, to make future generations pay for a national volleyball center:

Duluth has designs on a new arena for college hockey . . . $250,000 to study a theater and conference center for Winona's Great River Shakespeare Festival . . . $52 million for a next-generation steel mill in Itasca County. Rochester officials are asking for nearly $14.3 million that, along with local dollars, would be used to expand the National Volleyball Center . . . $22.6 million request for construction at Fort Snelling, (p)lans call for a new year-round visitors center, exhibits on Minnesota's role in the Civil War and World War II and an expanded gift shop.

That's the problem with volleyball, it not possible to play the game in any facility other than a specifically designated volleyball center.

The legisalative process in Minnesota is the exact streategic opposite of solvent business. The whole point of creating sustainable economic outcomes is to try to do more of the essentials with less resources. That's called 'efficiency' and that term is wholly lost on the fool who inhabit the capitol. The only way this collection of clowns measures success is by spending more tax money on more things every year. And don't you dare suggest that anything could/should be cut or reigned in; don't you know we're in crisis mode?

On Wednesday the Minnesota House and Senate passed a capital investment "bonding" bill that authorizes the state to borrow $925 million to finance public works projects. Gov. Tim Pawlenty threatens a veto, saying $925 million is too much; it surpasses the state guideline for debt service of 3 percent of state revenue.

But, Hausman told the Star Tribune, the bill spreads out the bond sales without violating the 3 percent guideline. Thus, lawmakers can throw more money down the rabbit hole leading to Alice's wonderland of grammatical and economic nonsense.

Let's start with the grammar. In Alice's wonderland, words mean whatever legislators need them to mean. Hausman defends the size of the bonding bill, saying legislative negotiators pared nearly $4 billion in requests to less than $1 billion in "most essential" projects. Not to pick nits here, but dictionaries define "essential" as "absolutely necessary; vitally necessary; indispensable."

If a project request is "essential" to the state, then there are dire consequences to the state if it's not funded; if it's not essential, state government shouldn't be funding it. "Most essential" is as nonsensical a concept as ever uttered by a mad hatter.