Pawlenty talks budget plans

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

MANKATO -- While criticizing the Senate DFL majority's budget-cutting proposal, Gov. Tim Pawlenty acknowledged the House Republicans' plan, which partially restores some of his deeper cuts, may make it more difficult for him to hold the line on cuts.

"Well, it doesn't help, but the good news is that they did it without raising taxes," Pawlenty said at an airport news conference here Tuesday. "The House Republican plan is 97 percent of our plan so it's very close, and we appreciate that."

However, Pawlenty said there are "some differences" in terms of some spending.

"We're not opposed necessarily to the areas that they want to put some money back into, but we are a little bit concerned about is the way they have financed it. They have financed it by proposing more gambling in Minnesota which concerns me," Pawlenty said.

"Also I'm not sure it would pass the Legislature in terms of being a state revenue source. The other thing is they have booked some monies which are holding salaries and benefits of state employees flat," Pawlenty said.

The problem is, Pawlenty said, the state forecast already assumed they were going to be flat.

"So, you can't book a savings for holding them flat when the forecast already assumes they are flat. You actually have to do something by way of repeal or reversal in order to get some additional savings so we'll wait to see how the House Republicans address that," Pawlenty said..

"We're interested in trying to alleviate some of the difficulties that these cuts cause, but we've gotta make sure that the way we finance them is responsible so we'll look at that."

Accompanied by his finance commissioner, Dan McElroy, Pawlenty held news conferences in seven Minnesota cities Tuesday. Mankato was the sixth stop on the flying junket that started in Duluth Tuesday morning. Rochester was his last stop.

He produced a broken 78 rpm record to illustrate his view that Senate DFLers in announcing their budget-cutting package Monday. That plan is financed with more than $1 billion in increased income taxes for the wealthy and a dollar-a-pack increase in cigarette taxes.

McElroy called the cigarette-tax hike is the "most regressive tax there is, and it impacts lower-income Minnesotans."

Pawlenty said all the Democrats "seem to know is to raise taxes. That's why we say they're sounding like a broken record."