"Minn. impasse means shutdown likely
ST. PAUL - A sweeping shutdown of Minnesota's state government appeared certain as a midnight deadline approached, with Governor Mark Dayton and top Republicans breaking off negotiations to accuse the other side of stubbornness.
Republicans said a deal was close and pleaded with Dayton, a Democrat, to agree to a bare-bones budget bill to avert a shutdown while they come back in special session next week to finish.
Dayton rejected it as a publicity stunt, saying the two sides are not close at all....
A shutdown would force thousands of layoffs, bring road projects to a standstill, and close state parks just ahead of the Fourth of July weekend....
That's so the public will put pressure on the politicians.
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"Minn. vulnerable feel pinch of government shutdown" July 02, 2011|By Martiga Lohn and Amy Forliti, Associated Press
ST. PAUL - The blind are losing reading services. A help line for the elderly has gone silent. And poor families are scrambling after the state stopped child care subsidies.
Hours after a political impasse forced a widespread government shutdown, Minnesota's most vulnerable residents and about 22,000 laid-off state employees began feeling the effects yesterday.
With no immediate end in sight to a dispute over taxes and spending, political leaders spent the day blaming each other for their failure to pass a budget that solves the state's $5 billion deficit.
Governor Mark Dayton, a Democrat, and GOP legislative leaders said they had no plans to talk over the holiday weekend, guaranteeing the shutdown will linger at least into next week. Dayton said he thought lawmakers should spend time in their districts talking to constituents.
In the absence of talks between Dayton and GOP leaders, the shutdown was rippling into the lives of such people as Sonya Mills, a 39-year-old mother of eight facing the loss of about $3,600 a month in state child care subsidies.
Until the government closure, Mills had been focused on recovering from a May 22 tornado that displaced her from a rented home in Minneapolis.
"It just starts to have a snowball effect. It's like you are still in the wind of the tornado," said Mills, who works at a temp agency and was allowed to take time off as she gets back on her feet - but after the shutdown also has to care for her six youngest children, ages 3 through 14, because she lost state funding for their day care and other programs.
Minnesota is the only state to have its government shut down this year, even though nearly all states have severe budget problems and some have divided governments....
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"Amid shutdown, Minn. governor resolute on need to tax the rich" July 03, 2011|By Patrick Condon, Associated Press
ST. PAUL - Mark Dayton, the 64-year-old Democratic governor of Minnesota who let his state's government shut down rather than accept the refusal of Republican lawmakers to raise income taxes on the wealthy, was born into money.
Why is raising taxes always the answer for these guys?
It made him sure of something: "I grew up in that environment. I know people can afford it."
Most of Minnesota state government stands idle this weekend, the result of Dayton's and the GOP-controlled state Legislature's failure to pass a new budget by Friday's deadline. State parks and the Minnesota Zoo are closed, highway projects are stalled and thousands of government workers are at home without pay for the foreseeable future. The battle over the state budget in Minnesota echoes those underway in Washington and in other state capitals, as Republicans still energized from gains in 2010 focus on cutting spending and refuse to consider tax increases of any kind.
New GOP governors such as New Jersey's Chris Christie and Florida's Rick Scott have made deep cuts in state programs and employee benefits, while even some of Dayton's fellow Democratic governors, such as New York's Andrew Cuomo, have eschewed tax increases amid a fragile economic recovery.
What things like that show you is the false paradigm of politics.
After all, Massachusetts stripped unions of their collective bargaining rights.
The soft-spoken Dayton refuses to cave to the GOP's stance that higher taxes are verboten. Since taking office, he has championed tax hikes on rich Minnesotans - or at least some form of new state revenue - as a necessary part of any solution to closing the state's $5 billion budget deficit.
I agree, the wealthy are the only ones that made out the last couple years; however, when does the conventional culture come to an end?
"My father's favorite quote was from the Bible: 'Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required,' Dayton said Friday afternoon in his Capitol office.
I thought there was supposed to be separation of church and state?
The front doors to the domed building were newly adorned with signs: "This building closed until further notice due to the state government service interruption."
The truth is, most Minnesotans are probably better off. Less harm can be done by the politicians with the place closed.
Dayton's great-grandfather founded a Minneapolis-based dry goods store and along with family members built it into the department store chain that is now Target Corp. The Dayton family no longer controls the company, but it left Mark Dayton a wealthy man who has spent large chunks of his fortune on a quirky political career that took him to the US Senate and now to the state's top political office....
That's because he dared question the military regarding the apparent stand down on 9/11.
The political ideology underpinning Dayton's actions isn't limited to his experiences as a personally wealthy man. In Friday's interview, he described his years after graduating from college at Yale, which included a short time teaching in an inner-city school in New York City.
"All these kids in my classroom were just as wonderful creations as I, and through no choice of our own, I was born into this great good fortune and they were born into this abject poverty," Dayton said. "The injustice really seared my conscience."
Dayton said his political views are more sophisticated now, but protecting the downtrodden has remained a constant.
He's more along the lines of the founding fathers: an honorable aristocrat.
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