Well, the Vatican pundits got it wrong. They fell for the old "Ratzinger is too obvious a choice" feint, and of course it turned out to be Ratzinger. I also heard quite a few times that the new pope would pick "John Paul III" as a name to honor the former pope. They were wrong about that one too. This is just to say it's probably a good idea not to believe everything you hear about the new pope in the next few days.

Moving from Rome to St. Paul, the budget bills are flying at the Capitol. Hidden in the inside pages of the newspapers is the health and human services funding bill proposed by the House GOP majority. A key feature of the bill is deeper cuts to the MinnesotaCare program than even those proposed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Sticking with our papal theme, Star Tribune reporter Patricia Lopez includes a little Catholic reaction:

Admittedly, we've made some tough choices here," [Rep. Fran]Bradley said. But even without the racino money, he said, health care spending would increase 15 percent over two years. "We really do a good job for the needy in this bill," he said, noting that Minnesota would still be spending more on health care for working adults than any other state in the region.

But not everyone saw it that way on Tuesday.

In a letter to Bradley, Kathy Tomlin, director of the office for social justice of Catholic Charities, wrote that "your intentions in this bill seem very clear: to reduce the size of the MinnesotaCare program drastically and permanently at the expense of Minnesotans who have few if any other options for securing affordable health care insurance ... The moral choice would be for you to use every tool at your disposal to prevent these cuts from happening."

Does that include approving a racino? The House budget plans go along two tracks. One is slightly more generous than the other because it includes revenue from state-run casino gambling. But the gambling plan is in trouble. Listen to Gov. Pawlenty's slightly less than enthusiastic prognosis in MPR's Michael Khoo's story:

Pawlenty says he's disappointed that Leech Lake has vetoed any cooperation with Canterbury. But Pawlenty says he's not ready to scrap his push for new gambling revenues.

"There's some prospect that it will pass the House," says Pawlenty. "In fact, I think it's plausible or likely that it will pass the House. And if that happens, then it will be in play between the House and the Senate."

Now listen to the House authors of the gambling bills:

Rep. Andy Westerberg, R-Blaine, is the chief House sponsor of the state-tribal partnership. He says the gambling debate cuts across so many interests that it's difficult to find consensus.

"The ingredients of coming up with that particular cake are still in the process of being put in the mix," says Westerberg. "And we're not really sure. And it is more complicated now, because it's not just the state of Minnesota and one sovereign nation. It's three separate sovereign nations."

Meanwhile, the state-tribal partnership is languishing in the House Taxes Committee, which has indefinitely postponed gambling hearings that were originally scheduled for last month.

The Canterbury bill is also waiting in the same committee, but the sponsor, Rep. Mark Buesgens, R-Jordan, says he's optimistic he can scrape together enough votes for his bill. The "racino" plan passed the House in 2003. But Buesgens says merging the two bills, far from increasing the chances of passage, could doom both.

"I know I lose votes in that type of merger. I don't know if we gain, and if the gain more than offsets the loss," says Buesgens. "People who are proposing those kinds of ideas are probably going to have to do that kind of nose-counting."

The DFL majority in the Senate is expected to announce its big-picture budget plan today. It's a sure bet it won't include gambling.
If gambling is to pass this year, the governor will have to make it pass.