Pawlenty calls special session

Posted at 6:29 PM on September 10, 2007 by Tom Scheck (5 Comments)

Gov. Pawlenty has called a special session for 5pm Tuesday evening. Here's the story. The session will focus on disaster relief (southeastern Minnesota flooding, Browns Valley, drought stricken areas) but will not deal with transportation or property tax relief.

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Comments (5)

Gas tax please - I'm not scared, oh 5 cents at the pump come on we wouldn't even notice.

oh yeah, transit please, take a look at Denver, thats where we could have been if we would have dedicated our efforts.

Posted by Chad Johnson | September 11, 2007 8:00 AM

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Can the DFL keep their word and keep this special session to the pre-agreement?

The cameras are rolling, lets see if the DFL can keep their word.

Posted by Gary Fischbach | September 11, 2007 9:01 AM

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One of the myths out there is the "gas tax" legislation considered by the legislature last spring was just about 5 cents a gallon. It wasn't. It also included a surcharge per-gallon tax, expanded county levy ability for a wheelage tax, and an increase in the sales tax for the metro, also an increase in license tab fees. Keep in mind this was also at a time when there were other bills there calling for increases in the sales tax.

Posted by Bob Collins | September 11, 2007 11:58 AM

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I hope the DFL do not keep there "word" and draft a simple 10 cent increase dedicated to infrastructure.

For goodness sakes we have seen over 25 cent swing in price in the last 12 days at the pump, would a 5-10 cent increase really even get noticed?

Posted by Brian Hanf | September 11, 2007 12:59 PM

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I can honestly tell you that *I* notice every change in gas prices.

That's not to say that I'm either *for* or *against* a gas tax but as I said earlier, the DFL was saying "you'll never notice a dime" during the gas tax debate when it new full well that it was more than a dime. The increase in the tax itself was just ONE of several increases.

But still, one cannot be the party of the working stiff -- as the DFL claims to be -- and then dismiss 5 or 10 cents a gallon as insignificant.

The price of energy is very nearly putting the country into a recession.

Of course, the problem is that Minnesota consistently chooses to budget with the constitution. Having done that with the gas tax, there is no way to dedicate money to transit through the gas tax, so we get a bunch of other methods of doing that... and then the legislators just talk about the 5 or 10 cent gas tax.

With metro area legislators in power, there's no way any transportation plan isn't going to have a transit component.

But it's interesting to me that in all the finger pointing after the bridge collapse... nobody ever pointed out that the history of budgeting by the constitution is at least partly to blame.

Posted by Bob Collins | September 11, 2007 2:48 PM

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