What compromises would you like to see this legislative session?
Posted at 5:00 AM on March 9, 2011
by Eric Ringham
(22 Comments)
Filed under: Politics/Government
Gov. Mark Dayton says the teacher licensure bill was an example of bipartisan compromise for leaders to follow as they grapple with the budget and other issues. Today's Question: What compromises would you like to see this legislative session?
Comments (22)
I would like Gov. Dayton to compromise to six billion in cuts, in a budget served up on legislative bipartisan votes.
Brian D: A well-informed electorate would be bad news for extremists of all sorts. While I agree that the right wing has been benefitting more than the left lately from the gullibility of ill-informed voters, in the '70s, it was the other way around.
Get over being brainwashed about the world's most useful and versatile plant, Cannabis/Hemp/Marijuana/Ganja, its criminalization was Unconstitutional ... a crime against humanity and nature.
Legalize it for every good purpose, food, medicine, industry, recreation, sacrament ...
... for the people and the planet, economy and ecology.
It's time.
It's time. The Hearst/Anslinger yellow journalism/propaganda has been a red herring whose scent now reveals deception and corruption.
Vote Hemp, a national, single-issue, non-profit advocacy group:
http://www.votehemp.com/
Hemp (Cannabis sativa) facts:
http://rosenlake.net/er/hempinfo.html
Hugh Downs commentary on hemp
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/downs2.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wynmSZRmcr4
The award winning documentary, "The Union: The Business Behind Getting High"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9077214414651731007#
Mr. X by Carl Sagan
http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/
Dr. Lester Grinspoon After Testifying at MA State House on Marijuana Legalization
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CiqXOTRIL4
I agree with Rich. The sales tax should be broadened to cover clothing, food and most services. Lowering the rate and taxing just about everything would raise revenue in the simplist and least painful way for everyone.
ANY! I'd really like to see both sides of the isle act like adults and work together to do the job they were elected to do.
I would like to see the Republican's comprimise on anything! They are drunk with imagined power. This too shall pass.
Until this nation admits where the jobs went (China) and who gained (the rich) and until they stop letting big money buy politics, we are in for a long ride. My children young children act more mature than most people in politics. At least Dayton is trying.
I agree with Marcus, Tony, Tim, and Claire.
Former Governor Pawlenty is traveling the country boasting about never having compromised. On major issues, such as the budget, the Republicans will not compromise. And Republicans hold the trump card: if there's a government shutdown, the people who will suffer the most are the working poor and the destitute. Republicans could care less about what happens to those people. They're in business to represent the greediest and most uncivil of our wealthy citizens.
Garf F: A study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, published in 2004, found that 67% of Fox viewers believed the "US had found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al Qaeda terrorist organization, compared to 16% who get their news from NPR/PBS; 33% of those people who get their news primarily from Fox believed that the "US found Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq," vs. 11% for NPR/PBS; 35% of Fox viewers believed that "the majority of people [in the world] favor the U.S. having gone to war" with Iraq, vs. 5% for NPR/PBS.
This is the reason, Gary, why people on the Right are always lobbying for terminating funding for PBS and NPR. There's nothing that frustrates the Right in this country more than a well informed electorate.
To return to the issue of compromise: It's almost impossible to know where to begin. Let's start with this: Does anyone remember Republicans arguing, over the last thirty years, that we need to share the profits with all Americans? I don't either. But now, we constantly hear about sharing the pain. I don't think the mega-rich are suffering an awful lot.
From the most recent issue of the New Yorker: " In 1980, the best-off tenth of American families collected about a third of the nation's wealth. Now they're getting close to half. The top one per cent is getting a full fifth, double what it got in 1980. The super-rich--the top one-tenth of the top one percent...--have been the biggest winner of all. What is always called their "compensation" (wage workers lucky enough to have a job simply get paid) has quadrupled."
The New Yorker's comment is consistent with everything i've read on this subject. While this concentration of wealth has been going on, the middle class has been shrinking, and the number of people living in poverty is increasing (nearly forty million).
And the Republican Party wants to cut funding for policies and programs that help the middle class and the poor, demonize public school teachers and public-employee unions, and get the majority of Americans fighting among themselves so we won't focus on the facts above.
Compromise? It takes two. Governor Dayton,
use that veto pen and get ready for war with the Republicans.
Gary F, if MPR and NPR are "giants," what's Rupert Murdoch?
I'd like to see compromise on everything. I've yet to see a party that has answers to every thing, and while conservatives frequently think they do, nobody is that perfect except Jesus Crhist and the Lord Our God. Arne Carlson was right when he said on NPR during the gubanotrial primaries that the best legislation comes when both parties get and lose something. And our bicameral form of government, passed down to us by the Founders of America, illustrates that point effectively because neither the executive, legislative, and judicial branch has the power to exclusively do whatever it wants. It all must compromise for our society to work even if they disagree on things.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/03/028548.php
Sums it up really good.
No compromise! TAX THE RICH! Their greed is what destroyed my economy, yet they are not feeling the pain of going nights without dinner or the humiliation of perpetually being turned down for a job despite having an exemplory work record and a college degree with a 3.0 gpa.
Cutting funding to MPR.
After the Ron Shiller video exposed yesterday, our tax money doesn't need to support giants like MPR and NPR.
For years, we have heard, "oh, its not much money" or "its so little, it really doesn't matter".
We, buck up like the rest of us and take your hit. It's not that much money, right?
i would like to see more comprimises on teachers, budgets and taxes. there seems to be a stalmate on the issues and we need to get some important bills thru and funding for sports (like state owned sports)!
I would like to see actual compromise...all the dems talk about is raising revenue (taxes) and all the gop talks about is cutting spending (services). I would like to see a joint committee that looks for alternative ways to raise revenue (like sports that are owned by the state and whose profit goes to the state) and alternative ways to cut spending (like prisons that are totally self sufficient -including food and electricity or state government fees being waived for local governement agencies).
I agree with Tim and Claire.
I see no need to compromise. Elections are the selection process and the people selected the Republicans to run the State House. It will be Gov Dayton's job to compromise with the Legislators. If he chooses to escape to Illinois like the Wisconsin Democrats did, he has my blessing.
I want to see the Republicans admit that we need our state to collect more revenue (Pawlenty already slashed spending enough). And since the government services provided by the state benefit the poor and middle-class more than the rich, I'd like to see the DFL-ers admit that state taxes (in contrast to federal taxes) don't need to be progressive. Having regressive taxes that pay for progressive benefits is not inherently unfair. Leave income tax rates alone, eliminate loopholes, and broaden the sales tax to include clothing and services (perhaps at a lower rate).
However, as long as the dedicated ideologues that dominate each party's base consider compromise to be a dirty word, it's not likely to happen.
This budget issue is not a one year occurance. We need to look at deep structural changes that are long lasting. I would like the Governor and the Legislature explore metropolitian forms of government across the State of MN. Only a small number of cities use this today such as Nashville, TN which has only one governing structure for both city and county governance in metorpolitian Nashville. MN has over 80 county governance structures, many of which could be dissolved with metropolitian governance.
Compromise with Republicans is impossible.
Have we not learned that yet?
Thank God for the veto.
Stick to your principles, Mark.
I'd like to see the legislature compromise at all! The only grownup in state politics seems to be Gov. Dayton.
The governor should pivot and suggest broadening the sales tax to raise revenue. The only alternative is soak-the-rich policies. The fantasy that we can/must deal with the budget deficit only by cutting spending becomes more tenuous by the day.
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