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PIONEER PRESS: “GOVERNOR TO ST. PAUL MAYOR: DON’T BLAME STATE FOR YOUR BUDGET PROBLEMS”
By Michael B. Brodkorb | June 1, 2007
"To: St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman. From: Gov. Tim Pawlenty Subject: Local government aid. Message: Quit blaming me for your budget problems. St. Paul is already getting more than its fair share of state aid. That was the essence of Pawlenty's response today to criticism leveled by Coleman on Thursday. The mayor ripped the Republican governor for vetoing a tax bill that would have increased state subsidies to the city. Without that additional state aid, the city faces a $15 million budget shortfall next year. In response, Pawlenty said during his weekly radio show this morning that St. Paul should take care of its own budget problems, instead of expecting the state to bail out the city. 'The city of St. Paul… gets more money in federal and state aid than they raise in their local property taxes,' Pawlenty said. 'It's not exactly a small or poor city.' The city received $59.5 million in state aid in 2006 while it levied $54.7 million in property taxes, according to the League of Minnesota Cities' on-line 'property tax calculator.' 'With all due respect to the mayor, there's more to leading a city than just complaining about what the state does and accommodating the protesters for the 2008 (Republican) national convention,' Pawlenty said. 'That seems to be the big agenda in St. Paul.'" Source: Pioneer Press, June 1, 2007 Click here for complete story.
Topics: Uncategorized | 14 Comments »
14 Responses to “PIONEER PRESS: “GOVERNOR TO ST. PAUL MAYOR: DON’T BLAME STATE FOR YOUR BUDGET PROBLEMS””
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June 1st, 2007 at 1:07 pm
God bless T-Paw’s straight-talking no nonsense response to that whiny turd sitting in the St. Paul mayor’s office.
June 1st, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Why doesn’t Mayor Coleman blame the DFL-dominated legislature? After all, like I said in this post, LGA is supposed to be in the Government Operations Bill. Doesn’t it make sense to do it that way since LGA helps governments operate?
The Government Operations Bill passed with lopsided approval in the House & Senate & was quickly signed by Gov. Pawlenty.
They didn’t put it in that legislation because the DFL was more interested in playing politics with the issue than they were with passing solid legislation.
Now we’ll have to pound them over the head with it in every stump speech across Minnesota next summer.
June 1st, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Go T-Paw! I haven’t been happy with everything he has done but Chrissy needed a good talking to.
June 1st, 2007 at 1:50 pm
The LGA exaggeration continues to be a key ploy of the leftist agenda. Everyone talks about it as though LGA cuts really amount to huge dollars across the state. Anyone care to guess what the actual LGA cuts (in US dollars please) were and when they took effect?
June 1st, 2007 at 2:25 pm
A few years ago when real cuts were made to LGA, my city was cut to ZERO! And it was a very large portion of our budget. Did we whine? No. We pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps, made adjustments, and learned how to operate without the State feeding trough layed out in front of us. It was very tough in the short term. But we knew in the long haul that local funding and local control was the right thing to do. The sooner the State moves in that direction across the board, the better.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:54 pm
It is funny how so many of the Liberals who talk about grass root activism think everything should be funded from the top down. They just don’t seem to understand that the group paying the bills will always have control.
June 1st, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Cloeman is so underqualified for the role it is truley sad!
Rybak is exactly what the citizens of Mpls deserve!! Should you hear gun shots in Minneapolis run to the new library and hide! Afetr all Rybak traded police officers for a new bank and was happy to do so. How much more blood of innocent Mpls citizens needs to be on Rybak’s hands before they toss him out?
June 1st, 2007 at 6:00 pm
As a Minneapolis citizen I can tell you the pain of a one party system. The entire city council and the Mayor are so incompetent it boggles the mind. The problem is even as they fail to control crime, education or taxes and are arrested for corruption there is nobody to vote for that would change anything. It is the best proof of how complete control by one party is a very bad thing.
June 1st, 2007 at 8:08 pm
I have zero respect for the looney tunes that run St Paul after what they are doing with the Republican convention.
I wonder if they are going to invite in and join pro-life activitists also.
June 1st, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Coleman is a lightweight. A putz. He’s operating on borrowed time. State-borrowed time. Time just ran out. Fuck him and all the idiots who thought he was the next best thing since sliced bread.
June 1st, 2007 at 11:55 pm
I’m with jay – haven’t been happy with everything– but I respect this “stating the obvious” a lot.
June 2nd, 2007 at 6:29 am
I wonder if they are going to invite in and join pro-life activitists also.
You know what will happen. If pro-lifers protest in St. Paul during this event the DFL brown shirts will have every cop available there to harass and arrest them.
You can bet if this were in Mpls Rybak would be providing his cops for this. Peaceful American pro-life protesters, after all, are more dangerous than illegals.
June 3rd, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Here’s the typical Democrat strategy, and this IS what happened in St. Paul:
1) Build welfare housing to attract loyal Democrat voters from afar
2) Run into budgetary problems because of your massive social spending and resultant crime
3) Beg the state legislature and outstate taxpayers to bail you out of the mess you created
It happens EVERY time with Democrats.
Look at Minneapolis and their library system. The DFL incompetents spent OVER $100 million on a new downtown library. Then a year or so later, the Minneapolis DFLers realize that they can’t pay for their own incompetence, so they ask the suburbanites (Hennepin County Library system) to come to their rescue.
If you look at Democrat communties, you will see high crime, high violence, and low academic achievement. The only thing the DFL has demonstrated in the past 40 years is a penchant for taking peaceful, prosperous communities and turning them into cesspools of crime and violence.
June 4th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
I think Chris just wanted to buy Segways for the police department.