Pawlenty budget cuts offer few surprises but lots of pain - MinnPost

By Beth Hawkins, MinnPost, February 15, 2010

Gov. Tim Pawlenty's proposed budget cuts, released this morning, offered few surprises but lots of pain, state policy-watchers agreed.

"What the governor did was cut a big hole in Minnesota's safety net," said Jay Kiedrowski, a senior fellow at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute who was Minnesota's finance commissioner under Democratic Gov. Rudy Perpich. "No longer do Minnesotans have the assurance that when they have hard luck they will have help."

"We're concerned that it looks like under his proposal, working people are going to lose access to health care," said Nan Madden, director of the nonprofit Minnesota Budget Project. "We are disappointed in the lack of balance."

"The unfortunate thing is everyone from the governor on says we have to make tough decisions, but they're not — they're not making the tough decisions," said John Gunyou, finance commissioner under Republican Gov. Arne Carlson and current city manager of Minnetonka. "Unfortunately, no one will talk about tax and spending reform, they're just cutting budgets."

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Comments

[captive insurance companies]

You don't consider cutting budgets a tough decision? You think its easy for them to make those sorts of cuts? It might be for some of them, but certainly not for all of them.