Idiots

Another day, and the legislature still hasn't gotten their work done. No new deals, no sign of any movement towards one. Instead, just mindless rambling and sniping. The citizens of the state sure are being served well by these jokers.

At this point, it's ridiculous, and everybody should just focus on one thing they want, and split the rest. The Senate can get a plan that doesn't throw anybody off of MnCare and does away with the benefit caps. The governor and the House can get some kind of school choice program and/or referendum. Since the Minnesota Constitution bans aid to sectarian schools, any school choice program we get is either going to be benign or unconstitutional. And while I don't like initiative, which allows rich yahoos to put forward laws to be voted upon by the population, bypassing the legislature, I do like repealing laws, so a limited referendum process allowing laws to be repealed would be acceptable. Spending is split down the middle, the cigarette tax is raised enough to be able to afford this, and we're done.

On another issue, the Senate keeps trying to pass a continuing resolution to temporarily fund state government and allow state workers to get back and do their work, but a group of mainly House Republicans keeps blocking it. A week or ten day extension, with a promise not to keep extending that deadline, seems perfectly reasonable to me, but some of the bigger blowhards in the House argue that without the "pressure" of a partial government shutdown, things will never get resolved. Wow. That's like designing a new electronic gizmo and when it starts on fire, saying that you shouldn't put the fire out because doing so will remove the pressure to fix the design flaw. Nice.