Gov. Tim PawlentyGov. Tim Pawlenty released his revised budget today, which proposes deeper cuts to health and social services while increasing K-12 education funding levels. Days earlier, Senate DFLers put forward their own proposal, which advocates across-the-board cuts to all state services while adding revenue by taxing Minnesotans with the highest income. The two budgets are very different and led to a war of words in which elected officials saw more red than green on St. Patrick’s Day.

At a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Pawlenty said, “Unlike my friends in the DFL, who are proposing to cut education, we are increasing education.”

In a followup press release, Pawlenty’s spokesman Brian McClung said, “While DFLers have not issued a priority-based budget, they did make choices. Their plan doesn’t recognize that some parts of the budget are strategically more important. DFLers are choosing social services, welfare and publicly subsidized health care over Minnesota’s K-12 schools and students.”

But Sen. Tarryl Clark said the governor’s message is “don’t get sick, don’t get old, don’t lose your job or you’ll lose health care.”

Pawlenty told reporters that the DFL budget would raise taxes on those making $65,000 a year, but DFLers said that’s not true.

DFL chair Brian Melendez shot back, “Gov. Pawlenty is again spouting his false rhetoric about taxes, misleading Minnesotans for his own political gain. On St. Patrick’s Day, Minnesotans were hoping for a pot of gold from our governor. Instead, we got a crock — of something else. Gov. Pawlenty’s do-over budget again fails to address the economic crisis in a fair, honest, or realistic way.”