Central Corridor LRT: The most. You ever lost. On a coin toss.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008 at 3:13 pm
- 8 Comments
On Monday, Gov. Tim Pawlenty gave the state Legislature’s bonding bill a haircut almost as extreme as the one Javier Bardem wears in No Country for Old Men. In fact, much of the recent drama over the bonding bill seemed like a pale reprise of the Coen Brothers’ screenplay, with Pawlenty trading in his veep-quality coiffure for the malevolent comb-over of “No Country” villain Anton Chigurh, who kills at the toss of a coin. In the first scene, the governor warned legislators not to bond more than $825 million, but they passed a $925 million bill.
Governor: You know how this is going to turn out, don’t you?
Legislature: Nope.
Governor: I think you do.
Once he had killed $100 million in spending from the bill, Pawlenty just kept killing. His vetoes mowed down $208 million in 52 line item cuts until $717 million was all that was left to be signed. The governor reserved the biggest single cut — $70 million — for the Central Corridor light rail transit line between St. Paul and Minneapolis, a project he had included in his own bonding proposal. Capitol observers as well as legislators themselves were stunned. With $450 million in federal funds and what St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman called “the largest economic development opportunity in our region’s history” at stake, it seemed almost random to kill something that only weeks ago you wanted alive.
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Governor: What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?
Legislature: Sir?
Governor: The most. You ever lost. On a coin toss.
When Pawlenty struck with his veto pen, it didn’t matter if you were dead or alive: Como Zoo’s gorillas won’t get new habitats, but neither will the stuffed mountain goats, beavers and lynx at the Bell Museum of Natural History, now stuck in front of painted dioramas on the University of Minnesota’s East Bank campus since the cutting of funds for their migration to new digs in St. Paul. Thirteen people may have died nine months ago when the I-35W span fell, but the governor didn’t shirk from cutting down bonding projects that would have replaced two other aging bridges, including one (St. Anthony Parkway in Minneapolis) that, were it to fall, would land on the Northstar Commuter Rail line, another transit project that Pawlenty has both supported and opposed. But beyond arbitrary havoc, most see the line item cuts as payback for the Legislature’s override of Pawlenty’s transportation bill veto, with special venom for state Rep. Alice Hausman (DFL-St. Paul), co-chair of conference committee that agreed on the $925 million bill and a leading transportation bill veto-overrider, whose city the governor’s veto pen slashed most cruelly.
Pawlenty Chief of Staff Matt Kramer: Call me when you’ve had enough. I can even let you keep a little of the money.
Hausman: If I was cuttin’ deals, why wouldn’t I go deal with this guy Pawlenty?
Kramer: No no. No. You don’t understand. You can’t make a deal with him. Even if you gave him the money he’d still kill you. He’s a peculiar man. You could even say that he has principles. Principles that transcend money or drugs or anything like that. He’s not like you. He’s not even like me.
Well, maybe Pawlenty is not such an indiscriminate killer after all: As Andy Birkey noted here earlier, most of the district-specific cuts occurred in Democratic districts.
Monday’s lesson: Don’t cross the Gov, or he’ll cross you out.
8 Comments
Comment posted April 8, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
Can I say penis here? Our governor is a dick. That’s all I have to say on this subject. 98% DFL district projects cut vs. 0.4% in GOP districts?
The Democrats and the few GOP legislators with morals should impeach both TPaw and Molneau for failing at the job they were elected to do – govern the citizens of our state.
I’ve been calling for Molneau’s head since the bridge, but I’ve always grudgingly given TPaw respect for being hard nosed and no-nonsense, even if I disagreed with where he was going. I thought, until now, that he had a drastically different idea about what was best for our state, but that he was serving that idea.
98% vs 0.4%.
what a dick.
Comment posted April 9, 2008 @ 9:31 am
Mike Brodkorb is right. You are becoming a loony fringe outfit This is legitimate news??
Comment posted April 9, 2008 @ 12:46 pm
How about the U’s head. If your after Molinau, how about the U calling the bridge safe less than 9 months before it fell??
Let’s be consisten Justin.
Comment posted April 10, 2008 @ 7:31 pm
I’ve been consistent… I don’t recall ever crediting the leadership at the U for anything. I would be more than happy to see the leadership change at the U if we could also get rid of TPaw and Molneau. It seems like it changes every few weeks anyway.
In general, I think the institution has been badly mismanaged over the past decade or so, since just before Mark Y started. Specifically, I think they’ve put far too much money into capital expenditures and graduate programs at the expense of tuition increases for undergraduates, effectively pricing education so that current lower-middle class families can look forward to a non-hyphenated adjective for future generations..
I do not know all of the specifics of that study. There is some indication from some sources that the State used unlicensed academic university personnel to conduct the study on the cheap, rather than using licensed professional bridge inspectors.
Maybe all the people who worked on the study just got it wrong, in spite of supposedly knowing what they were doing. If that is the case, then I surely agree that some heads should roll for incompetency, and that safeguards need to be put in place so that the next set of appropriately credentialed bridge inspectors notice the bent gusset plates.
In either case, the responsibility to keep Minnesota’s roads safe lies with the executive branch of state government, specifically at the Department of Transportation for administrative responsibility and in the Governor’s office for budgetary responsibility. Responsibility for the state’s roads does not ultimately sit with any authority at the U of M.
And as for shielding the U of M from legal liability, I think that the state should pick up whatever legal tab comes out of its failure. Than it will have a financial motivation to fix those bridges before any other disasters become matters of litigation. I also think that the state ought not to try and settle any pending litigation through legislation, but rather should let the claimants have their day in court.
I know some people think it isn’t right to talk about public policy and public officials and the government’s responsibilities, and how the government let us down here in a huge way, and how no one is being held accountable for the 35W bridge collapse.
You conservatives love to talk about accountability until it is officials of your party who are holding the bag. Then it is “rally around Gonzalez” or whomever. It doesn’t matter who it is at all.
So feel free to accuse me of ‘playing politics’ with the bridge, if you like, because I think it is a straight-up political issue. But let us talk about playing politics, then.
What about this analysis of DFL districts effected vs. GOP districts effected by the budget cuts?
Obviously the Gov. cares more about setting back the DFL than moving our state forward. So.
Consistency. How about consistancy from the GOP and conservatives on ‘playing politics’ or ‘accountability’.
Comment posted April 8, 2008 @ 11:58 am
Can I say penis here? Our governor is a dick. That's all I have to say on this subject. 98% DFL district projects cut vs. 0.4% in GOP districts?
The Democrats and the few GOP legislators with morals should impeach both TPaw and Molneau for failing at the job they were elected to do – govern the citizens of our state.
I've been calling for Molneau's head since the bridge, but I've always grudgingly given TPaw respect for being hard nosed and no-nonsense, even if I disagreed with where he was going. I thought, until now, that he had a drastically different idea about what was best for our state, but that he was serving that idea.
98% vs 0.4%.
what a dick.
Comment posted April 9, 2008 @ 4:31 am
Mike Brodkorb is right. You are becoming a loony fringe outfit This is legitimate news??
Comment posted April 9, 2008 @ 7:46 am
How about the U's head. If your after Molinau, how about the U calling the bridge safe less than 9 months before it fell??
Let's be consisten Justin.
Comment posted April 10, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
I've been consistent… I don't recall ever crediting the leadership at the U for anything. I would be more than happy to see the leadership change at the U if we could also get rid of TPaw and Molneau. It seems like it changes every few weeks anyway.
In general, I think the institution has been badly mismanaged over the past decade or so, since just before Mark Y started. Specifically, I think they've put far too much money into capital expenditures and graduate programs at the expense of tuition increases for undergraduates, effectively pricing education so that current lower-middle class families can look forward to a non-hyphenated adjective for future generations..
I do not know all of the specifics of that study. There is some indication from some sources that the State used unlicensed academic university personnel to conduct the study on the cheap, rather than using licensed professional bridge inspectors.
Maybe all the people who worked on the study just got it wrong, in spite of supposedly knowing what they were doing. If that is the case, then I surely agree that some heads should roll for incompetency, and that safeguards need to be put in place so that the next set of appropriately credentialed bridge inspectors notice the bent gusset plates.
In either case, the responsibility to keep Minnesota's roads safe lies with the executive branch of state government, specifically at the Department of Transportation for administrative responsibility and in the Governor's office for budgetary responsibility. Responsibility for the state's roads does not ultimately sit with any authority at the U of M.
And as for shielding the U of M from legal liability, I think that the state should pick up whatever legal tab comes out of its failure. Than it will have a financial motivation to fix those bridges before any other disasters become matters of litigation. I also think that the state ought not to try and settle any pending litigation through legislation, but rather should let the claimants have their day in court.
I know some people think it isn't right to talk about public policy and public officials and the government's responsibilities, and how the government let us down here in a huge way, and how no one is being held accountable for the 35W bridge collapse.
You conservatives love to talk about accountability until it is officials of your party who are holding the bag. Then it is “rally around Gonzalez” or whomever. It doesn't matter who it is at all.
So feel free to accuse me of 'playing politics' with the bridge, if you like, because I think it is a straight-up political issue. But let us talk about playing politics, then.
What about this analysis of DFL districts effected vs. GOP districts effected by the budget cuts?
Obviously the Gov. cares more about setting back the DFL than moving our state forward. So.
Consistency. How about consistancy from the GOP and conservatives on 'playing politics' or 'accountability'.
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