Politics and pique drove Pawlenty’s line-item vetoes

His Veep credentials tarnished by the override of his transportation bill veto back in February, Governor Tim Pawlenty needed a conversation-changer to reassert his political relevance. His line-item vetoes of 53 projects in the bonding bill sent to him by the DFL-controlled Legislature was exactly what the spin-doctor ordered this week.

First, let’s be clear that the Legislature did itself no favors by passing a bill that exceeded the $885 million amount that constitutes 3 percent of the general fund budget-the unofficial ceiling that keeps bond rating agencies happy and thus assures that the interest rate on state bonds don’t rise. But by hacking more than $200 million out of the bill so that it stands well below the 3 percent threshold at $717 million, Pawlenty made it plain that pique and politics had as much to do with his actions as fiscal imperatives.

Continued: Click “Read more”Pawlenty also played the easy game of isolating certain bills and holding them up for ridicule. This provides both the cue and the fodder for fabulous wits such as Strib columnist James Lileks to chime in lampooning the bill’s appropriations for a sheet music museum in Chatfield and a significant upgrade of the facilities at the Como Zoo. Not coincidentally, these comparatively silly projects distract from the greater point, which is that Pawlenty could have funded the $70 million appropriation for the Central Corridor light rail project and nearly all of the $46 million worth of bricks-and-mortar projects he vetoed that would have rebuilt and repaired facilities in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) system and still come in below $885 million.

However, if Pawlenty and Lileks want to play the silly appropriations game, let’s play it. The Chatfield sheet music museum project was budgeted at $400,000 in the bonding bill. We’ll see that $400,000 and raise Pawlenty $150,000 for the $550,000 his administration allocated to Himle Horner Inc. (a PR firm led by longtime Republican operatives who have supported and advised past Pawlenty campaigns) so they could tell the public what a great job MnDOT is doing rebuilding the I-35W bridge that collapsed on their watch.

On to the $11 million Pawlenty vetoed for the Como Zoo. We’ll see that $11 million and raise the governor $14 million for the $25 million he requested for the Minnesota Zoo in his 2004 bonding bill proposal (not to mention the $9.2 million worth of leftover debt from building the zoo that he was willing to pick up at the same time). That cool $25 million was designed to preserve existing assets and build a new exhibit spotlighting life on Russia’s Pacific Coast — absolutely vital spending. In making his pitch, Pawlenty said, “It’s a fabric. You know, it’s a quilt. It’s a quality-of-life quilt, and it involves many pieces…And different people need and enjoy different things. And you have got to make sure you have a balanced perspective.”

Speaking of a balanced perspective, the legislators representing Apple Valley, site of the Minnesota Zoo, back in 2004 were Republican, while those representing St. Paul, site of the Como Zoo, in 2008 are DFL. And if we want to decry the currently rotten state of our economy to justify the penurious attitude — as Lileks put it, “we can probably wait until we are in surplus again before we indulge in such luxuries” — consider that back in 2004, the Legislature had just finished making more than $2 billion worth of budget cuts the previous year and still faced hundreds of millions of dollars in red ink in its next biennial budget.

Finally, it is no secret that much of Pawlenty’s no-compromise budget posturing is affected by his national political prospects and his standing when the Republicans bring their convention to town later this year. At that time they will be anointing John McCain, the man Pawlenty championed very early in the process, to be their candidate. And John McCain is perhaps the greatest cheerleader in the U.S. Congress for our ongoing war in Iraq. When it comes to discussions of wasteful government spending, it’s hard to ignore that particular elephant in the room.