Laid-off union workers to rally at Capitol against all-cuts budget
Wednesday, July 06, 2011 at 4:00 pm
- 12 Comments
Laid-off public employees plan to gather at the State Capitol Wednesday evening to put in some hard work building a town from the ground up. They’re naming the fantasy city Downeyville in honor of Edina Republican Rep. Keith Downey, who authored legislation that would eliminate the jobs of 5,000 state workers and threaten collective bargaining rights for public employees.
Jennifer Munt, public affairs director for AFSCME Council 5, said the event will include street signs for places like Beard Boulevard, named for Shakopee Republican Rep. Mike Beard, who has proposed an 85 percent cut to Metro Transit.
“We’re trying to make sure people understand what’s at stake with an all-cuts budget,” Munt told the Minnesota Independent. “The shutdown gives people a taste of what that would be like, but the Republican budget proposals as they stand today are far worse than the shutdown for the average person in Minnesota.”
Aside from the playful aspects of the event, it represents a push by the public employee unions MAPE and AFSCME to put pressure on Republican moderates who might help shift their caucuses towards compromise with Gov. Mark Dayton to end the state government shutdown. Republicans have so far shown little willingness to change their positions.
“Part of our rally is to differentiate the legislators who refuse to compromise from the more reasonable voices,” Munt said. “We’re going to nail the people who refuse to compromise and [who] demand cuts that are going to hurt our state.”
The unions have daily plans for actions throughout July, from as small as handing out “Tax the Rich” cards to the public to organizing in-district meetings between Republican legislators and union members.
The unions expect a slightly higher turnout than the vigil on the eve of the shutdown.
The event starts at 4:30 p.m. at the State Capitol.
Follow Jon Collins on Twitter12 Comments
Comment posted July 6, 2011 @ 4:26 pm
“all-cuts budget”
So now a 6% spending increase in the budget approved by the GOP and vetoed by Dayton, is an “all-cuts budget”?
Dear God you folks are hilarious. No wonder few listen to you.
Why is it so hard for you folks to tell the truth?
Comment posted July 6, 2011 @ 5:00 pm
The 6% is inflation AND lots of kickbacks and graft for friends of the GOP. It’s not services for citizens, folks !!
Comment posted July 6, 2011 @ 5:32 pm
Go LABOR!
To HELL with trickle down economics.
Jeff Wilfahrt, Rosemount, MN
Comment posted July 6, 2011 @ 6:27 pm
Let me take this really, really slow for you HG.
Last biennium:
~ 30B base general fund spending
~1.9B Ed shift spending
~ 2.3B ARRA funds spending
30+1.9+2.3 = 34.2B
34.2 B > 34B
Spending is not going up by 6%. Now that you know, if it is repeated it is called a lie HG. Before it was just ignorance from GOP propaganda.
Citation provided. Have a wonderful day.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/polinaut/archive/2011/04/post.shtml
Comment posted July 6, 2011 @ 6:28 pm
Virginia,
Most people realize that if the price of milk goes up, and you have more kids, you have to find more revenue. GOP are not most people. Their budget is not a 6% increase.
Comment posted July 6, 2011 @ 8:12 pm
I find it interesting that the 2 year budget cycle that ended in 2009 was a total of 33.8 billion dollars. The budget being worked on now will end in 2013. The GOP want to hold it to no more than 34 billion dollars. So yes this will be the largest budget in State history, but looking at it the increase over 4 years is less than 1%. Inflation is much higher and we have almost 60,000 more K – 12 students in that time plus the increase in state population. Even with the proposal by Gov. Dayton the size of state goverment will shrink. His increase would still be much less than inflation during the same time frame.
Comment posted July 6, 2011 @ 8:31 pm
Unless our state shrinks, or the price of everything actually goes down, EVERY new budget will be the largest in state history. What a useless fact.
Comment posted July 7, 2011 @ 12:50 am
thanks GOP for trying to make MN turn into MS. Shameful! I hope these GOP politicians are ran out of the state by responsible moderate Republicans. I wouldn’t even call these GOP leaders Republicans. They are Corporatecrates. They would like ti if the state does collapse. Sadly every day this goes on the more the working class will have to pay i taxes… either state or property.. it still comes out of the same pocket.
Comment posted July 7, 2011 @ 9:19 am
Calling a one-time Obama stimulus to the state a budget item is about as looney as calling the GOP proposed budget “extreme”.
Comment posted July 7, 2011 @ 9:27 am
the money was spent. It was part of our spending. Programs depended on that spending, and will be cut without it.
You can’t just discount spending because you do not like the source. The Republican controlled house finance office made the calculations in February. Are they lonney?
Comment posted July 7, 2011 @ 9:32 am
Didn’t say it wasn’t spending, said it wasn’t a budget item. You can’t budget on a one-time stimulus.
Comment posted July 7, 2011 @ 9:49 am
2010/2011 budget = $32.5 billion
2012/2013 GOP budget = $34.4 billion
5.8% increase in spending
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