Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar are among 62 U.S. Senators — 32 Republicans and 32 Democrats — who’ve signed a letter urging President Obama to do more to reduce the federal deficit. Drafted by Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado and Republican Mike Johanns of Nebraska, the letter left many pundits scratching their heads: If so many senators are pushing Obama to engage in deficit reduction ideas, why haven’t they done it themselves?

“Beyond FY2011 funding decisions, we urge you to engage in a broader discussion about a comprehensive deficit reduction package,” the letter states. “Specifically, we hope that the discussion will include discretionary budget cuts, entitlement changes and tax reform.”

The letter says that negotiations on budget issues will be more successful with Obama’s support.

The fact that a supermajority of senators — it takes 60 pass legislation in the Senate — are urging Obama to act on the deficit wasn’t lost on the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein:

In this letter, 64 senators manage to sound like an interest group begging the White House for support rather than a supermajority of the United States Senate — which is to say, a coalition of men and women who could, on their own, draft and pass the very legislation they’re talking about. Which raises the question: Why are they writing this letter rather than the legislation this letter claims to want?

The letter urges Obama to support the Simpson-Bowles Commission’s recommendations for tackling the budget. That commission was a bipartisan effort put together by Obama to generate ideas for reducing the deficit.

Matthew Yglesias added his own thoughts:

The first thing that’s ridiculous about this, is that if 64 Senators want to vote for the Simpson-Bowles Commission’s recommendations, then there’s nothing stopping them from voting for the Simpson-Bowles Commission’s recommendations. They don’t need support from Barack Obama to do so. If anything, Barack Obama endorsing Simpson-Bowles would make it more difficult for Republicans to endorse it.

The full letter can be viewed here:

Bennet-Johanns Letter to the President

Senate Republicans sent a letter to Gov. Mark Dayton Thursday stating that all 37 members of the GOP caucus have taken a “no-tax pledge” in response to the governor’s proposed budget which would increases taxes for the wealthiest Minnesotans. Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk responded with a letter of his own questioning the pledge and its implications, while Dayton told the GOP to stop “the game-playing” and come up with a budget of their own.

“We write to make perfectly clear… that we all are opposed to raising taxes to balance the 2012-2013 $6.2 billion deficit,” the 37 GOP senators wrote. “We are all opposed to your budget that increases state spending by 22 percent.”

They added, “We do not have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem.”

Bakk, in a letter to Majority Leader Amy Koch “questioned the wisdom of staking out a narrowly-focused position this early in the budget process” and asked the GOP for specifics on their no-tax pledge.

Do all 37 members of your caucus commit to opposing cuts to Local Government Aid , which the Department of Revenue has stated will increase property taxes on Minnesotans?

Do all 37 members of your caucus agree with Rep. Davids, the House Tax Chair, that ending specific tax breaks would represent a tax increase?

Does your pledge prohibit your caucus from exploring any sort of tax reform that involves broadening a tax’s base to lower its overall rate?

Do all 37 members of your caucus oppose any effort to create or extend local option sales tax in Minnesota communities, such as the proposals introduced by Sen. Hoffman, Sen. Miller, Sen. Dahms and Sen. Newman?

In a conference call with reporters, Dayton took a shot at Republicans who have not developed a budget.

“They continue to be in denial over the direct impact of decisions made in St. Paul on property tax increases,” said Dayton. “The time for this rhetorical game playing is over. I’ve submitted by budget, and now it’s their responsibility to develop their budget. Where is their budget?”

The GOP’s letter and Bakk’s letter are below:

49500970-GovDaytonLetter02242011

Feb24_Ltr

Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed a bill to cut $1 billion from the state budget Thursday evening saying the bill was unconstitutional and would result in higher property taxes. To bolster his argument, Dayton turned to an unlikely source — former Gov. Tim Pawlenty. At a press conference, Dayton said it was the earliest veto a governor has made during a legislative session since 1939.

In his veto message, Dayton wrote, “The Minnesota Department of Revenue estimates that your bill would increase property taxes by $428 million in the next biennium: $322 million by cutting aid to local governments, and $106 million by reducing renter refunds for property tax relief.”

Dayton called increases in property taxes the most “regressive and unfair” of all the state’s taxes.

He also said that the GOP had not outlined where it wanted $100 million in spending cut from existing agency budgets. “Instead, you would abdicate your responsibility to make those difficult spending choices and your power to determine those cuts to an appointed official of the Executive Department,” he wrote. “That is both inappropriate and unconstitutional.”

Dayton also said disagreed with the piecemeal approach to fixing the budget deficit, citing a veto letter signed by Pawlenty last February.

“I told them that I thought it was unwise and that they first permit me to submit my budget,” Dayton said at a press conference. He’s required by law to submit that budget on Tuesday.

“This bill would affect the lives of Minnesotans, and with virtually no public input,” he said. “I don’t understand why there a rush to judgment on decisions that have such large consequences for so many Minnesotans.”

He said the projected increases in property taxes under the bill demonstrates a need for revenue. “I think this action today proves my case, revenue increases are going to be needed.”

He added, “The legislature is acting with extreme rashness and something this important to raise property taxes, slash education funding aid to local governments” needs to be debated in committee meeting with public input, he said.

Here’s Dayton’s veto letter:

daytonveto130 –

During his State of the State address on Wednesday, Gov. Mark Dayton renewed his call for higher taxes on wealthy Minnesotans, a central position of his successful campaign for governor in 2010. He quoted the Bible in urging the rich to support his proposal for more progressive taxation.

“Some will criticize me for proposing next week to ask those successful businessmen and women and other wealthy Minnesotans to pay higher taxes,” Dayton said. “I ask them for their forbearance during this fiscal crisis, which I did not create, but inherited, and now, with you in the Legislature, must solve. I ask Minnesota’s business leaders and other most successful citizens to give us two years to turn this Ship of State around.”

He continued, “Not by savaging essential public services, upon which you and your employees also depend, but rather by transforming the ways in which government operates here in Minnesota. And, with your help, to reduce the need for those services by putting people back to work throughout our state.”

He cited scripture to that call for the wealthy to help fix the state’s budget deficit.

“My father’s favorite quote was from the Bible. ‘To whomsoever much has been given, of him shall much be required.’ You have achieved so much. I ask you, please, to help your state, your children and grandchildren, your friends and neighbors, to regain what you and I have enjoyed so much and benefited from so greatly during our lives here in Minnesota. Please — help us restore Minnesota to greatness.”

Dayton faces a tough battle with Republicans in the Legislature, most of whom have made campaign promises to fix the budget deficit with cuts only and no increases in taxes.

In Dayton’s address he also called for an increase in spending on education and said that he would work with the Legislature to avoid a government shutdown.

William Kristol, prominent neoconservative columnist, said he was disappointed in Rep. Michele Bachmann’s campaign to prevent Congress from raising the debt ceiling to avoid the United States from defaulting on its debt. Writing in the Weekly Standard, Kristol noted his general praise for Bachmann but called her plan “silly” and “irresponsible.”

Bachmann’s petition, which she’s been flogging on national media outlets, reads:

With the national debt $14 trillion and counting, Congress’ spending frenzy cannot continue. It’s time to force our elected officials to stop spending cold turkey, and we can start by making sure they do not raise the debt ceiling.

That’s why I’m asking you to personally tell Congress not to increase the amount of money the government can borrow by adding your name to the “Don’t Raise the Debt Ceiling” petition.

“This is irresponsible,” Kristol wrote. “I’ve seen no plausible plan that would enable us to go ‘cold turkey’ (to use her term) fast enough or dramatically enough that we could reduce the deficit to zero in a few months–which is what would be required if Congress were not to authorize an increase in the debt ceiling.”

He added, “If Michele Bachmann has such a plan, she should share it with us. If not, she should withdraw her endorsement of the “cold turkey” petition, and help figure out what legislation could be attached to the debt ceiling or passed separately that would further the cause of real spending restraint and reduction. But there’s no turkey cold enough to enable us to avoid raising the debt ceiling.”

Rep. Tim Walz is one of three members of Congress to return his congressional pay raise to the U.S. Treasury, ABC News reported Tuesday. According to quarterly disbursement reports, Walz has returned his raises to the treasury each year since he came to Washington. Walz, along with Republican Reps. Spencer Bachus of Alabama and Frank Lobiondo of New York, are the only ones who have rejected raises in Congress despite intense rhetoric from tea partiers and Republicans regarding the growing national debt.

ABC News notes that other members may be returning their raises but not reporting them on their reports, and that Walz does so for the sake of transparency.

“It’s a token measure, but it’s something I can do,” he said. “I don’t want to sound self righteous on this. I just want to set an example. I’m proud of what I’m doing, but I don’t want to be seen as the ‘look at me, look at what I’m doing.’ The theme for me is the transparency and the openness and doing my part.”

In 2008, Walz announced his plans to give the funds back. “I came here to change our priorities in Washington. I don’t think it’s fair for Congress to give itself a pay raise when it can’t stick to a budget,” he said at the time. “I made a promise to the people of southern Minnesota, and I intend to keep it.

This year Walz has returned $6,588 to the national deficit, which currently stands at $1.3 trillion.

Rep. Michele Bachmann appeared on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer on Saturday to talk about the tea party and cutting the nation’s budget. Blitzer pressed Bachmann to name programs that could be cut to bring down the federal budget deficit, but she declined, saying only that spending levels should be rolled back to 2008 levels.

Bachmann also said the tea party would not likely field a 2012 presidential candidate because it’s too financially prohibitive to create a new political party. But if the GOP doesn’t cut spending the tea party will abandon the them, she said.

Here is Bachmann’s and Blitzer’s exchange on cutting the budget:

BLITZER: Give me one big ticket cut that would you make, $1 billion, $5 billion, $100 billion. Where would you find the money available to deal with the deficit?

BACHMANN: Well, number one, just go back to spending levels of ’08.

BLITZER: Give me a specific example.

BACHMANN: That’s 25 percent of the federal budget. Remember, the federal budget was no lean, mean machine when President Obama took over. In his tenure, less than two years’ time, he has driven up the size of the federal budget almost 25 percent.

BLITZER: There’s a specific cut you would make?

BACHMANN: Take every –

BLITZER: Department of Education?

BACHMANN: Every increase that he took, go back to the –

BLITZER: Department Of Energy? Give me a specific.

BACHMANN: OK. But go back — I am. Go back specifically to where we were with the budget in ’08. That was not a paltry budget. Go back exactly where we were, that solves a lot the problem.

BLITZER: No specific cut you would prose right now other than go back to the 2008 levels?

BACHMANN: Back to the 2008 level, because one thing — we can do across the board cuts, but I don’t think that’s prudent, because there are legitimate projects that have to be done.

Bridges have to be built. Water treatment systems built. I think we don’t want to cut off our nose to spite our face, we have to be smart about this.

BLITZER: You’re basically saying, just have an across the board cut to the 2008 levels?

BACHMANN: No, no. Go back to where the spending priority was in 2008. Start there to begin with because we have to check the driver of spending. Go back to ’08, from there, then we can take the time to go through the budget and find out which priorities we want.

BLITZER: Is there a priority you want to cut?

BACHMANN: That I want to cut?

BLITZER: From 2008, is there something from 2008 that you would cut beyond that 2008 level?

BACHMANN: I’ll give you one example going back to when President Bush was in office. I disagreed with President Bush on no child left behind. I thought it was a failure, and it failed, a failed opportunity. In that bill the federal government ramped up spending more than we had ever seen.

BLITZER: For the Department Of Education.

BACHMANN: Department of Education.

BLITZER: So you would cut that?

BACHMANN: You could start there.

BLITZER: That’s a specific cut.

BACHMANN: Start there.

BLITZER: More cuts down the road to discuss. Michele Bachmann, thank very much for coming on.

BACHMANN: Thank you, Wolf.

And on the tea party movement, Bachmann said Republicans have to give the tea party what they want or they may go elsewhere:

BLITZER: Let’s talk about the tea party. Our brand new CNN Opinion Research Corporation poll just out today shows this. In October, the unfavorable number for the Tea Party Movement was 37 percent. It’s now gone up to 42 percent. A slightly bigger number as far as unfavorable attitudes towards the Tea Party, what’s your sense? Why is this happening?

BACHMANN: Well, it’s interesting, because they were so wildly successful at the polls just a couple of weeks ago. I think they’ll continue to be. I think it really depends upon how they’re being portrayed in the media.

I think that will affect polls, but clearly, people who are part of the Tea Party recognize it’s not a political party. It’s really just a set of ideas that have more to do with limited government, making sure taxes don’t go up and making sure that government lives with its mean. That’s essentially the Tea Party.

BLITZER: It was by all accounts widely successful although significant failures in Delaware, Nevada and some other states where there was a real strong Tea Party candidate who lost.

BACHMANN: You can’t win them all, but they are phenomenally successful, considering they are not a political party. They have no money behind them. There’s no organization, no hierarchy. It’s a brand and group of people coming together.

BLITZER: Do you think it will change?

BACHMANN: In what way?

BLITZER: If the Republican establishment doesn’t do what the Tea Parties wants it to do, do you see the possibility as the Tea Party emerging as real political party, as opposed to a movement?

BACHMANN: I think if the Republican Party decides to big government, big spenders then you’ll see a significant shift away from the Republican party. I don’t that right now.

The vibrancy and the verve in the last election was energized from the Tea Party and that energy was infused into the Republican Party. The people who are disaffected Democrats and Independents voted for the Republican, because they didn’t – they were rejecting the big government policies that were coming out of Washington.

BLITZER: Because some have already suggested, you know what? Looking lady to 2012, a Tea Party candidate as opposed to a Democratic candidate or Republican candidate is a possibility. In other words, a strong third party.

BACHMANN: I doubt it. I really doubt it. I think you’ll see the two-party system intact. It just two years from now, the presidential – the clock has started ticking on that race.

I don’t think we’ll see — you’d have to have a rise of an entire political party infrastructure. There’s so much that goes along with that. I just don’t think that we’re going to see that happen.

Photo: Jim Meffert for Congress

DFL candidate Jim Meffert filed an ethics complaint with the House Ethics Committee on Tuesday charging that Rep. Erik Paulsen, his Republican opponent, falsified information in an official House communication with district residents. The Meffert campaign is taking issue with a tax-payer funded mailer that shows a graph of the national deficit, claiming that the graph is purposefully distorted. Paulsen’s campaign complained that Meffert confused debt with deficit and that the mailer passed through the House franking office.

“Somehow, an increase of a projected $1.1 trillion per year under President Obama is depicted as drastically sharper than the $2.2 trillion per year increase under President Bush,” the Meffert campaign said in a statement.

In a letter to the House Ethics Committee, Alex Falconer, Meffert’s campaign manager wrote, “If plotted correctly, Paulsen’s own numbers would show an economy that is slowing the bleeding; but Paulsen manipulated the numbers on the graph to show the opposite of the truth. He lied to the people of the Third District and he should be held accountable. Congressman Paulsen should be investigated, and we need to find out how he was able to push such a deceitful piece through the House Ethics Committee.”

The mailer, which was sent out in March, exaggerates the increase in the deficit. Here is the chart Paulsen’s office created:

And here’s the chart with the figures plotted correctly which was provided by the Meffert campaign:

But Mark Giga, spokesman for Paulsen shot back at Meffert: “Jim Meffert needs to learn the difference between the national debt and the federal deficit.”

He said, “The Paulsen mail piece examines the exploding national debt while Meffert’s press release complains about ‘the federal deficit growing at an increasingly rapid pace.’ We agree with Meffert that the federal deficit is growing at an increasingly rapid pace.”

Giga added, “There isn’t a single number or word on the mail piece that is inaccurate.”

Giga said the mailer “was approved by the Commission on Mailing and Standards (the Franking Commission) of the Committee on House Administration. Both of which are chaired by Democrats.”

But Meffert’s campaign says that Paulsen is dodging the real issue.

“Who can look at the graph in question and say it is a fair representation of the data?” asked Falconer. “The point of a graph is to show data. The graph in question morphs the data to show something very different than what the same data would show when graphed properly. This graph is clearly meant to lead constituents to the opposite conclusion from what the numbers, graphed accurately, would show.”

The Meffert campaign said it did conflate debt and deficit and that they have amended their complaint. “The graph is still as misleading as ever,” said Falconer. “Is this childish and flippant response the best we can expect from the office of our Congressman?”

Photo by Lisa Yarost, Flickr

As the budget battle at the state Capitol gets going, MinnesotaRepublicans are promising to obstruct efforts to both cut expenses and raise taxes. DFLers are looking at a pending stimulus plan from the White House in February in order to guide how the budget session takes place. And at least one DFLer thinks that Gov. Tim Pawlenty might change his stance on taxes (or “revenue enhancements”) to help fill a historic $4.8 billion deficit.

House Minority Leader Marty Seifert, R-Marshall, says his caucus would not vote for any tax increases, with the only possible revenue generator an expansion of state-sponsored gambling. He called any tax increase “dead on arrival” during a press conference late last week.

Pawlenty continues to talk of “no new taxes,”but Sen. Mary Olson, DFL-Bemidji, allows that Pawlenty has indicated he would support “revenue enhancements,” and those enhancements could mean sales taxes on food and clothing.

“If I’m correct in reading between the lines, that is the kind of revenue enhancement the governor means, but I don’t know,” Olson told the Bemidji Pioneer.

On the other half of the equation to balance the budget, Seifert wants to put DFLers on the hook for what will surely be painful cuts to public programs and services. In an interview with Minnesota Public Radio’s Kerri Miller last month, Seifert said, “I probably will not be voting for any of these cuts.”

And he won’t be encouraging his fellow Republicans to support cuts either. “The budget bills coming up, I will be giving suggestions, ideas and the like on how to balance the budget,” he said. “But I can tell you that the political road is littered with the bodies of House Republicans who made tough decisions on balancing the budget.”

While the Republican caucus looks for ways to pin painful cuts on Democrats, DFLers are working toward the very real possibility that an Obama administration will be sending a large sum of money to Minnesota. MinnPost spoke late last week with DFLers who anticipate anywhere between $1 billion and $10 billion to eventually show up in Minnesota. The DFL’s first bills submitted this week are tailored to streamline any stimulus money.

Some Republicans say that if the bill does not meet their standards, they might vote to reject the money.

Photo: Lisa Yarost