Carlson calls governor home
Former
Minnesota governors generally refrain from head-on clashes with their
old office's current occupant. That may be why former Gov. Arne Carlson
did not mention his fellow Republican successor, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, by
name Tuesday, or explicitly blast the latter's absences from Minnesota
as he explores a possible presidential bid.
But
Carlson made clear to an audience assembled by the progressive think
tank Growth & Justice that he thinks Minnesota's problems need more
gubernatorial attention than they've been receiving.
Carlson,
governor from 1991 through 1998, argued that state leaders should come
together now to devise a plan for shrinking the state budget "tsunami"
heading toward Minnesota's public sector in 2011 and beyond. He argued
that the governor ought to initiate that work.
"This
is a time, like never before in my lifetime, when the governor has to
be at the helm of the ship full time, and has to be willing to put on
the table every single option available," Carlson said. "The faster we
can make some decisions on this, the easier the ultimate pain is going
to be to accept. If you waste one year and three months, which would be
until the start of the (2011) session, and say we're not going to do
anything except point fingers and blame everybody else, you and I as
citiziens of this state are the losers."
Carlson
is right: Adjusting the current state budget with sustainable new
revenues or reductions in spending could do much to ease the problem
that's looming in 2011. But Minnesotans familiar with the record of
bipartisanship -- or, more accurately, the lack thereof -- during the
Pawlenty years will be understandably dubious about whether even a
concerted effort by the current Capitol crowd could produce an accord.
Pawlenty's courtship of his national party's most conservative elements
would likely make a deal with the DFL-controlled Legislature
even harder to come by than it has been for the past seven years.
The
fact that the House speaker is a prominent DFL candidate for governor,
and at least seven other legislators are also in the gubernatorial
hunt, complicates matters, too. Carlson proposed a fix: "Don't have any
leaders who are running for governor.. . . There's enough politics at
the table without adding more."
It may be that the
best this crop of state leaders can do in 2010 is assign a panel of
bright policy thinkers to recommend options for the next governor and
Legislature to consider. Knowing the incumbents, it will probably have
to be two panels, each with its own partisan tilt. But two batches of
fresh ideas would be better than none.
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