The Minnesota GOP, the party of so-called "fiscal responsibility," uses Enron-style accounting and mythical money sources to balance the state's historic $5 billion budget deficit. Article by State Senator Richard Cohen, DFL-St. Paul.
Last fall, Republicans took control of the Minnesota Senate and House by telling voters they'd run government more like a business.
After three months, it's finally become clear what they meant.
Republican leaders have brought Enron-style accounting to the State Capitol and have not in any way provided the balanced budget they promised.
Historically, Minnesota's budget has been set using conservative budgeting principles. Every proposal to raise revenue or cut spending has been analyzed by a team of nonpartisan financial experts, which produced a cost or revenue estimate for the proposal.
These are the figures governors and both houses of the Legislature have used when setting the state's two-year budgets. Whether we've had Republican, independent or Democratic governors and legislative majorities, that has been the inviolate practice.
When I chaired Senate finance committees, I negotiated with several different House Republican chairs who had reputations as conservatives. We might not have agreed on policy, but we all agreed on the numbers we were using in preparing the budget. This allowed us to ultimately arrive at a compromise.
The current Republican budget plan in the Senate is banking on almost $1 billion in mythical "savings" and "reform" that is simply based on invented money.
The House plan uses even more fictional money in resolving the budget deficit of $5 billion. This despite the Republicans continually telling us they are the party of "fiscal responsibility."
We've seen the downfalls of guesswork accounting. Recently, Republican leaders booked $46.2 million in savings from a proposal known as "strategic sourcing," which would change the way the state procures goods and services.
A few days later, when we received our nonpartisan financial analysis, we learned that estimate was, perhaps, slightly optimistic. Agency experts determined that the bill would save the state only about $400,000, or about 0.08 percent of what Republicans had originally estimated.
Disturbingly, Republican leaders are still including those fantasy savings in their budget.
This is far from the only example. Republicans claim we'll save $603 million by applying for a special Medicaid waiver from the federal government.
There is no proof anywhere that the waiver would be granted, and the inclusion of the money to be saved from the waiver is simply wishful thinking on the part of the Republican majority because they disagree with federal health care policy.
That disagreement can be resolved by the 2012 elections, but it is impossible to actually book the savings based on such a wish and a hope.
Another questionable proposal would require the state to contract with outside vendors to improve building efficiency, fleet management and tax fraud detection.
The only estimate of savings that could be provided for this proposal came from a private business that hoped to win one of these contracts. Like all good salespeople, they promised the state a huge return on its investment.
Evidently, this was good enough for Republican leaders. Their budget books $140 million in savings for this program, a number not corroborated by any independent fiscal analysis.
What was stated repeatedly by nonpartisan employees of affected agencies -- as was the case in the "strategic sourcing" plan -- was that Minnesota's agencies have been doing this work for years, that they have been recognized nationally as the leader in that work and that the projected savings were already included in the budget numbers for the state.
What is clear through this fictional exercise is that the promise that Republicans could simply cut their way to a balanced budget turned out to be a false promise.
Simply putting fictional numbers on a piece of paper, claiming those numbers as savings, then suggesting that they have taken care of the deficit is not only illusory but absolutely dishonest with the people of Minnesota, since under this plan the deficit continues.
The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "You can choose your opinions, but you cannot choose your facts." There is nothing wrong with disagreements between Republicans and Democrats over policy.
However, if we cannot agree on the facts of the budget at the beginning point -- as has been done by every administration and Legislature over the decades -- then it is impossible to see how this legislative session can be resolved.
Richard J. Cohen, DFL-St. Paul, is a member of the Minnesota Senate.
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