It seems the threat of becoming boozeless in Minnesota was enough to finally motivate Governor Mark Dayton to try to end the shutdown out of fear he’d need to impose order on a state full of stone sober Lutherans, who if any of you history majors out there can remember are just descendants of the Viking “barbarians” that even Marcus Bachmann cannot cure, so it will all eventually end up in a Canadian invasion to kidnap Minnesota’s hockey players and Prince. Anyway, Dayton has agreed to the fiscal measures proposed by the Republican-controlled legislature, which means Minnesota will have a balanced budget now, freedom wins hooray?
No, the Awesome GOP Plan is to not pay K-12 schools for another year (children get 165 snow days next year, best day evar!) and to borrow against future tax income. We’re sure that’s not how we got here to begin with?
Republicans have not yet agreed to this, because they are grumbling that Dayton won’t let them keep their “kill the pregnant ladies and homos” and the “fire all the state workers” sections of the spending bills.
The Star Tribune reports:
“This is the only viable option that’s potentially available,” Dayton said, while speaking at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Making clear that he is unhappy with the terms, Dayton said, “I am just disappointed we can’t do it better.”
It remains far from clear whether Dayton’s latest offer would end the nation’s longest government shutdown, now heading into its third week.
Senate GOP spokesman Michael Brodkorb said after Dayton’s announcement that Senate Republican leaders were still studying the offer and were not ready to comment.
Republican legislators said Dayton’s new conditions might not be acceptable and several expressed unease with the budget solution their own leaders had offered. That proposal, made to Dayton on June 30, would increase spending by $1.4 billion solely through withholding money from K-12 schools and borrowing against future tobacco revenue.
Nah, “kids don’t need school” and “cancer tax money” both sound pretty good, we’d say go ahead and go with that. [StarTribune]
{ 110 comments }
This is good news for the "Tequila Party".
At least kids can get drunk at the daycare bar.
Not on their shift they can't.
as someone who's worked at a bar…i disagree. but you definitely look like a lush at 3pm passing out on the bus ride home.
These pretzels are making me thirsty.
Marcus Bachmann, aka "Gonad the Barbarian" can't cure anything, not even Minnesota.
Gonad the Barbarian for the win. Would fist again and again! (And yes, that is ALSO a pun. Or an innuendo. Double entendre?)
Thank you!
Maybe a triple entendre, as in "fist in the a**hole's kisser".
Innuendo? That's my Italian proctologist.
"Gonad the Barbarian" can't cure anything
I must respectfully disagreed. He appears to have cured himself of a raging case of heterosexuality. Except for the itching, the burning…
"take two ass burns and call me in the morning"
Why are they taxing the gob-decayers?
And hey, all those parents who'll have to leave the workforce to watch their kids all day will help with the unmeployment problem. Maybe even enough to offset the teacher layoffs.
Workforce — what a quaint concept.
Lying GOP asshats will reject the latest offer because thats the type of shit asshats do when you elect asshats.
It was an asshat sweep, that last election! Asshats for everyone!
You get an asshat!!! And YOU get an asshat!!! And WE ALL get asshats!!!
They are too busy playing games to reject it outright today.
I never thought caving could taste so sweet….ahhh.
So basically, Dayton agreed to kick the can down the road again. Isn't there a single Democrat out there that will stick to their guns on raising taxes on the people that have been raping this country for years?
No (sigh).
Well, forcing the people who have been (metaphorically) raped by the corporations, and the land which has been (metaphorically) raped by those requirements, to keep suffering and paying certainly sounds a lot like forcing (actual) rape victims to pay for their own rape kits. So A for effort in consistency?
Phew! For a while there I thought Minnesota millionaires might have to pay higher taxes.
I have a kid graduating next year that actually wanted to be a Golden Gopher. Sorry, child, not gonna pay extra for you to end up in a state that's turning out to be as bass-ackward as the one we're in now.
While in actuality it's not gonna make any difference, T-Paw thinks this is good news for him.
Who?
Who?
D'oh!
I think there' an owl in here.
Prepare to be used.
ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz…sorry, what?
T-Paw thinks a lot of things, bless his heart.
Well, since they're going to cancel school, the least they could do would be to lower the drinking age. To, let's say 5.
Pu the little urchins to work shoveling snow. Then they can cut back on the number of DOT workers that drive the snowplows.
Get the kids to start smoking!!!!
Problam sulved.
They get cancer in their 50's, croak because there's no health care, and presto — you've cut your pension expenses!
This is long-term planning at its best.
RE: the Canadian invasion — does anyone really think William & Catherine were there to watch mutton get busted at the Stampede?
I assumed the rest of the family wanted to get rid of them, a sort of remittance couple….
"Then they came for the beer and I said, Hells no, GTFO."
Never mind Prince. But we'll gladly take Bob Mould off your hands.
you can have Bob Mould but you also have to take all surviving members of The Trashmen.
& Bob can choose to get married, in Canada. So, win.
There is a god.
Mark Dayton speaks in complete sentences and has coherent thoughts. Also, he uses the traditional real reality and seems to never even try to create his own. So, in other words, he's kind of a dinosaur.
The Minnesota governor has clearly read the writing on the
wallcamper:http://wonkette.com/449226/wingnut-camper-art-pro…
Is it August 2nd already and Barry has fired the military and ferry penguins from Our Lady of Antarctica are invading?
These descendants of the Viking barbarians can always resort to raiding and pillaging the timid people of Canada for their wimmins and their booze. Then they can return to the Valhalla that is Minnesota with their booty.
I've got this vision of an armada of bass boats convoying out of Superior Bay there in Duluth, headed to plunder Thunder Bay.
"Then they can return to the Valhalla that is Minnesota with their booty."
And then hoist their tankards and take part in a rousing rendition of that classic waltz tune, "Blood on the Snowplow Tonight."**
**Not kidding; real tune up in the frozen northland.
i need to hear this song.
They could save a lot of money if they changed school from "K-12" to maybe "K-6" and then induce the Chinese to outsource all their manufacturing jobs to Minnesota.
First no scotch and now you're suggesting no Scotch Tape? Are there any other manufacturing jerbz in Minnesota besides 3M?
Metrdonic makes cardiac pacemakers which apparently electrocute the wearer, so there's that… Sort of like your own personal Taser.
Arctic Cat and Polaris snowmobiles, errr, snow MACHINES.
Mississippi and Alabama are already working on this. What do you think of New Orleans as the next Shanghai?
If we can get a few more states to follow this plan, Mississippi could move from last place in education, so there is that.
With Miller Coors being allowed to distribute in Minnesota, again, for once we can say —
This is Bad News… for John Mc Cain… 's wife's business.
The Republican legislators, being rich, can afford to import their booze and don't care about the suffering sober masses.
Minny HAHA. I blame the Lakers leaving all those years ago we are finally feeling the repercussions now
Grown-up makes grown-up triage-based decision. Still depressing.
Petulant children still throw their toys, then writhe on ground kicking and screaming even though they were told they COULD have the goddamn ice cream.
The GOP won't pay for K-12 education next year? That's not Minnesota Nice! That's tschootzpah!
This deal could be a good thing if the GOP would do their part by smoking, to increase tax revenues. Say, five packs a day. A few years should thin out their ranks…
Does Minnesota not have a recall process for these dopes? Or are the Minnesotans just too damn nice to fire up the throw-the-bums-out machine?
GOP spokesman Michael Brodkorb
Is this surname a vestige of barbaric Luthero-Viking lineage? cause it came close but proved a palindrome FAIL.
It sounds like a name someone would make up for D&D. Brodkorb, the l2 Dwarven berserker, strikes with his greataxe! Roll 19, a hit; that's 2d6 damage +2 for his strength bonus; roll 9, 11 damage; the hobgoblin is dead.
that smells of mountain dew, doritos, and carpeted basements.
That shows what you know about playing D&D!
It was a carpeted dorm room.
Probably Romano-German!
this is less like vikings and more like strindberg.
or abba.
HAHAHAHA, the Majority Speaker of the MN Senate's name is Koch. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.
If Minnesota is increasing spending by not funding schools, they might as well just get Marcus Bachmann to pray away their budget problems, because their situation is truly hopeless.
"Future tobacco revenues" Since the kids won't be in school, they can learn to take up smoking.
"That proposal, made to Dayton on June 30, would increase spending by $1.4 billion solely through withholding money from K-12 schools and borrowing against future tobacco revenue."
Two things any rational budget plan should be built on: defunding education and the apparently inelastic demand for cigarettes. That way the kids won't get smart enough not to smoke.
Kind of tough to depend on tobacco revenue, when the source dies from the product.
They die slowly enough to teach their offspring to smoke too. I know my parents did!
And there's nothing like a tax on an addictive commodity, if you want steady revenue. Even a foreclosed-upon, evicted-by-the-banksters former homeowner will water down the baby's formula, if it lets him buy a pack a day.
Pedobear likes it when school is always out.
OT, but is the giant goth-anime young lady supposed to be Kortney's competition?
Borrow against future tax revenue? WTF? This is a T-Paw move for certain. And not pay for schools? Are they going to pay for themselves or do the little kiddies just have to take up the biggest of all bake sales ever to get their bookz?
Borrowing against future, reduced-by-Republicans tax revenue. What could possibly go wrong?
Fundie schools where they learn that the flat earth is only 5, 000 years old and that pi = 3! Paid by 7 years of slavery after graduation!
OT, but had to share Glory Hole Face photo:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/
discuss as needed
Oh, I'm counting down the seconds until Gohmert gets caught with his face buried in a 12-year-old boy's crotch.
With a tampon in his ass and nary a tooth in his head, he'll go down.
Guess that's why it's not called the Teeth Party.
But there is the Tooth Fairy…
And now Juan McCain is telling Michele Bachmann to shut her piehole about the debt ceiling?
Get the popcorn!
The Minn. Gov. got the message and gave in to Taxpayer Austerity demands. The balanced budget wave spreads….
Hey, here's an idear. How about everyone who voted Republican gets cuts to their Medicare and Medicaid, and has their kids sent home to be taught by Mom about Jeebus. Also, the all Republican families must smoke at least one pack of cigarettes per day per capita, for teh taks revenoos.
Everyone else can continue on as normal.
Good thought, but it won't get rid of Republicans fast enough.
"not paying teachers" is a rather novel approach to the purported problem of poor teacher quality. the beatings will continue until morale improves!
The state of Iowa had a Education Roundtable yesterday that consisted of Gov. Terry Branstad and business leaders. Solution to education costs? Start paying teachers like workers instead of by years of service.
Considering that Iowa already has a problem with keeping teachers in the state because of the low wage scale, I'm sure this plan will work out wonderfully.
Still, aren't they supposed to DECREASE spending?
Canada has its own Prince Beiber.
Laugh if you want, but PowderMilk Biscuit futures are skyrocketing!
they're tasty and expeditious!
This is a great idea. What part of the electorate could possibly think that funding schools is a priority? This is just fiscal responsibility, people.
Also, too, WTF.
So the strategy is to kick the kids out of school, hope they take up smoking, because they aren't learning, so that they can pay for the school?
So how do we make the failure to raise the debt limit threaten our nation's booze supply? This apparently is the only thing that will make Republitards strike a deal, even if it is a bad one.
I didn't think cameras were allowed in the State Capitol.
"I don't think I'm caving," Dayton said. He said the state will spend about $35.5 over the next two years, sparing the most "savage" cuts to programs he deems crucial.
So, the Guvner of Minnie-sota is challenging the Preznit to see who can be the nation's spelunker-in-chief?
P. S. I did not screw up the cut-and-paste. The newspaper article said the state will spend about 35 and a half dollars over the next two years. Big spenders!
So what's more crucial than elementary education?
That's $35.50 wasted on big guvmint socialist programs … is the GOP really gonna let that happen?
why doesn't the gop just come out and admit their long term plan is to reinstate feudalism?
I'm looking forward to the re-opening of debtors prisons and the repeal of child labor laws, just like the Founding Fathers intended.
Because there "base" is mad up largely of serfs and they don't want them to figure it out too soon.
They know what they want to do (sort of) but they don't know the four syllable word for it!
The Republican line seems to be that the best way to lower taxes is to have fewer tax payers. if only we could get the population completely unemployable, then we can get filthy rich selling stuff to people who have no money.
But, remember, you guys, divided government is the best kind of government. Because.
Honestly, how do you elect a Democratic governor, and not some blue dog, but an actual Democrat, and then decidedly give over both houses to the Republicans? What the fuck did you all expect to happen with this incarnation of the Republican Party? It's like you're sadists.
Uh, there is no need to come out with a revised version of Pofiles in Courage.
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