Former Commissioner of Finance Jay Kiedrowski succinctly described the Minnesota state long-term budget imbalance as follows, “Minnesota spends more than it takes in. We have had this problem since 1999 when, believing that the prosperity of the late 1990s would last forever, state officials cut income taxes and increased spending, both too much.”

The partisan party politics of the two traditional parties have led us to the brink of financial disaster. Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s budget includes proposals to jump off the cliff.

The craziest idea is for the state to sell $1 billion of long-term bonds with a mortgage on future tobacco-settlement dollars to repay the bonds and to use the money to pay current bills. This is stunningly analogous to the trouble homeowners got into when they took out a home-equity loan to pay off credit card bills. They mortgaged the future so they could spend more now. Now the governor proposes to do the same — this must be stopped dead in its tracks.

The governor’s budget also includes shifting school aid payments from one fiscal year to another. This is an underhanded technique of making school districts borrow the money for current operations since the state of Minnesota is prohibited by the Constitution from doing so.

The state must develop a plan to fix the projected imbalance in taxes and spending that goes beyond the current biennium. We need a five-year plan that is realistic and a long-term plan that takes into account that a recession occurs every three to five years. Since 1980 there have been eight periods of negative economic growth, including four technical recessions. To fail to plan for occasional bad times is no planning at all.

Remember when we had budget surpluses? We need to go back to what created them by putting income taxes back where they were and cutting spending to the equivalent of 1999 levels.

We must kill the idea of long-term borrowing to make it easier on the current batch of politicians in balancing the budget. Minnesotans are willing to pay for good, efficient government. They are willing to sacrifice for the common good but only if they know that the government is fiscally responsible, that people are personally responsible for their own welfare and that no one is getting a free ride, except in temporary, urgent personal circumstances.

Unfortunately, the two traditional parties seem unable to grasp these concepts. That is why we need the Independence Party more than ever as the party that supports government that is fiscally responsible, equitable in its collection of taxes, careful in its spending, and honest in its financial reporting. For now, our only hope is that good citizens will demand common sense and good government from local politicians.

Mark Meyer

Lake Crystal