Gov. Mark Dayton could not reach a budget compromise with the GOP-led legislature. Minnesota blame game ramps up

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton said GOP legislative leaders are being held hostage by the tea party while Republicans accused the governor of engaging in “a class warfare classic” Friday as the two sides blamed each other for their collective failure to reach a budget deal, closing state government functions and leaving some 23,000 employees out of work.

Gov. Dayton, who had been the target of attacks all day by GOP leaders of the state house and senate, fired back in a late-afternoon interview on Minnesota Public Radio. In an echo of the bickering taking place in Washington, he blamed newly-elected tea party-backed Republicans who seized control of the state legislature last fall.


“We were making our best efforts,” Dayton said. “They’re really hemmed in by their caucuses. The two caucuses in the Republican ranks are so dominated by tea party ideologues. Not a penny more, their way … their budget, not a penny more. Well, I have a different view, and we were both elected, so in a democracy you have govern by coming to a reasonable, balanced compromise, and they were just unwilling to do that and that left their leaders unable to take the leadership that was necessary.”

The governor also said he will hold no new talks with Republicans until at least Tuesday, leaving state parks, social services and other functions closed.

Dayton’s remarks continue the state’s furious blame game, which began late Thursday night when the two sides were unable to reach a biennial budget deal before a midnight deadline.

The senate majority leader, Republican Amy Koch, ripped Dayton for refusing to drop his plan to slap an income tax increase on people who earn more than $1 million annually, while Democrats charged that the GOP was holding state residents hostage to its demands for social policy changes, including new restrictions on abortion.

“We made an offer to the governor on more revenue yesterday morning,” Koch said during a morning interview on Minnesota Public Radio. “He countered with an offer that we thought we could work with. … The governor, very honestly, walked away then. He withdrew the offer.”

Koch, who with house Speaker Kurt Zellers led a 2010 GOP takeover of the state Legislature, couched opposition to tax increases on the wealthy in the same terms Republicans in Washington use.

“It’s a class warfare classic, 1970s, 1980s philosophy,” Koch added. “It’s about what we can afford. We cannot afford the government we’ve got.”

And Zellers invoked New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s refusal to increase taxes on millioniares as a reason that Dayton, a Democrat, should do the same.

No new talks are scheduled, although Zellers told WCCO he remains “ready, willing and able to negotiate.”

And Minnesota Democratic party chairman Ken Martin took to MSNBC to affix the blame for the shutdown on the state’s previous governor, Tim Pawlenty, who is seeking the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.

“The last eight years of reckless policies of Tim Pawlenty are what got us into this mess in the first place,” Martin said.

Of Pawlenty’s Thursday night press conference at which he said a long state government shutdown may be a good thing, Martin said: “It’s like a guy running through a crowded theater yelling ‘Fire! Fire!’ and in fact he’s the one who set the place on fire to begin with.”

Minnesota House Democratic leader Paul Thissen told the public radio station that the GOP offer to make a budget deal came with unacceptable strings attached — including significant restrictions to abortion.

“Republicans were willing to shut down government for two things,” Thissen said. “They weren’t willing to ask people making more than $1 million to pay anything, and in the last hours of the negotiations, they said anything that they’re going to do to solve the budget involves a list of very extreme social policy demands.”

Zellers, who called into Minnesota Public Radio immediately after Thissen’s interview, charged him with an “an absolute bold-faced lie."

He said the GOP offer included a “fetal pain bill,” along with language making Minnesota a right-to-work state, require photo identification at the polls and caps on property taxes and tuition at state colleges and universities.

In a sign of just how divided the two sides are — and how petty the fight has gotten — Zellers ripped Dayton in separate interviews for having an aide deliver his budget offer to Republicans on Thursday night. Zellers said he and Koch made their offer to the governor in person.

Dayton has yet to address the media Friday.

Speaking on behalf of Dayton in an MSNBC interview Friday afternoon, state Democratic chairman Ken Martin called the governor “the only adult in the room who has been willing to compromise.”

“Republicans are trying to protect the richest of the rich. … In fact 99.7 percent of Minnesotans won’t see their taxes raised a single dime under Gov. Dayton’s proposal, but here we are with our government shut down because Republicans want to protect the richest in Minnesota.”

The lack of progress in ending the shutdown that took effect at midnight came as more than 20,000 state employees were expected to start filing for unemployment benefits as soon as Friday at state offices that themselves are operating with skeleton staffs, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

Also, a former chief justice of the state Supreme Court named as a “special master” began hearing pleas for continued state funding from various organizations that depend on state cash.

Dayton a former Democratic senator elected in 2010, and Republican legislative leaders, who seized power in the 2010 GOP electoral wave, remain $1.4 billion apart in talks to close the state’s $5 billion budget deficit.

Minnesota’s government closed down all but essential services at midnight local time Friday after six months of negotiations between Dayton and the GOP-controlled Legislature failed to produce a budget compromise.

At a late-night Capitol press conference attended by the GOP legislators with whom Dayton was sparring, the governor blamed Republicans for refusing to budge from their no-tax increase position.

“They would prefer to protect the richest handful of Minnesotans at the expense of everyone else,” Dayton said. “Instead of taxing their friends, they would prefer very damaging cuts to health care, public safety, mass transit” and other state services.

Dayton said Republicans have refused to consider his initial proposal to raise income taxes on the top 2 percent of earners or a later suggestion to increase taxes on people who make $1 million or more — a group he said totals 7,700 in a state of 5.3 million people.

“I deeply regret that the last week of intense negotiations … have failed to bridge the divide between us,” Dayton said at a late-night Capitol press conference. “Our major difference remains the same.”

Zellers, who on Thursday evening led his GOP colleagues into an evening sit-in in their chamber despite no ongoing negotiations with the governor, said Dayton “threw in the towel,” the Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported.

“This is about shutting down government for a political purpose,” Zellers said. “This is going to, I think, be one of those moments in our state’s history that we’ll look back on and be very disappointed [with].”

Republican lawmakers this week proposed a “lights-on” bill that would have kept state government functioning for 10 days while lawmakers worked out a budget deal. Dayton rejected the deal, saying he won’t agree to any deal until a “global agreement” on the budget could be reached.

“I take that as a publicity stunt, to try and shift the blame from their responsibility,” he said, eliciting boos and groans from Republican lawmakers and staffers in attendance at his press conference.

The Star Tribune said a GOP offer sheet described the proposals as in exchange for “new revenue in a compromise offer.”

The shutdown came after a dramatic night that included a surprise press conference from Dayton’s predecessor, Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty, who spoke outside a ticket booth at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Pawlenty, who presided over a similar state government shutdown in 2005, blamed Dayton and Democrats for this year’s version and urged Republicans to hold strong on their no-taxes position.

Low-income children who received subsidized childcare will be left out in the cold, with state-subsidized day care deemed a nonessential service.

The shutdown will be particularly aggravating for travelers on the July 4th weekend. Rest stops along highways will be padlocked, state parks off limits and the Minnesota Zoo in suburban Apple Valley closed to the public during a typically busy long weekend.

The zoo has been instructed to continue feeding animals and ensure animals don’t escape, but will take a substantial financial hit on one of its most popular weekends of the year.

“This is going to be a tough shutdown, and people will notice,” said Dayton’s attorney, David Lillehaug, “Anyone who says that government doesn’t do anything and doesn’t do it well, upon reading this order … they’re going to realize they’re very, very wrong.”

A judge ruled Thursday that only critical state functions such as the State Patrol, prison guards and disaster response officials would remain operational. The governor and the state Legislature would retain skeleton crews of staff, and state payments to cities, counties and schools would continue. The judge also ordered that welfare, food stamp and Medicaid health care programs continue operating.