Minnesota shutdown ends with cuts to poor people, no new taxes for rich

[The Vegan Marxist]

Minnesota shutdown ends with cuts to poor people, no new taxes for rich
By Linden Gawboy | July 20, 2011

St. Paul, MN - The Minnesota government shutdown ended July 20 at 9:00 a.m., after Governor Mark Dayton signed a slew of budget bills - the biggest ones passed in the wee hours of that same morning. Many say that Gov. Dayton compromised too much and too soon, leaving poor and working people paying the price for the $5.2 billion budget deficit.

On July 14, Gov. Dayton proclaimed that he would accept a previous Republican budget offer, in order to end the shutdown. Before that, Dayton had already given up on many proposals to tax the rich in Minnesota, even though he campaigned on increasing taxes to the wealthy as a way to solve the deficit.

It is broadly acknowledged that the budget signed into law on July 20 relies on unprecedented amounts of borrowing. Less publicized is reliance on taking money from dedicated funds for the poor.

Secret deal: $58 million from the poorest of the poor

Most of the issues that involve programs for poor people are in the Health and Human Services bill. The 286-page HHS bill is the most complex of the budget bills. It is full of references to various laws and hard to follow. The government did not make the bill available to the public until the session was six hours along, only a few hours before it was voted on. As an example of the difficulty of the bill, the plain English ‘summary’ of the HHS bill had dozens of items such as: “[section] 27 - Citizenship requirements. Amends § 256B.06, subd. 4.” And that was it.

However, for some programs, the spreadsheets made it clear. “No wonder they didn't release the HHS budget until late in the night of the Special Session, July 19. The spreadsheets show a total theft of $58 million from TANF funds over the biennium,” says a statement issued by the Welfare Rights Committee.

TANF is the federal money that goes to states for welfare for families. In Minnesota, welfare grants put families 60% below the federal poverty line. The Welfare Rights Committee has fought for years against the state stealing TANF money, under the slogan, “TANF money for TANF families.” The 2011 theft of TANF money is one of the largest in history.

Welfare Rights Committee takes action

Since July 1 the WRC held many call-in campaigns to Gov. Dayton, demanding that he not give in to certain Republican cuts to welfare and insisting that they a tax on the wealthy. The call was, “Tax the rich or shut the government down!”

Late at night on July 18, Dayton abruptly announced that the Capitol building would open up the next day. Welfare Rights Committee members were there at 8:45 a.m., July 19, holding signs that read, “Vote no on the Dayton/G.O.P Budget. Tax the rich.” They met Minnesota legislators as the capitol doors opened for the first time in 19 days. The capitol complex’s buildings had been closed to the public since July 1, when the government shutdown went into effect.

“I was in the last group of people the cops pushed out of the capitol June 30,” says the Welfare Rights Committee’s Kim DeFranco. “I’m glad WRC was there to be the first at the re-opening.”

On the same day the capitol re-opened, Governor Dayton announced a special session for 3:00 p.m. Most of the bills that were to be taken up were not available to the public (or to most legislators) in paper or electronic form. Welfare Rights Committee members mobilized to be outside the doors of the House and Senate chambers with “Vote no” signs as the legislators filed in.

Budget deal aftermath

Much of the budget and how it will play out still needs to be analyzed. But there is general agreement that poor and working people, the elderly and disabled, and students from pre-K to college will be suffering from the cuts.

The ‘financing’ of the budget deal will make trouble down the road. Once money is taken away for the poor, it’s hard to get back. Angel Buechner, of the Welfare Rights Committee said, "This budget deal just sets us up for more cuts to the poor next year."

http://www.fightbacknews.org/2011/7/20/minnesota-shutdown-ends-cuts-poor-people-no-new-taxes-rich

[RED DAVE]

I find it bizarre that a comrade is responsible enough to post some important information about the US labor movement, and no one comments.

But let someone make a remark about Bolshevik labor policies in 1918 and it's on!

RED DAVE

[Ocean Seal]

I find it bizarre that a comrade is responsible enough to post some important information about the US labor movement, and no one comments.

But let someone make a remark about Bolshevik labor policies in 1918 and it's on!

RED DAVE
Our in depth analysis and subsequent division on what happened 90 years ago seems to hold us back, especially when we address a topic with very little relevance to now. And don't forget that half the posts are flame posts anyway.

In my opinion, I find it sadder everyday that the rich get to push more and more against us, without us even waking up to realize that we need to push back. Where does our struggle against our oppressors begin, and where does the expansion of their terror end? The working class as a class needs to organize, even against the most petty single issue type things in order to win back a little something. Instead of just protests we need some class action, so that what happened in Wisconsin won't continue.

[YSR]

Sorry Red Dave, I didn't see any in depth analysis of the labor movement here. I saw another advertisement for FRSO front groups. You'll have to pardon me, in the Twin Cities we're pretty much all used to this by now.

In all seriousness though, the shutdown ended in basically the only way that the shutdown could have ended that wasn't a total blow to the working class here. I'm sympathetic to FRSO's public charge that this budget is a budget balanced on the backs of the poor, but then again, what budget isn't?

The ugly truth for radicals is that we found no meaningful way to engage with this whole shutdown. The anarchist youth scene held a disorganized and aimless presence in a park in South Minneapolis, which at least did good work at developing a solid analysis of the shutdown and moving it around the neighborhood, showing a bit more maturity than I'm used to seeing from that crowd. The socialist parties like FRSO participated in popular front-style actions which unfortunately nobody attended and got even less press (I went to a rally on the afternoon of the shutdown which was literally the worst rally I've been at in my whole life.) I'm not proud to say that my union didn't do a great job of engaging with the crisis, we mostly just fliered for an exciting educational event we're doing next month about the attacks on public sector unionism.

I think much of the problem in the Twin Cities at least was a lack of a clear idea of how radicals could meaningfully engage with the shutdown. I actually wish I had paid a bit more attention to the shutdown while it was on because I think some really interesting things were happening in how the media was used by various forces to shape public perception about the crisis (for instance there was a huge buildup and plenty of front page coverage about how MillerCoors hadn't gotten their state license renewed in time and would have their products pulled from shelves, but working in the industry I can tell you that that was never a real possibility and the whole thing was just a phantom concern. Who put that story out there and why?) Radicals don't have a base of power to attack the actual roots of the shutdown, which were basically an inability of the two capitalist parties to get along on a few ideological issues that have to do with their constituencies and a willingness to shut down non-essential services for a bit to prove to their constituencies their seriousness on them. The compromise was inevitable and honestly it's good that Gov Dayton (D) is as limousine liberal as he is, because the Republicans initially were calling for laying off of 15% of state employees and they meant it.

I think this battle between the two parties is just the latest salvo in a war that broke out in the spring in Wisconsin, where the capitalist interests represented by the Republicans are moving to destroy social services and public sector unions. Until we can build up a meaningful alternative to actually constitute the might of the working class against these attacks, we will continue to be "represented" by the Democrats on this issue, who in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Massachusetts and beyond have admirably performed their role as the shepherds of working class resentment, allowing us to blow off some steam and then leading us back out of the street to wait til election day so everything can change. And we will continue to be out in the cold during situations like the Minnesota shutdown, howling vainly against the two parties from a position of weakness.

It's been repeated so often that's practically banal, but we just need more better organizing.