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We elect and expect our leaders to lead. They often mislead.
Case in point: Governor Pawlenty on the budget.
Pawlenty has for eight years promised us a balanced budget with no new taxes. Sound like a false promise? It was.
He entered office with a $3 billion budget deficit and is on track to leave office with a deficit twice as large. Over the years, his so-called solutions have been both inadequate and dishonest.
Now, despite dire warnings from the state’s chief economist, and other experts, that Minnesota faces an impending fiscal crisis likely to reach fifteen percent of our annual budget, Pawlenty asserts the gap is “manageable.” Easy for him to say as he retires and leaves this problem for the next governor.
Pawlenty helped create a fiscal mess. He has shifted costs onto counties, cities and school districts leading to locally-imposed property tax increases (for which he can not be blamed). He recently made much of his intention to cut the budget by exercising “unallotment.” But fully two-thirds of his cuts were not cuts at all – rather payment shifts that delay state expenditures for schools until the next Governor is in office.
Finally, what about Pawlenty’s tobacco tax that wasn’t a tax – but rather a fee. Misleadership? I think so.
Case in point: President Obama on health care.
Obama pledges to lower health costs while offering more benefits and universal coverage. Sound too good to be true? It is.
The President stood before Congress a week ago and spoke for forty minutes about his health plan. There is none. There are three separate reform bills in the House and two in the Senate – each with some of the ideas put forth by the President. But no Obama bill.
The President spent most of his speech talking about reforms that will cost more money. He promised to veto any bill that adds a “dime” to the deficit, but proposed no serious measures to assure that will happen. Other than waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare, he spoke sparingly about how to get the cost of health care under control.
The President also seemed to agree with Republicans about malpractice reform. But his idea (allowing some states to implement pilot programs to negotiate malpractice claims) was more fluff than substance. Misleadership? You decide.
In Pawlenty and Obama, we have two leaders with enormous intellect and persuasive skill. However, they are not using their influence to help us understand that – whether it is the state budget or the health care system – there are no fixes without some shared sacrifice. A better leader would find a way to tell us that hard truth.
That is my two cents.
Tim
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