Earlier this week the House took its first step in balancing the state’s budget deficit.  Facing a $5.8 billion structural deficit through 2012-13, this was the first opportunity we had to make real reforms to how the government does business.  There is a lot of room to positively affect the role of government while still reducing its size.  

On Monday the House passed its first “budget balancing” bill.  Unfortunately, the majority pushed this through without any type of framework for balancing the entire $994 million deficit.  Nonetheless, my House Republican colleagues and I attempted to make this bill better by amending on real reforms.  These would have improved Minnesota’s short and long-term fiscal stability.

Initially, it appeared the majority would be open to our ideas. Our first proposed amendment was a common-sense measure adopting “zero-based” budgeting.  This would require each agency to start from zero, justify every penny of their budget each biennium, and validate every increase – potentially saving taxpayers millions of dollars each budget cycle.  Hopefully the House and Senate conference committee will keep this reform in the final version of the bill.

Unfortunately the majority’s willingness to consider ideas on a bipartisan basis did not continue.  The majority voted down or refused to vote on the rest of our amendments, including ones which would reduce the size of the state government workforce and institute a Sunset Commission.  Plans to restructure government were called inapplicable to a bill which dealt directly with state government.

While the bill does contain some cost cutting measures, it lacks real reforms to alleviate future shortfalls.  First, there is too much dependence on federal money.  The bill is also overly reliant on one-time cuts which do nothing to address the $5.8 billion structural deficit. Finally, the majority used taxpayer money to sue to reverse Governor Pawlenty’s unallotments, yet they fail to account for the additional $2.7 billion shortfall the lawsuit would create if successful.

Minnesotans deserve better leadership.  Our reforms showed a commitment to innovative ideas to reduce the cost of government while promoting efficiency and results.  There is much more work to be done on the budget. I will continue to work for the common sense solutions to bring responsibility back to government and prosperity back to Minnesota.