Sen. Dick Cohen joined Sen. Tarryl Clark for her weekly press briefing and the serious student of history and fiscal matters was pleased to announce that legislative budget targets have been delivered the "earliest in decades, since 1917 as best as we can tell." Despite the early arrival of legislative budgets, the Capitol is still full of pessimism that lawmakers and the governor will agree on anything in time for the regular session to end May 18. Democrats are a billion dollars apart on education. Gov. Pawlenty and Democrats are about $2 billion apart on tax increases. Despite the federal money, there's still a huge $4 billion dollar shortfall.
Sen. Geoff Michel has been especially visible with Senate Minority Dave Senjem since the leader's misstep on being against a four year balanced budget he voted for and didn't know was signed into law. But Senjem set it up well today when he said "obviously there are huge differences on the cut side, the Senate goes across the board and House is more like the governor." It is a bit shocking on the face of things that the House DFL is closer to the gov on cuts and education spending. Sen. Clark said "we're two different bodies; we're not going to be the same."