Almanac: At the Capitol

(From "The Music Man")

"Just what is it with you Republicans and the "t" word?"

Bob, one of my small, but precious collection of Democratic friends, asked the question while we were at our weekly 'bou coffee session. I was watching with feigned horror as he put a strange concoction of faux sugar and flavorings into an otherwise perfectly good cup of coffee.

"You mean 't' as in 'toxic'?" I asked. "That stuff you've got in that cup looks like it came from an underground barrel in Oakdale."

"No, no, no," he said, " I mean 't' as in 'transit'. Looks to me like there's a pretty sensible proposal to do a half cent sales tax in the metro to pay for transit and Republicans are getting getting in a tizzy about it. I thought you were 'against congestion', Fritz. What gives?"

That was provocative enough. I took the bait.

"Because that 't' in 'transit' rhymes with 'b' in bus, which is what you Democrats are really talking about when you use the words 'transportation' or 'transit' so interchangeably these days. And, more particularly, 'buses' as in 'buses in Minneapolis and St. Paul.'"

"And so, what?" Bob replied. "You have some dark childhood memory of buses that's created a phobia of some sort? Repeat after me, Fritz, 'buses are my friends.' See if it helps."

"Ah, Bob..." I said, "it's moments like this that make me realize just how much we need Republicans in Minnesota. Like the elephant, we never forget. And what you're forgetting is just where we were a couple short decades ago: 'metro transit' meant a core city bus company that had some of the highest wages and worst service in the country. More to the point, it's suburban service, especially suburb-to-suburb was non-existent. And, guess what? It was actually subsidized by property taxes levied on the suburbs! That was too much even for your suburban fellow-Democrats to swallow. They helped lead the charge to strip the system of that funding and let them go on their own. Now you're all back, demanding more suburban money for buses and nobody, and I do mean nobody, has actually shown us what would change."

"Oh just calm down, Fritz. It's not just about buses, anyway, and you know it. Look at the Hiawatha line. People love it! This new tax would help fund more lines."

"Don't get me going on light rail, Bob! That urban wundertoy of the '90s? (And by that I mean the eighteen nineties.) Why, with what we pay in direct public subsidies of the Hiawatha line, we could buy each of those daily riders a lease on a brand new Ford Mustang and come out money ahead. Just look at the numbers, Bob. It doesn't make sense."

Bob rolled his eyes and then looked at my hands. "Fritz, I know you can't be a dinosaur, because you have five digits on each of your paws and they had three, but there are times when you act like it. We live in a globalized world. Other regions in the country are doing this. If we want to be taken seriously as a world level economic center, we're going to need to do something like this."

"You know, Bob, I've been hearing this argument a lot lately, and it's kind of insulting."

"Oh come on, Fritz, I'm just kidding."

"I don't mean the dinosaur part, Bob. Ever see 'The Music Man'?"

"Sure. What does that have to do with this?"

"Everything. You see, the whole underlying joke in the Music Man was that a cunning salesman could manipulate the insecurities of a whole town of Midwesterners by playing on their basic fear that, somehow, they were hicks in urban drag and that no one could take them or their town seriously if they didn't get what other towns had — whether they really needed it or not. Everybody smiles at 'The Music Man' because it's a comedy and it has a happy ending, but it really hit a nerve on that point. It's an insult to practical Midwestern sensibilities. And that same nasty little argument is now being made in these parts for no end of mischief: whether it be stadiums (how can we be a world class region with a dome?) or, now, light rail taxes. Tell me, Bob, would you really find it easy to support someone who said: 'Elect me Governor and I will turn us into the Dallas of the Midwest'? Just because somebody else is making a mistake doesn't mean we have to make nice and make one, too. If it doesn't make sense for us to build it, we shouldn't build it. Seems pretty up-and-up to me"

"You really are a hard case, Fritz. Thankfully, we Democrats are again the majority party and the voice of the people. Over time, you'll understand the wisdom of our position."

"I'll worry about that when I see gun racks and little fish on the back of your Priuses, Bob.
Meanwhile, I wouldn't be holding my breath until you get more buses."

He smiled and we parted for the week. "Bob," I called out, "next week why don't you actually try the coffee here. It's pretty good."

Old screens savers. Versions of Windows that stopped being supported before my kids were born.... PacMan....

It's always interesting what comes up when you reboot an old computer. I just did it on one old machine that I wanted to use for simple data entry and it was like a trip back in time.

And I just got exactly the same impression when I watched, then read, about the DFL Senate's refusal to approve the appointment of Tim Pawlenty's IRRRB Director, Sandy Layman.

The Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board is a state agency that was set up to use funds that would have been State tax revenue on iron mining to create and manage a separate fund to build a Range economy not dependent exclusively on mining. A good idea.

But in the late 70s and 80s, it had become known more as a source of political largess from the Range legislative delegation (who comprise most of the Board's membership). More than once, I remember Doug Johnson, the venerable tax chairman from Cook, angrily referring to the IRRRB funds as "our money" when certain project expenditures were being questioned by the Senate as a whole. "Our money" in the sense of "Ranger money and none of your damn business."

Some Republican administrative oversight, together with Republican House majorities, weaned the old DFL Range machine away from using the IRRRB for pure politics. The agency now has a solid reputation for economic development.

But the NEW DFL tax chairman from Cook, Minnesota, is back at it, obviously doing some muscle-flexing to push the IRRRB back into a more political role. He has made it clear his "problems" with the current director are tied to demands for significant new dollars for Iron Range projects from the state.

That looks eerily familiar. So does the disproportionate influence of core city leadership in the DFL legislative delegation.

Just where are all of these "moderate DFLers" that the last election was supposed to be putting into place in the legislature? Unfortunately right now, nowhere important.

It looks like the DFL, having gotten its majority on national issues, has frozen in its effort to turn this success into some kind of legislative position and policy. Having failed so far to come up with a "new" DFL agenda, it's rebooted and what we're seeing is the original version that we thought we had replaced years ago. You can bet this isn't what moderate suburban voters thought they were getting and it will pose a very real political problem for suburban DFL legislators if they don't stand up and find their voice very soon.

PacMan anyone?