Great post over at MNPublius on non-Governor Pawlenty and how he broke Minnesota’s budget, illegally – and that’s not opinion, that’s fact – tried to “fix” it by “unallotting” funds, and now refuses to support a real solution. TwoPuttTommy’s comment afterwards lays out a concise time-line showing exactly how this whole thing went down.
The February 2009 Forecast predicted revenues of $31.1 Billion (rounded). Knowing that number, Pawlenty proceeded to sign Spending Bills of $33.8 Billion (rounded) anyway.
This created a $2.7 billion deficit; from the Governor-approved spending and the Feb 2009 Forecast. A bill to balance that deficit, HF-2323, was passed and presented to the Gov. to sign. Except, Pawlenty didn’t sign that revenue bill to balance the budget; he vetoed it.
Upon creating an unbalanced budget, TBag immediately claimed unilateral power to fix the problem he created. As to Pawlenty actions creating an anticipated budget problem, then using powers to deal with unanticipated budget problems? Twice, the Courts ruled against him.