DFL: 'D' is for "Do-Over"

Even when the Minnesota state legislature is out of session, the DFL can help but come off as utterly inept.

After requesting a "mulligan" on both the Senate vote for the tax bill and the Senate Finance Committee vote on daycare unionization this past legislative session, the DFL's top politician, Governor Mark Dayton, said on Thursday he's considering a special session to address another apparent mistake. This time it has to do with a farm equipment tax levied when putting together the aforementioned tax bill.

“No one wants to take responsibility for it,” said Dayton, who agreed to the tax as part of a much larger tax bill. “I was not aware of it, my staff was not aware of it until the next morning when the tax bill was already buttoned up.”

Ah, the ol' leftist mantra of "we have to pass a bill to see what's in it." That's always a winning strategy.

About six weeks ago, I asked Senator Dave Thompson (when he appeared as a guest on my radio show) if there would possibly be a special session to address the warehouse tax. That is one tax which is certain to hurt small-to-medium sized businesses, if not dissuade them into leaving Minnesota altogether. Thompson seriously doubted it would come to that because it would be an admission of failure by Gov. Dayton in addition to taxpayer money being spent on a special session. And while a special session may not be called for the purpose of repealing the warehouse tax, the Democrats definitely seem to be conveying an aura of failure when discussing the repeal of the farm equipment tax.

“Just one month after Democrats’ new taxes took effect, they are now admitting Republicans were right,” House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, said in a statement Thursday. “Republicans agree that Democrats’ tax increases hurt Minnesota families and farmers and they should be repealed. By using (a) special session to fix their mistakes, consider this a do-over session for Democrats.”

Playing "do-over" was standard fare for the DFL during the regular session. Why break with tradition now?

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