Accounting gimmicks won't fix the budget

Humphrey Institute Senior Fellow Jay Kiedrowski published his editorial in the Start Tribune (02/13): Accounting gimmicks won't fix the budget:

The state of Minnesota is facing a total budget deficit of $5 billion for the new biennium (from July 2009 through June 2011). In the new budget proposal released last Tuesday, Governor Pawlenty claims to have cut spending without increasing taxes to balanced the budget for the next two years. However, Kiedrowski points out that the budget proposal “fails to fix Minnesota’s long-term revenue and expenditure imbalance, has serious technical flaws, and has a questionable value premises.”

(The original unedited version is presented through PNLC’s pubTalk blog.)