Minnesota’s government shutdown is into its second week, paralyzing all but essential state government services, leaving 20,000 employees out of work and sullying the state’s reputation for bipartisan cooperation.
So why is Tim Pawlenty happy?
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The former two-term Minnesota governor is seizing on the shutdown to boost his struggling presidential campaign.
Pawlenty (R) is shrugging off critics who accuse him of not repairing Minnesota’s structural budget problems during his tenure, and using the shutdown to highlight his gubernatorial record of balancing budgets without raising taxes.
Pawlenty is encouraging the state’s Republican legislative leaders not to budge from their refusal to consider any tax hikes in their face-off with Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton over how to close the state’s $5 billion budget deficit.
“I applaud the Republican legislature in Minnesota for standing strong and standing firm and saying we’re not going to raise taxes in Minnesota,” Pawlenty said at a recent town hall meeting in Iowa. “We don’t have a state in Minnesota that’s over-taxed, we have a state that has spent too much, before I became governor, and we’ve got to get it back in balance.”
Pawlenty’s gleeful embrace of the uncompromising politics animating the Minnesota budget standoff is not without risks. The confrontation is reminiscent of the pitched battles to trim government wages in recent months by GOP governors in states including Florida, New Jersey and Wisconsin.
Although those officials were successful in imposing big cuts and holding the line on new taxes, they are all now dealing with sagging approval ratings. But Pawlenty allies say the risk is worth it to boost a campaign that has been lagging far behind in the polls. A survey among Iowa voters last month showed his support stood at just 6 percent, well below 23 percent for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
“We are at a pivotal moment on the issue of spending,” said Charlie Weaver, a onetime chief of staff to Pawlenty and executive director of the Minnesota Business Partnership. “When you compare him to [Rep.] Michele Bachmann [a fellow Minnesota Republican who has risen in the presidential polls], for instance, an obvious difference is his executive experience. In today’s environment I think people are looking for someone who has a proven record of fiscal restraint and is competent.”
It is a point Pawlenty has been hammering since the Minnesota shutdown started July 1. At multiple campaign stops and in ads airing in Iowa, Pawlenty has touted his role in Minnesota’s nine-day government shutdown in 2005, saying that at times extreme measures are appropriate.
Pawlenty has bragged that the confrontation ended in reduced spending and a “win” for him over public employee unions and his Democratic rivals.
“Minnesota government shut down,” the ad says. “Why? Because Gov. Tim Pawlenty would not accept Democrats’ massive tax-and-spending demands. Result? Pawlenty won.”
If he had it to do over, Pawlenty has said, he might have allowed the shutdown to drag on longer to extract more concessions.
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