Pawlenty has shown that he would gladly raise taxes to build a stadium, yet not raise taxes for any mainline normal good government. Pawlenty has especially starved education, so that now only the bare bones of education is left. Now we have the first school district - Greenway, where its only hope of existence is to combine with another school district. Greenway was depending on local bonding referendums to continue, the last referendum failed so:

"The district's only legitimate choice now is to find a way to cover the debt while entering into some kind of consolidation with Grand Rapids or Nashwauk-Keewatin."
(Minnesota Brown)

This is part of an overall pattern:

Anderson explained the main purpose of the paper: "It looked at the "Minnesota
Miracle," which was a legislative decision to try to place the burden for funding schools onto the state rather than local sources. In recent years, this process has resulted in tax cuts for property owners, while rural schools have had to rely on referendums in order to gain funding." Thorson elaborated: "Changes in Minnesota school funding since 2001 have devastated small, rural schools. The State basically reneged on its pledge to fully fund schools at the state level, and instead put into a place that systematically discriminates against small, rural schools."
(University of Minnesota Morris)

My St Paul school district is also depending on local bonding referendums. Basically, I wondered what happens when there is not enough money to continue. The Republicans hate public education, it violates their principle where only the rich and the privileged should have access to good education. They want to say private education is better and Republicans make that happen by starving education, This state used to always do better economically than other states because of the Minnesota miracle of education.

In fact, Republicans hate all good government. Grover Norquist: 'Field Marshal' of the Bush Plan"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years," he says, "to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." The Republicans are the party that hates government, the party that wants to drown government in a bathtub. The inability of the federal government to effectively deal with disaster of Hurricane Katrina proves that Republicans have destroyed the federal level of government. Now Pawlenty has basically destroyed the Greenway school system, and put all of the school districts under stress. The falling bridge and other closed bridges show the decaying nature of our transportation, that the brave legislature had to override the Governor Pawlenty with bipartisan support to improve transportation. For years, the state share of local government funding has been constantly reduced and this year there is now even a cap of 3.9% increases for local funding, The continued fiscal crises and falling government service show that Minnesota government is indeed being cut "to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

The continued fiscal irresponsibility of the government is demonstrated by the willingness to finance on borrowing rather than raise revenue. The continued tax unfairness of Pawlenty is demonstrated by his veto in a previous session of a revenue neutral bill that would have raised the state income tax on families making more than $400,000 and individuals earning more than $200,000 so that overall the richest would come closer to paying the same tax burden on each dollar earned as our poorest people. The revenue would have offset the unfair high rising property taxes, that burden of financing government has shifted to. It sure does feel like Pawlenty is trying to drown Minnesota government in a bathtub!