It's a treat to watch Stewart ask the same question 800 times and never get an answer. Pawlenty actually made a sage remark about balancing three things when talking about governance, it's exactly how these guys should go out on the trail. Stewart was just begging for reasonableness. He also nails TPaw on his cutting that leads to higher regressive taxes. In all, a fascinatingly blah interview that teases you about perhaps a climax that, alas, never comes. Pawlenty reminds me of dating in my early teens.

Pawlenty is just as "dangerous" as Michele Bachman or Sarah Palin. He's just more congenial in his presentation. The MN Tax Payers League, a right-wing anti-government group, bought and paid for Pawlenty's campaigns and got pretty much everything they wanted out of the deal. MN has one of the lowest business tax rates in the US and a low-ish personal income tax. In order to pull this off, Pawlenty pretended to balance the budget on the backs of local units of government and the poor. I say "pretended" because local government and the poor did get the short end of the stick, but the state budget is waaaaaay out of balance. Dayton is looking at a 6.5 Billion with a B deficit. Pawlenty drinks the Grover Norquist kool-aid that says "shrink government down to a size where you can drown it in a bathtub."

What TimK said. Paw-LENTY is sly as a fox. And just as mean.

Oh he's going to run all right. Make no mistake.

Its kind of strange that an anti-government group would financially support the election of a government agent.  Or was that your poetic license up there, Tim?  ;^)

Tim Pawlenty damn well knows how ridiculous the Republican platform currently is. It's funny how these conservatives think that the government is encroaching on business, when, in fact, business has been taking away publicly-owned goods and services for at least the last 50 years. Our streetcars, our buses, our utilities, even our military now. Any 'freedom' loving individual would realize that we're facing the exact opposite trend that all these heartstring conservatives claim we're facing. Public services all over the world are being privately controlled, and less power is given to the people.

Okay, I'll step down from my soapbox now.

I like how y'all pin the budget on Pawlenty when in reality it was a Democratic House and Senate that sent him the budget and then freaked out and filed suit when he used unallotment to try to rein things in.  The one thing I will pin on Pawlenty: He should've instituted a hiring freeze and cut government employees instead of allowing even a modest increase in state government hiring.

Face it, PDD peeps.....both sides are complicit in overspending.  The only difference is that one side wants to cut spending while the other wants raise taxes.  

@TimK: How a person can say so much and fail to put together a single logical thought is amazing.  But you keep on hatin' brother!

Have I been hateful? Paul- you started this thread. If I've said something actually hateful, please let me know and/or delete my posts. Back to Pawlenty and the MN budget of the past 8 years. Yes, the DFL controlled both houses, but Pawlenty always threatened a veto unless HIS budget got passed. Pawlenty's refusal to increase revenues (through taxes) resulted in being painting into a corner. So he used unallotments on the backs of departments and programs that were under-funded to begin with. That bridge didn't fall down because there were too many inspections. And as for the Tax Payers League, their former head Phil Krinkie called for the abolition of public education, the DNR and arts funding among other things. A lot of us live in MN because the quality of life that we share in creating through our willingness to pay taxes.

Oh edgeways, don't be hatin'

edgeways,
Please define core services.

The part where T Paw admits Jon's brain is more complex, and his is rudimentary, bout sums it up.  Chalk another one up for lefties?!?
Amazing too, how little (trizillion dollar/decade long) 'Operation Destabilizing the Middle East' comes up when it concerns talk of cutting back excess spending.  What interest rate did we get from the Chinese to kill peasants and not get cheap oil?
Making America safer one step at a time... by bankrupting the crap out of ourselves through deregulation and S.A.G. (Stupidity. Arrogance. Greed).  By building more prisons and bombs, selling more jobs overseas, peddling more fear and hate, so we have to build more prisons and bombs, and fences and gadgets to keep our ever increasing army of enemies at bay.
And on your way down YellowBrick Rd, just drop your book off at the printer with yourself on the cover as the hero, mind bending the facts as you mend your merry way. 
Sadly for us humans, the truth is always stranger than we'd prefer (Fluoride). If anyone knew how wacky things really are, our heads would all blow off our shoulders in unison with no one left to ponder. So we pick mild mannered handsome leaders to gently sooth us and drink beer with, tell us funny jokes, entertainment and weather to divert our attention from real matters of importance. And go round and round on the circle game.

The graphic at the following article would seem to me to say that MN does not have unusually low tax rates.

Wisconsin governor plans business border war with Illinois

@ ade: Not exactly, it's business putting rohypnol (money) into government's boone's farm.

@zra: Clearly you're talking about campaign donations.  Which is fine and dandy, but government as a whole doesn't need campaign contributions ... if all the money dried up tomorrow, government might seem different.  But it'd still be there and able to operate.  

Business, on the other hand, would be decimated if federal subsidies were cut off.  Millions of jobs would be lost because government funds have been propping up too many corporations and nonprofits for too long.  Therein lies the problem: Government money is like a drug that businesses can't get enough of.  Once they've tried it, they'll do anything to continue to get their fix.  

Nonprofits are the biggest predator in this unholy alliance; there is little-to-no government oversight of the funds once the check is cashed.  Our leaders decided to make a law stating how much of a private insurance companies' independently-earned revenues must be spent on claims, yet we have very little oversight on what nonprofits are able to do with taxpayer funds.  It is a messed-up scenario when Washington becomes more interested in what private companies do with their money than what the government is doing with taxpayer money.

Tim,

The graphic is pretty clear to me.  One frame is income tax, one frame is business tax.  The rates look on par with, if not a little higher than, neighboring states.

I found some data.  If you don't agree with it, maybe you could provide some data of your own.