State of Minnesota secondary Archives: on Budget & Economy

Al Franken: Opposed $700B rescue package; it only helps Wall Street

Amy Klobuchar: Cut discretionary spending like “bridge to nowhere”

KLOBUCHAR: We have had a 50% increase in discretionary spending. The Cato Institute identified that.

Q: What specifically?

KLOBUCHAR: Let’s start with the Rep. Kennedy voted for, the bridges to nowhere, the rain forest in Iowa, the waterless urinals in Michigan.

Q: Will you go after Medicare and pensions?

KLOBUCHAR: I believe that if we can shore up this deficit and balance the budget, that we can then start shoring up Social Security.

Amy Klobuchar: Cut $2.2 trillion over 10 years, in a balanced approach

Bills backs the Platform to Revitalize America, a budget proposal by fellow Republican Rand Paul. Bills said the Klobuchar-backed Budget Control Act does not cut the budget, it only "pulls down the trend line."

Klobuchar said the act she supported is a good place to start. "I believe the way to reduce our debt without setting our country back or causing a sharp contraction to our economy is to take a balanced approach, which means both spending cuts and revenue increases," she said. Klobuchar said she supports cutting $2.2 trillion over 10 years, as the Budget Control Act would do. She favors negotiations this year to target those cuts before they become automatic.

Amy Klobuchar: Budget & Economy

I was ready for that line. During the campaign, I had laid out a plan to reduce the debt that included both spending cuts and a proposal to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the top 1 percent of the nation's earners. Kennedy would not agree to any changes in the tax rates, even for the very wealthy.

I hit back. Noting that I had just visited the State Fair's beer garden, where I'd heard one student tell another that the beer they'd been drinking was "all foam and no beer," I turned to Kennedy and said, "That's your economic plan, Congressman. It's all foam and no beer."

That got the crowd going, and the line played almost constantly on radio and TV for the next 24 hours.

Dean Barkley: Greatest malfeasance in economic history on GOP’s watch

Barkley, in particular, went bare-knuckled at his better-financed, big-party rivals, saying their campaigns have been corrupted by special interest money and negativity. He reserved some of his sharpest criticism for incumbent Coleman for, among other things, not doing more to stop the economic meltdown affecting the nation and world. “Norm, on your watch we had the greatest malfeasance in economic history. If you were in Enron, right now you’d probably be under indictment, not running for reelection.“

Coleman responded that ”It’s easy from the cheap seats to throw shots,“ and said that Barkley and Franken lack his experience and his understanding of what it takes to forge deals in the hard-ball partisan atmosphere of Washington.

Heather Johnson: Meet community needs locally, instead of federal stimulus

A: No--free markets are most fair. Businesses have a right to operate, but they also risk failure. It is not the job of taxpayers or the government to bail out business. For people in social and economic need it is best for "we the people" to create directly community-based efforts to meet these needs while also limiting government intrusion into our lives thus simultaneously preserving liberty for all. We libertarians strongly support personal liberty, but that comes with great responsibility. Over the past few months I began developing my own plans on how we can directly meet economic and social needs while preserving freedom. In addition, I started to compile responses and plans from my fellow citizens who are interested in these efforts.

Jim Newberger: Work to reduce government growth and waste

1. Protect Life.
2. Adhere to the Constitution.
3. Work to reduce government growth and waste.
4. Uphold our Constitutional liberties.
5. Cut government spending.

Mark Kennedy: Authored the line-item veto, to take out bills' silly stuff

Q: But you voted for both those proposals.

KENNEDY: I voted for every single amendment to take out these crazy line items.

Q: But in final passage, those proposals were legislation you voted for.

KENNEDY: They were, because I support roads and key programs. But you ought not to hold a whole bill hostage because there's silly stuff in it. We ought to have a line-item veto for the president to cut that junk out of there, hold Congress accountable, keep spending under control.

Q: But you have a Republican president, a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and you have an $8 trillion debt.

KENNEDY: I would like the president to take a little bit more leadership on spending. We do need to push forward and make sure that we have strong fiscal measures to keep spending under control.

Scott Jensen: More government is not the answer; it is the problem