A simmering labor dispute in Minnesota could erupt into a full-blown state government shutdown just in time for the July 4th holiday weekend if a $5 billion budget gap isn't closed by the end of Thursday.Across the border from where Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) launched his assault on public sector employees' collective bargaining rights, a conflict over Minnesota's budget threatens to temporarily lay off more than 20,000 state workers. Only this time, Gov. Mark Dayton, from the state's Democratic Farmer Labor Party, is facing off against intransigent Republican legislative leaders.
State parks and zoos are scheduled to close, potentially infuriating thousands of Independence Day campers, revelers and barbecuers. If the Thursday midnight deadline is not met, the state capitol would shut its doors. Non-critical functions like road construction would screech to a halt, creating an economic ripple effect that would raise the state unemployment rate by as much as a whole percentage point.
"This is going to be a tough shutdown," said David Lillehaug, an attorney for the governor, on Wednesday.
Read updates about the Minnesota shutdown on a HuffPost live blog here.
Dayton is proposing progressive income tax increases to fix the state budget, which faces a huge gap over the next two years, while the GOP is demanding further spending cuts. Both sides said they were attempting to compromise. But time is running out, and even if an agreement is reached Thursday, it may not come soon enough to avoid a partial shutdown.
If the shutdown occurs, "It's the largest single layoff that's ever occurred in the state of Minnesota," said Jim Monroe, head of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE). Monroe estimates that more than 8,000 of his union's members would be temporarily out of a job, and the effects on the state as a whole would be "almost unimaginable."
The budget battle fight has taken on the ideological cast of a clash between an unapologetic progressive, Dayton, and Tea Party-favored state legislators. The state's House and Senate are both dominated by Republican majorities. David Schultz, an adjunct professor at the Hamline University School of Law in Saint Paul, Minn., told HuffPost the showdown is the result of "a real enormous game of constitutional chicken."
Full Article
Source: Huffington
No comments:
Post a Comment