Minnesota's newly elected Republican governor's budget has polarized this state in a way I have never seen happen before. The governor was actually the architect of the tax rebate giveaway/vote buying extravaganza in the last legislative session here, which combined with the bad economy (and it has been worse here than in many other states, which is somewhat unusual), has resulted in an estimated $4-5 billion dollar deficit. His supposed campaign promise that he would balance the budget without raising taxes, has been predictable. He has gutted a decades worth of bi-partisan and moderate Republican social services reforms (welfare to work, state subsidized health insurance for the working poor who don't qualifiy for Medicare, an overhaul of nursing home laws, etc) which will have some pretty devastating long term effects on the quality of life here (ie we will likely see a resurgence in poverty and homelessness that has been unknown here since the Great Depression). Double digit tuition increases throughout higher education here for the fourth year in a row. Ventura was extremely hostile to both higher education and the arts, and the effects of that are hitting both those constituencies even harder under this budget.

In many states, these hits to the arts and education might not be considered a big deal by the citizenry that is more concerned with jobs, jobs, jobs, defense industry spending, etc. But like Massachusetts, the arts and education constituencies, along with corporate philanthropy and healthy state subsidies to the poor and working poor, has made Minnesota the crown jewel of the upper Midwest in terms of standard of living and quality of life.

However, something which may well be historically unprecedented (it sent the state historians scurrying to their legislative record books), the entire Democrat delegation in the Minnesota House (the bi-cameral legislature here is divided along party lines almost identically to the US Congress, except here the Dems have retained their small majority in the Senate) voted against the governor's budget bill. It still passed, but it is clear that the battle line has definitely been drawn in the sand for the next election and the next legislative session.