May 20, 2010 - Legislative Report #17

Bigger State Government Equals Less Government?

House File #3863 is one of three bills introduced the last day of session. The bill introduced by seven Democrats (Marquart, Sterner, Ward, Doty, Slawik, Loeffler and Reinert) reflects how out of touch with reality the leadership in St. Paul is. Not only did the legislature not complete their work this year in a timely fashion, they also saw fit to introduce this bill. The bill creates a variety of groups and the mandated hiring of more state employees, all to reduce government and create efficiencies. Only desperate government legislators could create massive undefined layers of new government in House File 3863, then call it reform and streamlining government. The bill will create more layers of choking government, including:

 1. Minnesota Civic Compact
 2. Office of Ombudsman
 3. Office of Civic Agency
 4. Minnesota Youth Council
 5. Volunteer Capacity Building Partnership
 6. Civic Innovation Fund
 7. Establishment of a state strategic plan, public policy goals, and performance measures
 8. Establishing a process for evaluating achievement of performance measures
 9. Requiring continuous reports for adherence to the bill
10. Planning and Performance Management Division
11. Minnesota State Performance Report Card
12. Minnesota Northstar Council

Best of all, the bill provides for appropriating money. By potentially creating hundreds of state employees throughout all state agencies, the created organizations mentioned above will be staffed with a variety of people mostly from the very agencies they are to streamline. Minnesota needs revision from outside government, not people rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Minnesota needs new blood willing to set the Constitution as law, not more bureaucrats singing kum ba ya as water swirls around their hips.