True North

Bipartisanship is breaking out all over the place. Tony Sertich is saying that Gov. Pawlenty's plan to close the $935 million deficit isn't "dead on arrival." Meanwhile, Gov. Pawlenty is offering his assistance:

His proposed cuts to higher education institutions, which would save the state $54 million in 2009, are also likely to be unpopular.

On Friday, officials from the University of Minnesota and the MnSCU college system said the cuts would be a problem. "It's a momentum stopper," said U chief financial officer Richard Pfutzenreuter.

Pawlenty said that shouldn't be so. "It is a relatively small percentage of their overall budget on the heels of a very large increase," the governor said. "If they need some help identifying where to cut, we are happy to make some suggestions to them starting with administration in both institutions."

That sounds good to me. If the administrators can't identify any waste in their budgets, then their qualifications need at. If they truly believe that their budgets are all 100 percent justifiable, then taxpayers should ask them to justify their budgets line item by line item.

Comments welcome at LFR.

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